Whenever mom’s weight was up and her picture was taken, she cut off the bottom part of the photo just below her breasts. The cuts were uneven, as though she was in a hurry to lop off the midsection of her body.
Mom hated her stomach, so she treasured the few pictures she had of when she was young and could show off a narrow waistline and a flat belly. There’s the full-length snapshot of her standing proudly on her parents’ front steps, modeling the bridesmaid dress she wore for her sister’s wedding. She asked me to use it with a newspaper story I wrote about her life during the Great Depression. Another is a formal portrait of her and Dad taken on their wedding day. Seated in front of Dad, she wears a slim satin gown with a lace train spread in a circle in front of her.
Mom blamed her belly fat on bearing six children, especially the youngest, who was born in 1957. “After Jack was born, I could never seem to get rid of my stomach,” she often lamented.
Part of the problem was that Mom liked sweets—a lot—and so do I. We also depended on sweets for physical or emotional support.
I remember when I was four. Mom leans over the kitchen sink, a free- standing hunk of porcelain in the corner of our tiny 1950s farm kitchen. She sings “Mockingbird Hill,” so she must be in a good mood. Mom drags a chrome chair across the linoleum floor, turns it around, and places it next to her so I can watch her while she works. I stand up on the plastic seat to get a better look as she peels potatoes, cuts them in quarters, and gathers up the parings with her stubby fingers. She runs water into a heavy pot, then reaches across me to turn on the stove.
As the burner heats, I’m mesmerized by the way the electric coil transforms from a dark gray to a bright red, as though a living thing. I reach toward the burner and touch it with the palm of my hand. A shock of pain rushes up my arm, and I howl.
Mom drops the pan into the sink. “Oh no!” she shouts. “What have you done?” She swiftly lifts me over to the sink and holds my hand under cold water. Then she sets me down, pats my hand dry with a dish towel, and gives it a quick look. My palm will blister, but the burn isn’t severe. She must have experienced similar mishaps before with my older siblings.
She wipes her hands on her gingham apron, takes a glazed donut from an open box on the back of the drain-board, and hands it to me. I bite in, tasting the sugar-water frosting on the roof of my mouth and feeling the soft, air-filled pastry squish as I chew and swallow. I take more bites, and a soothing sensation spreads throughout my body. The pain dissipates.
Nearly every day during most of my school years, Mom made a pie, a cake, or a batch of cookies—probably hurriedly after cleaning the house, gathering eggs, doing the bookkeeping for the farm, or helping Dad with fieldwork. She had the sweets waiting on the kitchen table for my siblings and me when we came home from class.
I can imagine her sampling a couple spoonsful of the cake batter or pie filling as she baked. She often tasted food as she prepared it, nodding with satisfaction if the flavor seemed right or pressing her lips together with disapproval if something seemed to be missing. I can also picture her nibbling half a cookie after she takes a pan out of the oven, then eating the other half and eventually having another, eating more than she intended.
As for me, the sweet satisfaction of the afternoon treats became the highlight of my day. While riding home from school, my mouth watered and my stomach growled in anticipation. I’m sure by that time my blood sugar was low, because I ate whatever desserts my friends didn’t want at lunch.
Fresh chocolate chip cookies were my favorite. My teeth sank in to their soft, buttery, chewiness. When they were warm, I could feel melted chips ooze onto my tongue and tingle the insides of my cheeks. The best part about the cookies was there were always more.
I liked chocolate cake, too, especially the frosting. Not able to save it for last, I dug my way around the edges of my slice before eating the middle. After my brothers and sisters took their portions, I scraped off any icing left on the platter and licked it from my fingers. Sometimes, after everyone wandered off to do homework or chores, I crept back into the kitchen to snitch a few more bites. Then, noticing the craggy edges I created, I took out a butter knife, evened them off, and ate more.
Commercial cake mixes were readily available, so a busy woman like Mom could more easily express her love through food. I suppose magazine ads like this one from Betty Crocker in 1956 had an impact on her: “The first birthday. And the first step. And the first word. And the first day of school . . . Don’t go away. It’s a moment to remember. A moment to mark with a special cake . . . But don’t wait for a big moment! Why not celebrate a little moment—this very special little night?” An illustration of a toddler accompanies the copy. The little blonde girl wears a pink, lace-trimmed dress and sits in a high chair with a look of wonder as she beholds a fluffy pink cake placed in front of her. A woman’s hand—presumably the mother’s—caresses the back of the chair, and another hand—presumably the father’s—strokes the mother’s.
