When I was a kid...and mind you, this was in the 50's and 60's...my mother was considered to be a "health food nut/freak" and our diet was considered extremely odd by the neighborhood, schoolmates, etc....which I was NOT happy about. In high school, I remember my best friend laughing and saying, "everyone else's brothers have beer cans under their car seats but your brothers have tastycake wrappers under them instead" because once we became old enough to get to the store ourselves, we went a bit crazy with the forbidden foods.
Of course, now I realize my mother was ahead of her time and appreciate this.
The lesson to be learned here, I guess, would be that there has to be a way to do this that would not negatively affect a child's self-esteem in the process. One way could be to have the entire family eat a very healthy/clean diet and hopefully have no one even have to deal with weight issues.....and therefore, self-esteem issues.
But of course, back in the day, they didn't even realize that what they were eating and feeding their families was unhealthy. When I was a kid, they didn't even know smoking cigarettes was harmful.
However, the majority of people today still don't know or completely know what a clean/healthy diet is. In fact, my opinion of what one is would likely be different from many others. There are still many disputes in the scientific/medical/nutrition community and many hypotheses rather than facts.
You CAN come to peace with the effects this had on you. As a young child, we moved from the Bronx, NY down to Delaware. I ultimately grew up with the impression that I was somehow faulty because I was so dark and because my mother clearly admired the blond children in the neighborhood. My mother was schizophrenic and her issues with health food were probably rooted on her paranoia regarding the food supply. She also had paranoia about us looking different from the neighbor children....but her conveyance of this was done in a manner that made us feel we were faulty.
But I"ve come to realize that in its own way....this taught me the ability to get along well with everyone. I learned how to make people like me for my personality.....and years later, actually reveled in how different I look. Turned a negative into a positive.
You can do this....sounds like you're in the process of doing it already. You have an excellent attitude...you are not blaming them, realize that they meant well and wanted the best for you....and are letting go of any anger you likely had from this...and anger/resentment is toxic for us and counter-productive to healing. Great outlook.
deena
PS...honey, you wanna see some thick furry eyebrows, check out my photos on my thread on the Atkins forum. A few birds could nest in MY eyebrows.
A Fat Girl with Pigtails in Retrospect...
