Dear Kyna,
I had a conversation with one of my colleagues yesterday.
She has a body issue. She weighs less than 55kgs and still thinks she needs to lose 10 more kgs.
Apparently her mother has always told her that she has to be skinny, very pretty and appearance is the most important thing. Although when that means her daughter develops an eating disorder.
So I paused there..
Then I reflect at the way my mother – your grandma – raised me.
I was born a healthy normal baby. When I was 3 months old I weaned myself off from breastfeeding because your grandma was already pregnant again with your twin uncles. So she started to fed me other foods – lots of them – due to the fear that I wasn’t getting enough nutritions. I was on a constant vitamins until I turned into chubby, fat toddler.
This overfeeding comtinues until high school and I hit 85 kgs at my peak.
Then due to stress, I started to develop a combination of serious gastric problem and eating disorder. I threw up everytime I ate – that was when I stopped eating rice. During college years, I gradually lost my weight until I reached 53 kgs at my low. I was skinny back then – it’s very easy to feel my hipbone.
Then I dated your dad and started working for Accenture. I was happy – very happy, then I started to eat more and more and more. 5 years later I’m back to my 70 kgs weight. I didn’t look very fat because I still exercise.
During my pregnancy I gained 21 kgs and I’m now at 81 kgs, really fat and I need to cut down my food consumption as soon as I finished breastfeeding you.
Let me tell you this, girls will always have body issues, concerns for not appearing attractive. I know that at one point in your life, you will develop this kind of thinking. I won’t blame you, kid.. It is normal.
But what I want you to know that you don’t need to fuss about it.
I’ll work with you to find the healthy ways for you to maintain balanced body weight.
I promise you I won’t overfeed you. I promise you I will send you to swimming classes, basketball classes, football classes, martial arts, anything that makes you fit and active. I don’t want you to turn into an overweight toddler, just like me. I don’t want to instill unhealthy lifestyle and junk food regime that my parents put me through.
But I’m asking you for one thing, don’t look at magazine and assume you have to be as skinny as the supermodels. That’s my daughter, is not healthy. We’ll figure out your healthy weight based on your age and height, but I don’t want you to be stressed about it.
It’s okay to have a few fat tissues, afterall you need fats to function as a proper human being.
And never forget that I love you mp matter what, fat or skinny, short or tall, tan or fair, short hair or long hair, whatever.. Because you’re my daughter and I would give up my world just to make you happy.
See? You’re not fat at all 🙂
Mommy loves you very much Kyna!
Hugs,
Mommy
Letters to Kyna 