Anna Sue Edwards' Home Page - Huntsville, Alabama

My Journey with Obesity:

A Little Background

I was born in 1948 and remained an only child. From the time I was about 9 or 10, I began to weigh more than I should. I grew up in a dysfunctional home environment where parents argued and bickered a lot of the time. My mother was an excellent Southern cook and when I couldn't deal with the negative circumstances, I turned to food and made it my drug of choice. I grew up in a time when not so much was known about nutrition and the dangers of high fat diets. Her cooking contained lots of butter, margarine, or oil, was often fried, and piled high with lots of good Southern style gravy. She made homemade rolls, biscuits, and cornbread and these hot breads were just sensational covered with lots of butter right as they came from the oven. Vegetables weren't considered edible unless they had been cooked to mush with a big dollop of bacon grease. She made incredible pies and cakes from scratch and the best fried chicken in the world. It was wonderful!

My mother didn't know very much about nurturing me the right way so she did it the only way she knew how - with food. I had significant allergy problems as a child, including both horrible breakouts of eczema as well as asthma. When I was sick, she went all out and cooked up a big feast so is it any wonder that I came to know food as comfort? Talk about "comfort foods", about everything I ate was a comfort food for me.

I not only ate foods prepared in the most unhealthy way, but got to eating large quantities of everything. I developed eating habits over the years of consuming quantities sufficient to numb the pain and often make me drowsy enough to sleep and thus not have to deal with what was going on. My mother's sister was a significant presence in my life also. I practically worshipped the ground she walked on as she was very generous to me. When I would spend a month at a time with her in Mississippi during the summers, she catered to my every whim. If I wanted to go to the pool and swim, she would go and sit with me; if I wanted to go to a movie, she took me. Whatever I wanted, I got. She, too, was a great cook and also nurtured me with food. Living in south Mississippi, she knew how to make some wonderful Cajun dishes and I remember her making homemade cream puffs and chocolate eclairs.

There was just one problem with her; she could also say very hurtful and cruel things. Once when my always-thin cousin was there with me, she and my cousin got to talking about how large my thighs were and got to laughing and making fun, saying they looked like hams. During my teenage years I wore about a size 13 dress; while this is not huge, self-esteem was non-existent for me and my thighs were always a bit oversized relative to the rest of my body. When this occurred, I tried to laugh with them and make light of it off but you can imagine how much hurt associated with that event continued on into my adult life. On another occasion, I got angry with her about something trivial and told her I wanted to call my Mom and ask her to come pick me up. She replied, "If you do, I won't love you anymore. " I would have never told my Mom about these comments because she thought she was somewhere between the Virgin Mary and Mother Theresa and could do no wrong. In fact, I never felt comfortable sharing any emotions with my mother; I knew I might get ridiculed or be treated as if I were making a mountain out of a molehill.

I went off to college in 1965 and, during my stay there, managed to keep my weight to 130 pounds which was pretty good for my 5' 2" height. I married immediately after graduation and the weight started to come back. I had edged up to 150 by the time I became pregnant with my first child. I gained a total of 30 pounds with that pregnancy but had a rough delivery ending in a C-Section and had lost almost all of those extra pounds by the time I went home from the hospital. I maintained that weight for a while but decided I'd like to be lighter when I had a second child. I lost down to 140 and gained 30 pounds again with my second pregnancy. This time the C-Section went smoothly and I only lost about 10 pounds during my hospital stay. However, when I came home, I worked really hard on my eating and eventually lost down to 140 again.

About 2 years later, I was having severe bouts with eczema and the doctor prescribed a tablet (can't remember the name now) for the itching. My marriage was not good, we were extremely low on money all the time, and the medication made me ravenous. When I would go back to the doctor for rechecks, I kept asking him if it could be the prescription but he always said no. On my third visit back, he had a resident-in-training; when I brought up the issue again, the resident commented that that particular drug is used with children who won't eat to increase their appetite! By then, I had gone up to over 180. I never went back to that doctor again!

Over the next few years I edged up to 200 and maintained that for a while. Then, as life got harder, I turned to food bigtime and with practically no attempts to fight my addiction, I went to 275 at the time of my daughter's wedding and to about 306 at my highest. I can at least be thankful that I carry weight well and have never looked like I weigh as much as I do. At 300, I looked more like about 200. Again, much of that weight was in my thighs so was often hidden by skirts or loose-fitting slacks. I became an expert on the best ways to dress in order to look as thin as I could.

I am thankful I grew up in a household where I learned to love and appreciate great food. The problem came when I adopted food as my "drug of choice".