The Fat Fight

Mother daughter relationships can be tricky but especially when you are struggling with weight and body image issues. The article I have chosen this week tells the story of a mother's anxiety and obsession with her daughter's body size and weight. While you read look specifically for the distorted thinking of the mother and how this negatively affects her daughter.

- Ilissa

What's the most treacherous ground for a mother and daughter to navigate?
Robin Marantz Henig and daughter Jess Zimmerman weigh in.

The Mother's Story
"I wanted to spare her pain."

Watching my daughter belly dance last year brought tears to my eyes. Jess was 28 at the time, and she was splendid. She wore a costume of bright blue and a gold hip scarf with jiggling coins. Her midriff—also jiggling—was bare. She was graceful in her shimmies, graceful with her arms, graceful when she flicked her naked feet. I loved watching her.

All the years of sitting through the plays of Jess's childhood came back to me, plays in which she spoke her lines in a sweet, clear voice but could never get over the awkwardness of being herself. I had thought that at the heart of Jess's discomfort, on stage and off, was the fact that she felt bad about being fat. Yet everything I did to spare her insecurity about her weight turned out to be a source of pain for her—and a thorn at the heart of our relationship that we're still trying delicately to extract.

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