The pain of growing up with a size 8 mum when you’re size 14
Body image often goes to the heart of mother-daughter relationships — as this touchingly honest confession shows
HOW does your Mum stay so slim, is a comment i’ve grown up hearing from friends, family and even strangers — after their eyes have flickered across my wide thighs, broad hips and well-upholstered bottom.
My mum Anne is a size eight and has always been slender, despite giving birth to my five sisters and me. she’s 56, has never dieted and never seemed to gain any excess weight during her pregnancies. she loves cooking and eating, and is proud of her appetite. her metabolism is faster than Usain Bolt — mine is like an elderly, arthritic tortoise.
i’ve always been a big girl and it used to bother me. When i was younger, i was the ‘fat one’, the target for playground bullies. i ate the same things as my classmates and slim sisters, but i’d binge on sugary treats whenever i had the chance. it cheered me up.
My family loved food. We’d all sit around the table on sunday, our plates piled high with meat and vegetables. Mum
YM excelled at puddings — i found it hard to resist her home-made treacle tart.
One year, on holiday in France, she kept making a silly joke about being ‘as fat as a barrel’ because she loved a local pate so much. We all laughed hard, mainly at the idea of Mum carrying any extra pounds. But as a 12-year-old wearing a size 14 i felt angry and envious. Mum would never know how humiliating it felt to wear clothes bigger than your age.
i felt as if i just had to look at certain foods and i’d struggle to zip up my jeans. it didn’t seem fair. dad’s side of the family is a bit heavier and i resented the fact i took after him, not Mum.
Growing up, Mum had been vocally anti-diet, annoyed with other mothers who were obsessed with their figures.
‘Running after children all day burns it all off! No one needs to waste money at a gym,’ she’d say.
her no nonsense attitude should have inspired me, but instead it gave dieting a forbidden glamour. i dreamed of being 18 and trying all the activities i wasn’t allowed: dyeing my hair, getting my ears pierced — and going to Weight Watchers.
Being the fattest girl in my class made me horribly self-conscious. i’d practise skipping in the garage where no one could see me. i was stuck in a fleshy prison and nothing i did could change my body or the way i felt about it.
Before i started secondary school — a fiercely competitive girls grammar — i’d always been the cleverest in my class, some compensation for being the fattest. But suddenly i was unremarkable, a solid B student. i might as well have been at the bottom. i felt like a fat nobody — a fat, spotty nobody, thanks to puberty. Getting back to the top of the class seemed as unlikely as becoming a size ten.
At first i tried to cure my misery with cake and crisps, but became consumed with self-loathing.
ONE day i felt so depressed after a binge i forced myself to throw up everything again. it was scary how quickly it became a regular habit — a quick fix and a way of punishing myself because i had no self-control.
i missed most of Titanic because i was stuck in the loo at the cinema trying to get rid of all the pick ’n’ mix i’d eaten.
i left when Jack was drawing Rose and came back to find the boat had sunk.
At school i became close to a girl called Emma who was comfort-eating her way through her parents’ divorce. Then Emma mentioned she was on a new diet and slowly started losing weight.
i envied her willpower with the intensity other teens envy each others’ trainers and i soon decided that i’d copy her if it killed me. it nearly did.
i thought if i stopped eating chocolate, cake and the food i loved, i’d stop loving food. i started to use the exercise bike in my parents’ room — even on Christmas day, because i was so worried about being in the same room as a tin of Roses and losing control.
in september 1999, aged 13, i was a plump, miserable size 14. By december i was size ten and a secretive, starving, badtempered nightmare. i was almost as slim
as Mum, but she was adding stuffing to her turkey sandwiches while I refused low-fat cottage cheese.
It was easier to disappear in my new school — if you pretended to be behind on your homework and spent lunchtime in the library, you could avoid eating altogether. And Emma and I had an scam going where we’d claim we’d eaten with the other’s families. Starving became all-consuming.
I’d almost stopped focusing on my size: I just wanted was prove I had the self-control to keep going.
A teacher was worried by my weight loss, but the girls in my class were openly envious, which thrilled me. At my smallest, I weighed less than eight stone. At 5ft 7in, I was underweight. By my 14th birthday, I was a size six.
My parents had no idea what to do — they were worried that if they made me feel alienated, I’d push them away. Besides, in some ways I seemed happier than ever — my grades shot up (all that extra time in the library).
I’d just had braces, so skipped family dinners, claiming my teeth hurt so much I couldn’t chew.
JuSt after I turned 15, I ended up in hospital. I’d excused myself from dinner to go for a walk and burn off the three forkfuls of pasta I’d eaten, but my blood sugar was so low that I fainted, regaining consciousness in an ambulance. It was sheer luck I didn’t get hit by a car.
At the hospital a doctor talked bluntly about the dangers of my diet. And when I saw the bewilderment on my parents’ faces, I realised I wasn’t just hurting myself any more and I had to get better. Rediscovering food was hard, but exciting. Mum had always said all food is good in moderation. She was right.
When I was overweight and unhappy, food was like a drug I couldn’t trust myself around, bingeing and purging. I slipped up sometimes. When I went to university I lived on toast for a time and then binge ate my way through a bad relationship.
I started to notice that when I was happy, I ate what I fancied and stayed a solid size 14. In times of great anxiety, I’d gain or lose a couple of dress sizes. Food wasn’t the problem, it was my attitude to it.
Mum has always told me I’m beautiful, but more importantly she praises my creativity, personal style and ambition.
When I felt the world would like me more if I took up less space, it was Mum and Dad who told me I was bigger than the sum of my parts, and my personality was much more valuable and interesting than how I looked.
I’m still a bit envious that Mum can look effortlessly stylish and wear size eight jeans. But we’re physically built completely differently. She’s shown me that instead of cursing my curves, I should be grateful for them.
When I was a teen, I was obsessed with looking like Audrey Hepburn, but over the years Mum has pointed out I’m more like Marilyn Monroe. Slim isn’t better than curvy — it’s just different.
When I got married in October (aged 30 and a size 14) there was only one person I could trust with the cake — Mum made a stunning three-tier pork pie.
the guests adored it and, as I looked around at all the people I loved celebrating with food, I realised how much Mum had taught me.
My wonderful husband Dale loves eating and creating food just as much as Mum, and if I hadn’t learned from her amazing attitude, I suspect we wouldn’t have connected when we met.
I joke I married him for his roast potatoes and I’m pretty sure he decided he was going to propose after I invented a recipe for chilli chorizo macaroni cheese.
Everyone adores Mum, but it has nothing to do with her size — it’s because she’s funny, clever, kind and never compromises on her core belief: the way you look really isn’t important. How you feel and how you treat people are what counts.
B-EAT is Britain’s leading charity for anyone affected by eating disorders. Helpline: 0345 634 1414.