Sins of the parents

[Gob]

Weighing in at 17 stone, Aly Gilardoni is well aware of the conse­quences of over-eating.



Yet the single mother was accused yester­day of inflicting her own problems on her eight-year-old daughter by putting her on a near starvation diet. Corleigh has been on the regime since the age of two and is allowed just 700 calories a day – 1,000 fewer than recommended.Miss Gilardoni insists she is acting in her daughter’s best interests, saying: ‘Being over­weight dominates my life. I don’t want Cor­leigh to be like me.’

But Christian Jessen, a doctor on Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies, said: ‘Aly is inflict­ing her issues on her daughter – she needs to see a psychiatrist. ‘Calorie restricting a normal-weight child is unnecessary and detrimental to her health.

'Her immune system will suffer, her growth may be affected, puberty will be delayed and there will be a risk of osteoporosis as well as mineral and vita­min deficiency. 'More worryingly, from a psy­chological point of view, this could trigger severe anorexia that could ultimately kill her.’

Miss Gilardoni said: ‘I don’t want a fat child. I’m obsessed with how she looks. I want her to be pretty and popular and she wouldn’t be if she was bigger. 'My mum is 17 stone, so I think it runs in our family.’

She admits her daughter, who was anaemic until she was five, is now afraid of being fat: ‘She’s always looking in mirrors. I feel guilty – but it’s how I want her to be


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z12m1cyv69

[loCAtek]

~Bleh~

Shades of my own narcissistic, dominating mother: "I want... I want... I want!


It's because you want so damn much, that you're a fat sow!



Yup, my mom was a greedy pig, I used to fear sometimes as a child, that she'd try to eat me!

[Miles]

She admits her daughter, who was anaemic until she was five, is now afraid of being fat: ‘She’s always looking in mirrors. I feel guilty – but it’s how I want her to be

That sounds like the serious damage has already been done.

[Gob]

I'd second that Miles, it look like child abuse from where I'm standing.

[Andrew D]

The mother is weird, and she appears to be working out her own issues on her daughter.

But child abuse?

The kid does not seem to be to be abnormally skinny. The quoted portion of the article says that she "was anaemic until she was five," indicating that she is not anemic now. And an unquoted portion of the article says that "A recent visit to a nurse showed Corleigh is 5lb underweight but otherwise healthy." That does not sound like child abuse to me.

[Gob]

I was thinking more of emotional abuse Andrew, this kid is going to end up phobic about food, and may end up never being able to enjoy something which more most of us is one of life's great pleasures.

[SisterMaryFellatio]

Child abuse quite simple.

Its the mother that needs educating about food....

[dales]

I was thinking more of emotional abuse Andrew, this kid is going to end up phobic about food, and may end up never being able to enjoy something which more most of us is one of life's great pleasures.

Like Mc Donalds.

[Jarlaxle]

I have to say that Mom is heavy, certainly...but she doesn't look THAT heavy. I suspect she'd look pretty good after a couple months of excercise.

And Gob, a "stone" is 14lbs, right? If so...she's ~238lbs.

[The Hen]

I have a parent who is obsessed with food issues.

It will be no surprise to some that I developed both Bulimia and Anorexia. I was placed on diets from the age of 6. Multiple times a week I would be weighed. It ended up that multiple times a day I would weigh myself to make sure I was 'on target'.

I found a "Food Intake" book I used to keep. I was disgusted to read my entries, particularly the ones after living on a calorie-base of under 750 a day. Apparently if I hadn't reached the weight I should have been by then I was to stop eating until I did. (!)

I managed to beat my Mum's bug-bears. She, on the other-hand is still chased by them.

Parents. They are more trouble than they are worth at times.

[loCAtek]

I have to say that Mom is heavy, certainly...but she doesn't look THAT heavy. I suspect she'd look pretty good after a couple months of excercise.

And Gob, a "stone" is 14lbs, right? If so...she's ~238lbs.

The point is she's a control freak: can't control her own life, so she tries to control others.
It's abusive certainly, no one can achieve perfection for another, and a child shouldn't be made to feel they have to reach impossible goals. That leads to psychological injuries.

[Gob]

Verging on MBPS...

Munchausen by proxy syndrome (MBPS) is a relatively uncommon condition that involves the exaggeration or fabrication of illnesses or symptoms by a primary caretaker. One of the most harmful forms of child abuse, MBPS was named after Baron von Munchausen, an 18th-century German dignitary known for telling outlandish stories.
About MBPS

In MBPS, an individual — usually a mother — deliberately makes another person (most often his or her own preschool child) sick or convinces others that the person is sick. The parent or caregiver misleads others into thinking that the child has medical problems by lying and reporting fictitious episodes. He or she may exaggerate, fabricate, or induce symptoms. As a result, doctors usually order tests, try different types of medications, and may even hospitalize the child or perform surgery to determine the cause.

http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/si ... ausen.html

[Jarlaxle]

I have a parent who is obsessed with food issues.

