Conflict between divorced parents over food and weight

[liv]

Great answer by Emily Gould to a really horrible letter in C&F

Dear Care and Feeding,

My ex-wife and I divorced three years ago because of irreconcilable differences. We are fairly amicable, but we don’t talk unless it’s related to the kids. Before COVID I had weekends and holidays, and she had weekdays. My mom has cancer and lives with me, so once the pandemic started we agreed that the kids would stay at their mom’s house for the immediate future and my mom and I would have Zoom calls with them every day.

Now, for some context, my ex has been overweight for pretty much her entire life, even as a young child. Her parents were overweight, and they passed down their habits to her, as it so often goes. By the time we met, she was 250 pounds. Throughout our relationship, I encouraged her to take steps towards a healthier lifestyle, but she never wanted to. Our kids (7 and 10 years old) were on the heavy side of an average weight while my ex and I were still married. When we were together, I did most of the cooking and did my best to make sure that my kids ate nutrient-dense, healthy food, and that junk food was kept as an occasional treat. As we have been separated, though, my kids have slowly gotten more and more overweight.

It started gradually when we first separated, but COVID changed all that. My ex keeps lots of chips and candy and unhealthy snacks in the house, which they graze on throughout their days, and she hates cooking so they often get fast food or things like Kraft dinner. They’ve always been snackers, and both eat when they’re bored, so all that snacking is a lot of empty calories in their diets. They also haven’t been getting the chance to be physically active since they’ve been stuck at home all day (it’s an apartment, so no backyard or anything). Five months ago, they had a pediatrician visit, and my 10-year-old was in the 92nd percentile for her age, almost obese. About two months ago my mom and I got vaccinated, so we started having the kids back three days a week, and they’ve both gained even more weight since then.

The sad thing is, they realize the changes and they don’t like them. When I picked up the kids last week, my 10-year-old was crying because a classmate taunted her for her weight. My ex is not responsive to making changes regarding this; I have tried several times to no avail. When they’re here I’ve been trying to re-instill healthy eating habits, but it’s hard. They aren’t used to the things I make, like chicken, turn up their noses at it, and beg for the kinds of things their mom gives them or ask to go for fast food. And any progress I make gets wiped out after four days with their mom. Their mom has gained a lot of weight, too; she looks like she might be over 300 pounds by now. Call me a fat shamer or whatever, but I know that bad eating habits start in childhood and most fat kids become fat adults. I want to nip this in the bud now, but I just don’t know what I can do, either to get my ex to understand the problem and change her habits or to get my kids to be healthy weights again.

—Dad vs. Food

Dear Dad,

I am going to take you up on your offer to call you a fat shamer or whatever: You are fat-shaming your kids. Your attitude won’t help them change their bodies into smaller bodies, but it will make them unhappier and could lead to serious health problems, mental and physical, both now and down the road into adulthood.

First, the facts: Weight and health don’t have as much to do with each other as we have all been taught to think. There are many unhealthy thin people and many healthy fat people. Being bigger doesn’t automatically mean that your kids aren’t healthy. (I wonder what else your pediatrician said about their health, besides that limited percentile metric?) They are growing, and they are hungry. They’re also living in very difficult circumstances, without a lot of social contact or opportunity to move their bodies. If they’ve been seeking comfort in food, that seems like an understandable response to the pandemic, and I’m glad they have a source of comfort. Your kids aren’t going to be living totally constrained lives with no emotional outlet except snacks forever! Their lives and yours will gradually return to normal.

When you describe your wife and her parents and your kids’ bodies as “overweight,” and place the blame for this on their “bad habits,” you are ignoring the fact that people come in all different shapes and sizes, and that a lot of that variation is genetically predetermined. It’s very easy for some people to maintain a low weight, and their ability to do so might not have much to do with how they eat or exercise. When we valorize low body weight and treat it as a goal, we’re ignoring the myriad other factors that contribute to overall health. It’s as arbitrary as assigning blue eyes, curly hair, or double-jointedness some kind of inherent moral value.

You aren’t obligated to change the way you shop and cook, but you must stop trying to get your ex to change your kids’ diets. Stop judging her food choices and her body. You say you can tell your daughter doesn’t like her weight because she complains about being made fun of by a classmate. The problem is her classmate, not her weight. Please, please, if you change nothing else as a response to this letter, make sure that your kid knows that her body is not a problem. Even if you don’t believe this yet, fake it till you make it. Take time to educate yourself about anti-fat bias and intuitive eating because you need this information in order to parent children who are truly healthy, inside and out, at any size.

Comments

[liv]

So I came across this because apparently people have been harassing the advice columnist, Gould, across the internet because she dared to say something supportive about fat people. I thought her answer was absolutely brilliant; she's not cutting the LW any slack, she's not dancing around the topic because she worries that he won't listen to harsh advice.

