My mum is 54 and has been overweight since before I was born. She slimmed down to a 12/normal BMI for her wedding day, then her weight gradually crept up. She has been around 21 stone for most of my life, occasionally losing a stone or two via Weight Watchers but then swiftly returning to the 20s.
As background, I'm still at university so visit in the holidays, and therefore spend enough time with her to see this play out (time which I really treasure; I love her and she's a fantastic mum).
She has had one hip replaced due to severe osteoarthritis. The NHS wouldn't do it due to risk and she had to go private. The other one needs doing, and both knees, and even the private provider won't touch her now until she loses weight. She's got a BMI of 52.
She had two alcoholic parents, one has now died, and I see a real pattern in her food consumption that reflects their addictive behaviours. She does not see it, and I have never broached this.
Forgive the inappropriate analogy, but her weight has long been 'the elephant in the room' in our family for as long as I can remember. Nobody mentions it. She occasionally describes herself as fat, and we brush over it awkwardly. As kids, she occasionally took us to theme parks or fairs and she was never able to ride them. She got an extra seat on the plane last time we flew anywhere as a family.
She is now at a point where, due to her size and arthritis, she gets out of breath walking up the stairs in the house, even walking slowly. She does no exercise and brushes it off as being due to "age", but it is because she can't do it. She could walk to the end of our road but would be out of breath and would walk incredibly slowly. She thinks she has arthritis because her father had arthritis (in his 70s and after doing hard manual labour all his life).
The parallels to alcoholism, from my perspective, are as follows:
- Secret eating - waits until we are in bed and then eats, waits until I'm in another room and then eats (but I can hear it), goes to McDonald''s on the way home and then hides the rubbish.
- Stores food that is "hers" in a cupboard. I recognise that some people keep a stash of chocolate etc. but she has four different tins containing various biscuits, a large tin of raisins (family sized biscuit tin), about six boxes of crackers, ten tins of rice pudding, ten tins of custard, and a shelf in the fridge that is hers (mainly full of soft cheese and yoghurts made with cream). There is no chocolate because chocolate is consumed the moment it is bought. If anyone touches her stash, she gets very angry, so we don't go near it.
- We recently went to a craft workshop and she spied the cake on the side that was for the break. An hour in, she asked if we could have cake now and got her piece. No one else was ready yet because it was an hour after breakfast, and it was slightly embarrassing that she asked.
- Eats more or less every hour, or says she will feel sick/dizzy/have low blood sugar.
- Eats very large portions, e.g. soup but with 2/3 of a French baguette covered in cream cheese.
- Often says "I wasn't going to eat cake today" after eating cake, or "I was being good" and then eats something.
- Asks me to walk to the shop to pick up chocolate for her, which I find really difficult and always want to refuse to do, but I don't want to hurt her feelings.
- My dad brings home chocolate most nights, e.g. a family packet of Minstrels or Maltesers. He puts his in a cupboard and eats it gradually, mum eats the packet straight away and then goes in her cupboard for biscuits.
A good example is that we went out as a family, had a three course lunch, and went to browse a gallery. Mum obviously couldn't walk, so took herself off to sit in the cafe, and when we came to see her she had drunk a hot chocolate and was eating a sandwich. We ate at 2 and this was at 4. My brother commented that we had only just eaten, and she said "yes, this is my dinner" but when we got home she ate a second dinner.
- If I eat anything at all, she asks "ooh what is that? ooh yum maybe I should have that". She can't not remark on whatever everyone is eating, and is openly delighted by the presence of food.
- Looks forward to eating and imagines her meals out loud to me constantly, usually just after eating the previous meal.
- Food shops almost every day, accumulating healthier items that are inevitably ignored and thrown out.
- Has visited a nutritionist and bought "healthy meals", but eats them as snacks.
I'm so sorry if I sound like I'm monitoring her intake, but it's so hard not to notice it. She has such an unhealthy relationship with food, and the effect it's having on her joints is stressful to watch.
She delayed going to the doctor about her other hip because she knew her BMI would be too high. My aunt has recently had a gastric band and has dropped loads of weight, my mum doesn't like this muc and is snarky about her. The same happened when her childhood best friend dropped loads of weight - "her poor face looks so old now".
I know she had a difficult time being an overweight kid. But so did me and my brother; we were both massively obese and now struggle hugely to keep the weight off. I was bullied horrifically at school as a result and still bear the emotional scars, but I am grown now and can take responsibility for my own weight and happiness.
I am now at the point where I struggle to sympathise with her when she tells me about how painful her hip is, while eating bags of chocolate.
She uses her good blood pressure and normal cholesterol levels to justify that she is healthy and fine, ignoring the arthritis, which is now even reaching her shoulder.
I really want to help. I know calling someone fat never made anyone thin (I had to go through this myself). But she is so unhappy, so immobile, and I think the more her mobility drops the larger she will get. I think she is addicted and needs help. What can I do, please?