The Heavy (27 page)

Three weeks later, when we came to get her, we found out the truth. No one had accompanied Bea on the food line, escorted her to the snack bar, or watched her at canteen. No one had shown her the meal suggestions I’d emailed to her counselor, and no one had checked that she’d signed up for some elective that involved
physical activity every day. She hadn’t even opened the nutrition doctor’s booklet she’d brought with her for reference (with a strip of duct tape modestly covering the words “Childhood and Adolescent Weight Management” on the cover).

She had made all her food and activity choices on her own.

On that day we picked her up, we joined her for lunch. I watched from afar as she grabbed a plate and stepped up to the food servers in the cafeteria. I saw her ask for one piece of chicken and some broccoli. She shook her head to decline the offered bread, rice, and potatoes (
three starches
? Come on, people). At the beverage dispenser, she bypassed the fruit punch, soda, and lemonade and took water.

We sat down to eat. “I didn’t know it at first, but they have dessert in the cafeteria every day for lunch
and dinner
,” she told me.

“How did you handle it?” I asked.

“I didn’t have it every day,” she said without regret. “Sometimes I’d ask for like a quarter of a brownie, just to try it.” I was bursting with pride. I told her that was a great way of dealing with it.

We stopped by the snack bar later for relief from the sweltering heat. “Have an ice pop, Mom,” she suggested. “The little ones only have twenty-five calories.” She picked up an apple on her way out.

I asked her how the nightly canteen was. She admitted that she felt jealous that other campers enjoyed pizza and ice cream every night and she only permitted herself to join them twice a week, but she’d survived. She’d come and just dance or hang out and have fruit instead of the other stuff. She’d had fun.

In addition to being in a play and studying circus (you should see her twirl hoops), she had elected to go to the fitness center
every day
to work out, of her own accord. She’d also gone to cooking
class, but only once. And she’d done swimming, water sports, jewelry making, tie-dyeing, and everything else she wanted. There had been a voluntary four-kilometer race for charity early one weekend morning, and she’d participated.

Bea had spent three weeks on her own, with more food and more independence than she’d ever had to contend with before. She hadn’t gained a single pound.

More than any weight she reached, dress size she achieved, or attitude shift I witnessed, to me this experience was the closest to what I’d be willing to claim as victory. A couple of years earlier, that camp environment would have been a disaster for Bea nutritionally. Now she handled it like a champ. She didn’t feel like an outsider or like she was different. She was a regular, healthy kid. A normal kid.

We’d taught her how to eat properly, and she had taken those lessons and made them a part of her life. Isn’t that what we parents hope for?

Despite her mature and responsible behavior, Bea is still Bea. She will still shout excitedly at the television when a cheeseburger appears onscreen. Her favorite iPhone app is one in which she can bake digital cookies, decorate them, and eat them with taps of her finger. She asks to stop in one food establishment or another every time we walk anywhere. When I asked her the other day which word in the English language was her favorite, she answered without hesitation that it was
bakery
because she likes “how it sounds and what it is.”

She has not lost her love of food, nor the joy she takes in eating it. She just doesn’t do it quite as much. She told me recently that she had a dream about ice cream. But in the dream, the ice-cream menu featured calorie counts.

I’m happy to say she still has her belly. The belly she got from
me. The belly she used to suck in as she stood in front of the mirror. The belly she still professes to dislike. The belly I love to hug. It’s a reminder she isn’t “perfect” by the unnatural standards of our culture, as reflected everywhere from
Vogue
to Nickelodeon. It is a delicious, sweet, evolving symbol of her struggle and her determination.

It’s also a reminder of the threat she lives with every day. The looming possibility that she could easily become an unhealthy weight again. It’s a reminder to me that I still need to protect her. Sometimes that means refusing to let her make a choice that’s bad for her. Increasingly it means letting her make her own choices and hoping for the best. I will eventually have to let go. She’s given me lots of reasons to believe she’ll stay on the right track.

Sure, I fantasize about a future in which an adolescent Bea grows six inches in a year and suddenly becomes effortlessly, permanently slender. I would love for her to grow up not having to think about food, not having to be careful about her weight. But I suspect that’s not in the cards. I expect that adorable tummy, like mine, isn’t going anywhere.

And yes, when I look at her belly or hug it, part of me wonders whether it will burden her in the future or become irrelevant, if it will grow or shrink. I wonder if I’ve done my job as a parent or backed off before my responsibility was met. Regardless of the questions, one thing is beyond doubt: I love that part of her. I love all of her. I wrap my arms around her as she lies next to me, tucked into the curve of my body. I grasp her belly in my hands and pull her close.

The Heavy
is my first book. The fact that you are holding in your hands an actual published volume is thanks to the efforts of many talented, intelligent, supportive people who helped me through the process.

Thanks to David Kuhn, Jessie Borkan, and the staff at Kuhn Projects for making this dream come true, and to Grant Ginder for his hard work getting this project off the ground.

Thanks to those who provided information, opinions, or stories that became part of the book: Mary Bing, Carol Blanco, Robin Frank, Milton Heifetz, Kim Martin, Steven Tuber, and Danielle Adler Witchel.

Thanks to the trusted, smart friends who gave me their honest and endlessly helpful insights on the text: Hilary Hatch and Nina Chaudry.

Thanks to Erik Kahn for legal reassurance, the Ballantine art department for the delicious design, Amelia Zalcman for legal vetting,
Penny Haynes for production, Priyanka Krishnan for editorial support, Quinne Rogers for online marketing guidance, and Benjamin “Mindy” Dreyer for attending to all the details.