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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Direct-Caterpillar77 on 2024-11-06 05:01:04+00:00.

I am not The OOP, OOP is u/mykidisnotfat

My mom [70 F] constantly tells me [32/F] that my daughter [5/F] is going to become obese. She’s actually underweight.

TRIGGER WARNING: Body shaming

Original Post  Aug 26, 2016

So like it says in the title, I have a daughter, “Leah,” who is 5. She’s strong and healthy, but slightly underweight for her height. She’s been this way since she was a toddler. She seems to take after her dad, who is also very tall and thin. Leah eats plenty of healthy food and gets lots of activity, and we see her pediatrician regularly. He has told us that her weight is not an issue as long as she continues to eat well.

The problem is my mother, who is convinced my daughter is going to become obese. While I serve healthy food most of the time, I do occasionally let my daughter have McDonald’s for lunch or ice cream after dinner. Every time I do this when my mother is around, she makes dire comments about how Leah is going to get fat. If Leah mentions she had a hot dog for dinner, my mom says something about the childhood obesity epidemic. If she sees me giving Leah a cookie, she shakes her head and says something about how Leah seems to be “packing on the pounds.” To her credit she never says these things in front of Leah, but around me She never stops.

The thing is, I am overweight and have been since I was a kid. Not obese, but definitely heavier than I should be. Although there are a lot of reasons for this and I know that the responsibility for my health is ultimately mine alone, I think my mother’s unhealthy attitudes toward food have played a large part in my weight problems. She would tell me I was disgusting and needed to lose weight, then turn around and give me a cupcake if I had a bad day at school. Food was the enemy, but also my main source of consolation. This led to me becoming an emotional eater, a problem I still struggle with today.

I have gone to therapy and made major changes in my lifestyle to become a good role model for my daughter, and I am losing my excess weight. I talk regularly with Leah about nutrition and exercise, but I refuse to place the same value judgments on food and weight that my mother did. I have told my mother, repeatedly, that Leah is healthy and happy and is not in danger of becoming obese, and that I want her to stop making comments, but she can’t seem to help herself. I have warned her that if she starts making them in front of Leah that I will cut her off in a heartbeat, but Leah loves her grandma and I would hate to end their relationship over something that is really only bothering me.

Can anyone think of a way to get my mom to lay off?

UPDATE: ok, you’ve all convinced me that I need to put my foot down with my mom and tell her that her comments need to stop entirely or she won’t see me and Leah anymore. I’m supposed to see her tomorrow so I’ll post an update after. Thanks Reddit – I really needed to be smacked in the face with reality, and you did it in an admirably gentle way. :-)     —     tl;dr: My mom constantly tells me my perfectly healthy daughter is going to become obese. I’m sick of hearing it, but don’t know how to get her to stop.

PariahBear790

Maybe a trial run where your daughter does not see your mother for an extended period of time (2 weeks or something) in the mean time tell your mother how you feel and let that sink it for her.  Right now it’s concerned comments made to you. Eventually it will be private concerned conversations between Leah and her grandmother.

OOP

That is my main concern. I have told her point blank that if I ever hear her mentioning Leah’s weight or eating habits to Leah, I will not hesitate to cut off contact. I will not have my daughter raised with the same eating issues I had. I do think she will respect this, because she loves Leah (only grandchild) and knows I am serious about this.

OOP when asked if there’s any truth to the mother’s comments

It’s a fair question, but yes, I’m sure there isn’t any truth to the comments. Leah’s doctor was the one who characterized her as a little underweight. At her last checkup she was in the 95th percentile for height but down around the 40th percentile for weight. If a kid with those stats is considered overweight, I’d hate to see a kid they considered to be at a healthy weight! 

Update  Aug 29, 2016 (3 days later)

Hi Reddit. I’m back with an update. Here’s the original post. 

Thanks for all the responses you gave me on my first post. I think I needed a dose of reality, and that’s what I got.

After reading all the comments I realized I needed to talk to my mom. So when she came over, before she had a chance to say anything about Leah’s eating habits, I took her aside and said “enough. Leah is healthy and happy, and your weight comments are inappropriate. They stress me out and they’re bad for Leah. If you keep making them, we’re just not going to see you anymore.” She sputtered a bit, but ultimately agreed to my terms. I was hopeful that maybe she would actually stop making the comments so we could have a somewhat normal relationship and she could continue to see Leah.

Hahaha.

I work a part-time schedule of two days per week and every other weekend. This was my working weekend, so my husband was home with Leah. When I got home after work on Sunday, I could tell something was up. Leah was already in bed, and my husband looked really tense. He’s usually a pretty laid back guy, so this was weird.

When I asked what was up, he said we needed to talk about my mother. I had told him that I had spoken with her and that she had been warned not to make any more comments about Leah’s weight. Well, apparently she just couldn’t do it, because she called him (knowing I was at work) that day and told him that I was blind to Leah’s problem and that he needed to get involved because I had confided in her that Leah’s pediatrician told me she was at serious risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes and that we needed to change her diet so she would lose weight.

What?!?

For the record, Leah’s pediatrician has never said anything like that. In fact, as I mentioned in my last post, he has told me that she is underweight. Fortunately, my husband a) attends all Leah’s doctor appointments and b) has the sense to realize that a rail-thin child isn’t edging toward obesity, so he knew it was bunk. He told my mom that she wasn’t to call again until she heard from me.

Well, I was livid. It was like after years and years of weight-related crap from my mom something finally snapped. I called her and the minute she said “hello” I just lit into her. I told her that based on her behavior she was either delusional or a manipulative sociopath, and that either way she wasn’t allowed around me or my kid again. I told her she was not welcome to call, e-mail, come over or send cards. Basically, we were going to pretend like she didn’t exist. I hung up before she had a chance to get a word in edgewise.

She called fifteen times that night. I finally blocked her number on my cell and my husband’s (we don’t have a landline so this means she can’t call us at all). I had three emails in my inbox the next morning, which I deleted without reading before blocking her email address as well. Finally, we had given her a key to our house for emergency purposes so first thing yesterday I had the locks changed then took Leah out for the day. Lo and behold, when we came home my neighbor said that my mom (she recognizes her because she used to come over a lot) had been banging on the door for almost half an hour earlier that day before storming off in a huff. I can only imagine how angry she was when she realized her key didn’t work anymore.

I feel better than I have in years, which makes me think I did the right thing. The only thing I’m still struggling with is how to break the news to Leah. She really does love grandma. My husband and I are going to sit down with her tonight, so I guess I have until then to figure out what to say.

tl;dr: Confronted mom, who was even crazier than I expected.

RELEVANT COMMENTS

HappyDuckPotato

It sure didn’t take long for her to not only not make comments, but to escalate it to OP’s husband with lies that are easily shot down. She must be really delusional, which will most likely mean she won’t back down to the no contact easily.

OOP

This is what concerns me. If she has any grip on reality at all, she would realize that my husband wouldn’t believe her lies. Either she’s actually lost it or she’s playing some kind of game by saying that to him.

HappyDuckPotato

I’m curious, what is her own relationship with food? Is she overweight?

OOP

She’s not, but she definitely doesn’t have a good relationship with food. She counts every calorie and tries a lot of fad diets to keep her weight down. Her attitude, which I think she got from her own mom, is almost like weight is …

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