Losing Weight for the Worst Reason

While she talked about the new park by our neighborhood school, I mentally mulled over gastric bypass vs some sort of hard-core Atkins regimen vs master cleansing vs drugs. And, just when I was reminiscing about the girl I knew in college who lost twenty pounds over a three-week Christmas break by taking speed, this mom says to me, “It’s just been a hard summer. We haven’t had any money.”

She went on to tell me how her husband got laid off from his last construction job back in the middle of May and she hasn’t been able to find steady work either. They’ve been getting by on unemployment.

I asked her whether she’s applied for food stamps and she told me that she tried but she’s had major problems filling out the paperwork, missed some sort of deadline and got discouraged. I have no idea how to apply for food stamps so I was as good as useless as far as advice goes. We kept talking and as I listened to her share a bit more about what their financial difficulties have been, I started to form another opinion about why she’s lost so much weight.

Without my asking, she smiled as she said, “You see how thin I am? It’s the thinnest I’ve been my whole life. It’s because I give all the food to my husband and my kids.”

I can’t tell you how glad I was that I didn’t say, “Oh my gawd! You’re sooo thin! You look AMAZING!” when I first saw her. This was no situation where someone’s trying to lose some pudge just to look better or fit into a smaller size of clothing. Far from it. She’s not eating because she’s giving all the food she has to her four children and her husband … and she’s probably too stressed to eat anyway.

We talked for a few more minutes and then I told her to take care of herself. She assured me that she was going to go to some food banks or churches for help. And then we said goodbye.

Sadly enough, now I find myself wishing that I could hear how she’s lost the pounds because she’s given up carne asada for tofu, or because she’s eating salads every day. But in this economy, that is not to be.