My History - Growing Up, Government Fight Obesity!!

Today the government announced that obesity would become a national problem in the next 15 - 20 years and more had to be done to tackle it. They also said individuals had to take some of the responsibility.

That is all well and good, but the reasons for obesity are varied and complex and a one size answer will not fit all.

Even as a teenager I was always on the larger side, not overweight then but size 14 where I grew up in Essex (where we moved to after Scotland) was large. At the time I swam for Thurrock and Essex at a County level, which involved training 5 days a week and 1 night a week. I was up and cycling to the swimming pool (from Chadwell St Mary to Blackshots) at 6.30 every morning and would then cycle on to school. Exercise was not lacking throughout my school life as I either swam almost daily or cycled everywhere. Yet I was still considered big in an area where many of my school friends (and school bullies) were stick insects and did not exercise at all. Why was that?

My mother was Scottish and my father was from Somerset, so we had a strong tradition of hearty meals in our house. Plenty of mince, stews and vegetables (piles of mashed potatoes and swede). We did not have puddings but I would snack after school on bread and jam. As a good Scot, I did like my sweet things - Lee's Macaroon bars and chocolate covered marzipan. If I was a really good girl my parents would take me to a sweetie heaven shop in Glasgow (near Maryhill) and buy me a huge chocolate covered marzipan bar and a large 'homemade' chocolate covered macaroon bar. I could make myself sick eating it all.

You have to understand the Scottish and Scotland, it is a beautiful country but most people lived in grey or red sandstone tenaments in a grey world most of the time. As a child of the 60s in Scotland I rarely saw any sun, I had to travel to England (Somerset to see my grandparents) to see the sun. Scotland did, and still does, have the most beautiful scenery of anywhere in the world though. When we moved to England, firsly Kent for a few months and then Essex, I struggled with being an outsider for years and developed into a lonely person on the inside who was the class clown on the outside. Being the class clown deflected the worst of the bullying I was subjected to until I bagan to fight back and the bullying stopped.

My older childhood was lonely because my brother went off to a termly boarding Grammar School, and over the years came home less and less as he went away with friends during the term end holidays. My brother was 19 before I started to get to know him again in London. By then he was at university and I was married to my first husband (who was handy with his fists from time to time). During those teenage years I went to the local Secondary Modern school, which later became a Comprehensive school.

So where does this lead to - I grew up eating hearty home cooked food and learnt from an early age that special treats come in extra sweet chocolate covered wrappings!

Throughout my life, happy or sad times have been accompanied by extra sweet chocolate covered treats to help me get through.

Depression, self loathing, a feeling of being worthless and useless, remorse, grief and guilt have been with me since my late teens and I have never been able to fully deal with those feelings. I work extra hard to try and earn good feelings about myself, but no matter how successful I am (and I have been very successful) I still come back to a lack of self worth and torturing myself with guilt over everything I should have done or should have said. How do I cope with continually feeling worthless, useless, guilt-riddent and carrying my grief - I give myself treats of chocolate of course!

By Thursday night as I travel home from work I am normally very tired, fed-up and in need of a treat - a Bounty Bar usually finds its way into my hand and mouth (the nearest thing to Lees Macaroon bars in England). I often find that I have eaten a Mars Bar as well, an instant sweet boost.

Do I need help to cope with my sweet addiction, because it is an addiction? Or do I need help with breaking the cycle of treating myself, on good and bad days with sweets? Or do I need help with learning to deal with my self-loathing, guilt ridden, grief? I have tried counselling 3 times in the past, but fear of what I will find at the end has always stopped me going for further long-term counselling.

I do know this, I am very, very unhappy weighing 23st and just want to be normal - whatever that means.

dieting, weight loss, diet, obesity, fatblogging, depression, Scotland