It will be no surprise to some that I developed both Bulimia and Anorexia. I was placed on diets from the age of 6. Multiple times a week I would be weighed. It ended up that multiple times a day I would weigh myself to make sure I was 'on target'.

I found a "Food Intake" book I used to keep. I was disgusted to read my entries, particularly the ones after living on a calorie-base of under 750 a day. Apparently if I hadn't reached the weight I should have been by then I was to stop eating until I did. (!)

I managed to beat my Mum's bug-bears. She, on the other-hand is still chased by them.

Parents. They are more trouble than they are worth at times.

Damn...that sucks.

I have some food problems, albeit on the other end of the spectrum. *looks at 40" waist and sighs* That being: I really like food.

[loCAtek]

Verging on MBPS...

She (the child) will be lucky if that's all there is.

[Crackpot]

One of my sister in laws verges on MBPS. Not a pretty thing. especially considering when a child is constantly told there is something wrong them.

example:
She was convinced and that her son was developmentally delayed and went on at length about it even when he was around.

the sunny side?

He now makes jokes at her expense that go right over her head.

[Gob]

Hen does pretty much the same with her mother, especially when the mother in law has been on her latest "raw prawn, banana and vodka diet," found that she's gained rather than lost weight, and is now going to try a "mashed potato, lemon, and butter" diet, one that entails only eating at 21.11 pm and when the moon is in Orion.

It's so sad that a woman in her late 70's is STILL so obsessed with dieting. When I'm that age (if I make it that far) I want all the best grub and wine and Scotch I can lay my hands on. (Not to mention the best drugs!)

[Crackpot]

But he's 9 now.

It's so sad that a woman in her late 70's is STILL so obsessed with dieting. When I'm that age (if I make it that far) I want all the best grub and wine and Scotch I can lay my hands on. (Not to mention the best drugs!)

You'll probably switch back to meat too

[Gob]

And smoking tobacco...

[loCAtek]

Well, without knowing the full extent of their relationship, this could be a focus on just body issues in the context of MBPS; or there could be a whole 'toxic parent syndrome' where the narcissus goes sociopathic, and the child's trying to develop a identity separate from the narcissist's, is abusively manipulated and crushed.

[Andrew D]

Have I stumbled into an episode of "Wild Speculations R Us"?

Again, here is the salient fact:

A recent visit to a nurse showed Corleigh is 5lb underweight but otherwise healthy.

We have an eight-year-old kid whose only evident health problem is that she is 5 pounds underweight.

And from that, we get a TV doctor telling us that "Her immune system will suffer, her growth may be affected, puberty will be delayed and there will be a risk of osteoporosis as well as mineral and vita­min deficiency. More worryingly, from a psy­chological point of view, this could trigger severe anorexia that could ultimately kill her." From being 5 pounds underweight at eight years old? Oh, please.

And here we have solemn proclamations of child abuse metastasizing through suggestions of Munchausen-by-Proxy Syndrome to speculations of Toxic Parent Syndrome and culminating in the suggestion that the mother may be sociopathic. All because a mother's wacky ideas about food have resulted in an eight-year-old child's being 5 pounds underweight.

Yes, the mother's ideas about how her daughter should eat are disturbed. As Dr. Stephen Turner, chairman of the department of pediatrics at Long Island College Hospital, put it to the New York Daily News, "It's clear in this case that it it not the child who has issues, but the mother."

But the mother's attempts to keep her daughter on a 700-calorie-per-day "starvation diet" are self-evidently not working: By any rational standard, an eight-year-old kid who is 5 pounds underweight is simply not starving.

Yes, the mother's issues are likely to have some effect on her daughter's psychological development. But we have knowing of what those will be. It may be that when the kid starts making her own dietary decisions, the result of the mother's wackiness will be that the kid will think "Finally! Now I can eat!"

More broadly, parents' issues almost always affect their childrens' psychological development. All parents have issues of some sort; that just comes with the territory of being of human. And all children are affected in some way by their parents' issues; that just comes with the territory of they and their parents' being human.

It seems to me that we should limit our assertions about child abuse -- let alone suggestions that a parent is a sociopath -- to those cases in which parental behavior is causing children some actual harm. In some cases, of course, the acts of abuse are immediately and intrinsically harmful: No serious person would suggest that deliberately burning a child with a cigarette is anything other than child abuse.

But, yet again, in this case, the eight-year-old child is 5 pounds underweight and "otherwise healthy". (It is not clear that the qualifier "otherwise" even belongs there. A more accurate description might be "healthy, although 5 pounds underweight. Perhaps collective outrage could find more suitable targets.