In our house, within the milieu of a mid-century German-Catholic farm family, there wasn’t much time for such tender moments. But maybe there was an unacknowledged desire for them, which led Mom to bake.
Mom often made her pies with golden green apples from our tree. Sliced paper-thin and saturated with sugar, the apples congealed into a smooth, sweet confection. She sprinkled sugar on top of the crust so it would turn golden brown. Had I looked deeply into the crystals, maybe I could have seen my future as a compulsive overeater.
Sometimes I barely tasted my food, only half chewing a mouthful while thinking about the next bite. I gobbled and gulped, not only the desserts but also Mom’s meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, fried chicken, and roast beef.
Food quieted my fears, disappointments, and distress, whether from my parents’ or teachers’ criticisms, the loneliness and apartness I often felt with my peers, or yet-to-be-named shame.
Food also became my nemesis. After filling myself, I was overcome by remorse. Gluttony, I learned from my religious instruction, was one of the Seven Deadly Sins. I was a moral failure, and my overeating began to show. By the end of second grade, some of my classmates were teasing me. “Fatty, fatty, two by four. Couldn’t get through the kitchen door,” Dale Demmer taunted. I was only one of two fat kids in my class, an oddity even among my siblings, none of whom had a weight problem.
One evening after supper, when my oldest sister Connie and I were helping Mom with the dishes, I began to cry and told them about the razzing I got. Connie, about sixteen, said I should “just laugh it off,” and eventually the kids would stop teasing me. I took her advice. I pretended nothing bothered me and developed a knack for quick comebacks.
Mom told me not to worry. “You will slim down as you get a little older and a little taller,” she said. She never harangued me about my weight, put me on a diet, hid food from me, or lectured me about the starving kids in China. Maybe that was what kept me from developing a full-blown binge-eating disorder. Yet, I internalized her self-disgust.
By age nine, I hated my stomach as much as Mom hated hers. It bulged out, busting the zipper on a new pair of shorts. But I was too ashamed to ask for another pair, so I kept them closed with a safety pin and wore blouses that hung below my waist. One day, as I sat on the toilet looking at the way my stomach spread over the tops of my thighs, I imagined slicing off a hunk with a butcher knife.
Sometimes sugar put me in a sleepy, out-of-it state. Because I felt bogged down, I didn’t want to play baseball or other sports; that meant running and chasing balls. During the summer, I felt hot and sweaty. Although I didn’t get sick from eating too much, I felt full and uncomfortable. I was also awkward. Unlike my siblings and the neighbor kids, I couldn’t walk across the top plank of our white-board fence without losing my balance.
The following summer, while I was staying at my Aunt Vern and Uncle Roy’s house, Vern noticed large bruises on my cousin Jean’s body and took her to the doctor. Jean had leukemia. I learned—maybe by overhearing a phone conversation between Vern and Mom—that my best cousin-friend, the girl I colored, played dolls, jumped rope, and walked to the park with, would probably die. That evening, Vern cried softly while Roy silently cooked hamburgers on the grill. I didn’t know if Jean knew what I knew, so I didn’t know what to say. I watched her out of the corner of my eye as I ate four Little Debbies, one right after the other. I secretly scolded myself, “How can you eat like that when you know your cousin has cancer?”
When I was eleven, Mom went on a diet. She wasn’t obese, but she considered herself overweight. She probably longed for a figure like Betty Grable or one of the other pin-up girls popular with World War II soldiers. She bought boxes of chocolate candy called Ayds, which were hyped as appetite suppressants. Although the Ayds looked like delicious little squares of fudge, they tasted as though they were made with sawdust and molasses instead of cocoa, butter, and sugar. They felt rough and grainy on the tongue, but I ate two before supper.
Whether the candy actually made me feel less hungry or only made me think I was, I lost weight. By the time I turned twelve, I was down to a “normal” size. (I don’t remember how Mom fared.) Mom bought me a pretty blue dress with a jewel neckline, fitted bodice, and full skirt. I could tell she was pleased by how I looked.
I wore the dress only twice before I gained weight and outgrew it.
When I was fourteen and hoped to start dating, I went on another diet. It was a “sensible” plan promoted by TOPS (Take Off Pounds Sensibly). I limited my food intake and exercised every morning with two little dumbbells my older sister bought when she took the Nancy Taylor modeling and etiquette course for secretaries. After a couple months, I lost weight and, again, Mom bought me some special clothes. I got a stylish orange linen dress, a creamy yellow skirt with a patterned blouse to go with it, and a cotton knit shorts outfit.
