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Overweight Mom Started Daughter on Diet When Girl Was Just 2
Filed under: In The News
A British mom has tongues wagging over the fact that she restricts her 8-year-old daughter's caloric intake -- to the tune of 700 calories per day.
That's 1,000 calories less than a typical child that age should consume on a daily basis. Mom's reasoning? She doesn't want her daughter to be overweight, like she is.
London's The Daily Mail reports that Aly Gilardon's daughter, Corleigh, began a restricted eating regimen when the girl was just 2 years old.
"I don't want a fat child. I'm obsessed with how she looks," Gilardon tells the Mail. "I want her to be pretty and popular and she wouldn't be if she was bigger."
Gilardon, who weighs 17 stone -- about 238 pounds -- admits that Corleigh is now afraid to be fat, and also cops to her own eating disorder. She tells the Mail she began "eating for comfort" at the age of 13, and was a size 20 by the time she was 16. She now wears size 22.
While her 8-year-old typically eats wheat cereal for breakfast, salad and half of a roll for lunch, and a baked potato for dinner, Mum serves herself chips, fries, pizza and cheesecake. After Corleigh goes to bed, Gilardon says she stuffs herself with junk food.
As if that wasn't enough, Gilardon also says she'd rather see the child develop an eating disorder than get fat, and that she's glad that she "trained" the girl early.
"Getting an eating disorder like anorexia would be preferable (to being fat)," she tells the newspaper. "I feel some guilt about having treats, but Corleigh's not bothered. I'm glad I've trained her. I want her to grow up happy and do things I never did."
Gilardon tells the Mail she doesn't want the girl to be "fat for life" and adds, "Corleigh's not so underweight that she's going to die next week."
A recent home visit by a nurse revealed the child is five pounds underweight, but is otherwise healthy, the Mail reports.
Experts are aghast and say restricting the calorie intake of children with normal body types is dangerous, both physically and mentally.
"Her immune system will suffer, her growth may be affected, puberty will be delayed and there will be a risk of osteoporosis as well as mineral and vitamin deficiency," Christian Jessen, a doctor on Channel 4's Embarrassing Bodies, tells the Mail. "More worryingly, from a psychological point of view, this could trigger severe anorexia that could ultimately kill her."
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-21-2010 @ 2:26PM
LillieFaerie said...Re-educate mother or remove the child from the home. What will happen is that her thyroid will go heywire and she'll get fat anyway. Fix the mom, save the child. I could eat 10,000 calories daily and not get fat. My kids were all thin, no fat, could eat what they want. My grandchildren no fat either. Later in life, I gained weight, thyroid issues, my kids as well. Starvation diets are just plain stupid, stupid, stupid. I grew up never weighing 100 pounds, more the twiggy type without ever trying. When you're active, you just are the body type. With starvation-breasts are fat ladies, her child will not have a body. My suggestion is eat, good food. Eat fresh, unblemished food. Eat until you're full and leave the rest. Eat only what tastes great, is fresh, and is beautiulf and healthy. Eat plenty of color. Don't eat what isn't. This has to by a hype column and not something from some rag mag. If it isn't, there's a problem.
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10-21-2010 @ 2:37PM
Lauren said...This article should be enough to have the child removed from that home. What kind of sick person WANTS their daughter to have an eating disorder?
Reply
10-23-2010 @ 6:18AM
Laurie said...i do feel for the kids lets pray and hope the kids are taken away
10-21-2010 @ 6:56PM
Jenni-Anne said...I'm normally not for CPS taking children away except in dire situations but this...this is just disgusting and beyond dangerous. Physically, emotionally, and mentally.
This mother needs major therapy and psychological help before she kills her daughter.
No eight year old should worry about their weight, especially when the problem is a mother who can't control her own weight.
I've been fat and I've been thin. At 5'10" I've been as high as 230lbs and as low as 125lbs. It's never washed over to my children though. I can't even imagine how this little girl must feel.
A potato for dinner? Are you serious? I have four kids, and even my youngest who's only four would be sobbing with stomach pains if I only gave her a potato for dinner. My oldest kids would probably end up hospitalized or dead. And my children have always been on the skinny side.
I can't help thinking that this girl probably doesn't get the exercise and play time either. If she was as active as my kids are she'd be a lot more underweight than she is now.
And this kind of reminds me of some kids I knew when I was only 7 or 8. The woman across the street baby-sat for these two little kids who's mother was obese. The children were so thin they looked like they had been sick for two weeks. Every time the mother would drop the kids off she'd have a giant bag of fast food for herself and she'd bring one pb&j sandwich for her kids to share for the whole day. The babysitter of course always fed them more and made sure they at least had a full belly when they left her, but boy, did they hate their mother. They used to tell me she'd put them to bed early just so she could break out her "secret" stash of candbars and gorge herself on whatever she could. She'd make them stay in the car while she went in and got herself food at restaurants. They used to wish they'd get taken away or that their mom would get hurt/sick so they didn't have to be hungry all the time.
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12-05-2010 @ 8:09AM
CC said...Why oh why is she not immediatley removed from the home?
Reply