(I also wonder if the LW has some kind of body image issues himself, frankly. That level of obsession with numbers, his ex-wife's weight, his children's BMI percentiles, that's beyond the standard sexist male sense of entitlement to find women's bodies aesthetically pleasing.)

[minoanmiss]

What are non-FB ways we can send the columnist support? (I have a hard time finding that on the Slate columns in general).

[liv]

She's on Twitter as EmilyGould. What a great idea to send supportive messages to counter the horrible attacks!

[gingicat]

I want to sic the therapist from the eating disorder parents' group on him.

[ashbet]

The only advantage to FB over DW is that I can’t use a tag group like “I will use this man’s blood to make beer for Sekhmet” on DW.

EXCELLENT advice, and this LW is a terrible person/parent.

[heavenscalyx]

Ooooooooh, I *like* that.

[ambyr]

It's a little orthogonal to the awfulness of the letter, but I also want to push back against "They also haven’t been getting the chance to be physically active since they’ve been stuck at home all day (it’s an apartment, so no backyard or anything)." I'll bet anything that LW owns a house and thinks, consciously or unconsciously, that apartment living is somehow "lesser." (And I am really curious if the kids aren't going outside at all, or if LW is just dismissively oblivious to trips to neighborhood parks or the building courtyard or whatever.)

[melannen]

Depending on where it is and what the situation is, it's possible they haven't been going to parks or anything. For some people, safe parks are inaccessible without public transit, and some people aren't using that; even if they can safely get to the park, it might be enough of an expedition that it's tough to make time, especially if Mom is trying to fit work shifts around school hours; some people aren't going to any kind of public spaces, period; and in some cities, access to parks and public spaces has been severely restricted because it was the only way to avoid dangerous crowding. I will admit that this pandemic is the first time in my life that I've been glad to live in a suburban house instead of a city apartment, because having access to open space without worry has been huge; lack of safe outdoors and open space has been a real access and equity issue during the pandemic, especially for low-income urban families with kids (even moreso than it already was before the pandemic).

But, you know, it's also possible to stay physically active inside an apartment! Not *fun*, but it's not like there's been any shortage of free video exercise classes this past year. Also all of that is irrelevant to weight!

[shirou]

You may be right about the LW's assumptions of apartment life; however, it is absolutely true that the pandemic and the shift to online school have dramatically decreased the amount of physical activity kids get day to day. Options for physical activity still exist, but they require families seek them out more than before.

[torachan]

Where I live, for a large part of this past year, parks and other public outdoor spaces were straight up closed. All outdoor activies were discouraged for much of that time, too, and contact with people outside your household was forbidden. Schooling has all been online (in person school is starting in some schools in my area next week, and even that is only a couple half days a week), so there's no school playgrounds, either. For people who don't have their own yard, there really weren't many options for actually getting out of the house, especially for kids.

Of course many people ignored these regulations, but while the LW seems like a dick in other regards, it doesn't seem at all unbelievable that he is simply stating facts here, if they live somewhere with similarly strict covid regulations.

[feldman]

It's like watching a train wreck about to happen, especially for that ten year old girl who's likely on the cusp of puberty. I'm sure he was a real peach to live with through 2 pregnancies as well.

[jadelennox]

I'm sure he was a real peach to live with through 2 pregnancies as well.

oh god you're right. 🤦‍♀️

[conuly]

Throughout our relationship, I encouraged her to take steps towards a healthier lifestyle, but she never wanted to.

Oh, yeah, I bet he was a real saint.

*eyeroll*

On top of everything else, people have this assumption that a limited diet is learned behavior - the parents are failing their responsibility by having a limited diet. However, it's... well, it's complicated. Perhaps Mom has a limited diet due to serious food aversions and guess what - those are inherited!

I'll also note that while "Mom has cancer" is a fairly reasonable reason to have the kids stay with their mother full-time during this pandemic, Judgy McJudgerson had every opportunity earlier to ask for more time, which would've given him more influence over their diet and exercise. Men usually do get more time in custody arrangements when they ask. He chose not to do that.

[mommy]

The way this guy basically admits to harassing his ex-wife about her weight is gross, and it looks like he's doing the same to his kids. Bleh.

I was under the impression that grazing/snacking on healthy foods throughout the day was considered healthy now? It looks like LW is just limiting his kids to larger meals when letting his kids have healthy/healthy-ish snacks throughout the day along with small meals might result in fewer complaints all around. Hummus and crackers, or peanuts mixed with dried cranberries, or even some string cheese would do.

[minoanmiss]

Grazing/snacking is actually more healthy (especialy for growing kids) but less easy to control than 3 Set Meals And No Snacks, and a lot of people's issues about others' weight are more about control than health.

[resonant]

Yeah, it's the food equivalent of the kind of dad who packs everybody into the car for a road trip and refuses to stop for any reason until he's driven his daily 400 miles.