By the end of the season, the clothes were too tight, again because of overeating. Mom didn’t say anything about the weight I put back on, but I felt mortified.
Soon afterward, Mom went to work, so she didn’t have time to bake late- afternoon treats. I had to start preparing supper when I got home from school, so I switched my sweet fixes to evenings while watching TV.
I would fill a 12-ounce glass with ice cream and milk and add a dash of vanilla. Then I mixed them together until they became a thick shake loaded with little pellets of hardened cream. I spooned the shake into my mouth, letting the icy lumps melt on my tongue. I loved the feeling of the cold, dreamy concoction sliding down my throat. I often made a second one. Sometimes I toasted slices of Wonder bread instead, turning the toaster up to its highest setting. When it popped up crispy-burned, I slathered it with butter. I relished the crunch.
Despite my ongoing romance with snacks, I developed a narrow waistline and an hourglass shape. Instead of hating my stomach, I began to despise my breasts, hips, and thighs, especially my breasts. It somehow seemed seductive and therefore sinful for a Catholic girl to have a large chest, so I hunched over and tried to make my breasts disappear. Meanwhile, I felt ashamed of the extra fifteen pounds I carried, which seemed like sixty-five.
The summer after my freshman year in college I worked as a maid and dropped the extra weight. I also became engaged and wondered if I was ready to get married. I tried talking to Mom about my concerns, but she didn’t seem to understand. She married Dad when she was nineteen, and things worked out just fine. I then went to see a school counselor, a man in his mid-twenties. Instead of helping me get to the root of my worry, he told me I was attractive. For whatever reason, I interpreted that to mean I was good enough to become a wife. So, I shoved my worries aside.
Over Christmas break, Mom and I planned my April wedding. We reserved the church and reception hall and ordered a gown. As soon as I returned to school, I started digging into the vast store of cookies and candy my roommate brought from home. The sweets settled my nerves and, over the next few months, I regained much of the weight I had lost. Miraculously, my wedding dress fit.
As time passed, I went on more of my “sensible” diets. Somehow I managed to avoid crash programs, like the eat-virtually-nothing-but-grapefruit diet, which might have set me up for a lifetime of severe yo-yo dieting and obesity. During the 1960s, diet soda became the panacea for many dieters, but I sidestepped that plan, too. Later I learned about a neighbor girl who drank so much Tab that her teeth rotted. She had to have them pulled out.
Meanwhile, Mom periodically “cut down” on her food intake. Like me, she regularly gained and lost weight.
In 1978, I joined an eating-support group that treats overeating like an addiction. The idea, among other things, is to avoid one’s “trigger” foods. I decided my trigger foods were sugar and artificial sweeteners, so I scrupulously avoided them for nearly a year. “I don’t eat that stuff,” I would say when it was offered to me.
But sugar is everywhere, not only in the desserts I loved but also in cereal, crackers, salad dressings, sauces, coleslaw, potato salad, and even sliced turkey from the deli. Eventually it lured me back. For many years, my eating followed a predictable cycle: Whenever I began to panic about food and weight, I stopped eating sweets and my weight would return to normal. But soon my cravings would start again, no matter how earnestly I “turned over” my eating compulsion to my Higher Power.
I also thought counseling would help. Twice I began therapy by explaining that one of my main problems was compulsive eating. Although the therapy helped in many other ways, it did nothing for my relationship with food. I began to think I had to solve all my emotional problems before I could tackle my problem with food, and that made matters worse.
Despite my ups and downs, I wore the same size for more than two decades. Mom was happy to see me “keeping my weight down.” She said if she had to choose between being slender herself or having slim daughters, she would pick the latter. I wonder: Did she think she couldn’t have it both ways? Did she believe she had to sacrifice her own well-being so my sisters and I could have the body she wanted? Was my being a normal weight a sign that she did right by me?
At age fifty-four, I joined Weight Watchers, hoping to win my battle with food once and for all. I liked that I didn’t have to give up sweets and could decide what to eat based on point values. At first following the program seemed easy, but eventually I felt as though I wasn’t getting enough nutrition. And I could barely wait until Wednesdays when I had lunch with my friends and could use the fifteen points I saved during the rest of the week on a chocolate brownie fudge sundae. My resolve finally fell apart when I noticed a couple male acquaintances noticing me. Afraid I might notice back—I was married—I quashed my anxiety with food.
