There is a saying that we become our parents. Meaning that the cranky, peculiar, stubborn or fastidious ways that develop as we age are attributed to the behaviors we learned in our upbringing, and that no matter how hard we try to do otherwise, we eventually become the next generation of cranky, peculiar, stubborn or fastidious old people our kids will roll their eyes at.
Less amusing is the fact that we also inherit our parent’s propensity for heart disease, diabetes, obesity and a host of other life-abbreviating conditions. It is this realization that has me quaking (or jiggling) in my XXL extra wide-sized boots.
This year has been a journey towards that realization. I went back home (New Zealand) to visit my mother, to verify her survival with my own eyes. She had undergone an emergency quadruple bypass heart surgery. She came by it honestly - my mum has led a sedentary life, was a heavy smoker, is now diabetic, morbidly obese, has a diseased heart and is still shy of 60. Her first stroke happened like a lightning bolt out of the blue at the age of 46. It should have been a wake-up call. She grew up in a culture that still equates food with love, and every single member of my maternal family for several generations is overweight and diabeti c. It’s our legacy.
I am no exception, and at 36 years of age, this year marks the 30th year of battle with my weight. My first attempt at dieting happened when I was six years old, in response to my Nana’s disgust at my chubby body. Thirty years later, always at the right hand extremities of those height/weight charts, BMI charts, girth-of-your-arm-flab charts and I still haven’t found my ‘ideal’ weight. Thankfully I lead a fairly healthy lifestyle and am not (yet) diabetic, however each passing year the ticking of the bomb gets louder. I am running out of time. How much longer until my first stroke?
I need to
lose weight, to NOT become my mother. I need to
lose weight because I have to defuse this bomb that my name and future on it. I don’t want to become my mother, who 8 months after her surgery is fearfully watching a diabetes-assisted ulcer consume her leg where a small well-healed inch-long scar should be instead. I want to be healthy me, legacy free.
By: Kara , 36 years of age
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