Work could be stressful, too. There were times I didn’t think I could live through another five minutes without running to the vending machine for a Snickers bar, some Cheetos, or a bag of Famous Amos cookies. Something as simple as a bowl of M&Ms on a co-worker’s desk could set me up for an afternoon of snacking.
During menopause, I gained forty-five pounds. My back and shoulders broadened. My waist grew thicker in proportion to my hips. Skirts and pants pinched me in the waist, and I began to hate my stomach again. My body- mass index crossed into the “obese” range, and I had to buy clothes three sizes larger. With my light complexion and extra flesh, I felt like a ball of dough. I felt groggy and uncomfortable, too. My arms no longer swung easily down my sides, and I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands. I was still jogging, as I had done for several years, but I was losing speed.
Not knowing what to do, I resorted to my old habit of abstaining from sugar off and on. After a few years, I lost about thirty pounds. But now I’ve gained some of them back.
I also tried playing mind games on myself. One trick was to rebel against anyone or anything I thought was undermining me. I was damned if I was going to listen to anyone who said, “Come on, one little piece won’t hurt you,” yet shamed fat people for having no “willpower.” I wasn’t going to let supermarkets, which place junk food everywhere, break me. I would not fall under the spell of the food processing industry, which uses just the right amount of sugar, fat, and salt to get consumers hooked. No way would I follow the Paleo Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Gluten-free Diet, or any of the many other diets that don’t work. “And why, for chrissake, do the home-improvement store, the fabric shop, and even the pharmacy at the medical clinic—the medical clinic!—put candy by their cash registers?” I railed.
But anger didn’t solve anything. Besides, nothing seems more satisfying than crashing into a bag of Doritos when I’m feeling pissed off.
I’ve also tried making “small changes” to my diet, which magazine articles claim are “easy” to incorporate into one’s life. Most of them are not. Sure, I’ve substituted most refined flour with whole grains, and I drink water instead of soda, but I can’t face raw cauliflower, skinless chicken breast, or dainty servings of cake. I seldom finish a meal before I remember to slow down. And I don’t like dark chocolate nearly as much as I like milk chocolate.
In addition, I’ve tried “mindful” or “intuitive” eating—taking in what the body “naturally” needs and wants rather than eating out of mindless habit or emotional distress. But that doesn’t work either. Sometimes I think, “What’s the point of eating if it’s not to escape?” or “Why eat anything at all if I’m not going to have a pint of Häagen-Dazs ice cream, a slice of pecan pie, or a bowlful of corn chips?”
Sometimes I feel jealous of boa constrictors: They can swallow a rat or squirrel whole and then not have to face food for another two weeks. (Okay, maybe I don’t want to eat rodents.) Most of all, I envy people who enjoy food without overeating or obsessing about it when they do, and who don’t get fat. (Their numbers seem to be shrinking, though.)
After spending the better part of sixty-eight years battling this problem, I’m sick of it.
I know some people who, after struggling with their eating and weight, have given up. “Screw it,” they say. “I don’t care if I’m fat. I’m just going to enjoy life.” But how can I enjoy life if I’m not right with my relationship with food or if I think I’m messing up my appearance or my health? I worry about what could happen to me because type 2 diabetes runs in my family. And, as much as I want to accept my body as it is, I know extra pounds can take a toll. I’m not ready to quit trying, not yet.
The spring Mom turned ninety, she inexplicably lost fifteen pounds. She went to her doctor to see if anything was wrong, but she was okay. “I haven’t lost my appetite for food,” she said.
But three years later she was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. She ate less and gradually lost another fifteen pounds. She could wear a size 12 and, for the first time in many years, was happy with her body.
When I saw how baggy her clothes had become, I bought her four new pairs of pants and several tops. She loved the purchases, especially a bright red sweater with a cowl neckline and a pair of winter-white pants to go with it. She looked forward to wearing the outfit to a holiday party.
But she didn’t feel good the day of the party and decided to stay home. Sadly, she never went outside the seniors’ living center again. She died three days before Christmas, having never worn any of the clothes.
I wish things could have been different for her. I wish she could have enjoyed many years of healthful, pleasurable eating and of appreciating the body she had.
I hope my story ends differently.
Becky Sisco is working on a book-length collection of memoirs. One of her essays, “Cattle Farming,” will be published next year in the Tenth Muse. She is retired from journalism and lives in Dubuque, Iowa. In 2006 she published a local-interest book titled Garters and Grit: Stories from Galena and Jo Daviess County Ill.