Free The Heavy by Dara-Lynn Weiss Page B

get only one. David would have a full-size bagel, while Bea got a mini. He’d have pasta, she’d have only vegetables.
    The obvious truth was, of course, that she needed to lose weight and he didn’t. They both knew that. And connecting food intake with weight gain and loss is a reasonable life lesson. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less. But when you’re hungry and you love food and your brother’s plate has twice as much food on it as yours does, that answer isn’t entirely satisfactory. It explains the reasoning but doesn’t address the unfairness.
    Sometimes I’d hide behind science and say, “Because you have different nutritional needs.” Sometimes I’d try to make it sound like she didn’t really get less food: “Dave only eats half of what we give him, so you end up eating the same amount.” And sometimes I’d pass the buck and say, “Because the doctor says you can eat that much, but David gets a little more.” I was happy to have someone to put the blame on, since otherwise I was usually absorbing all the resentment.
    Whatever I said, though, Bea was right. It wasn’t fair.
    I relocated my extra dinner green light to earlier in the day so that my plate looked identical to Bea’s. And my husband received double what we did. That way, I could ally myself with Bea and share in the unfairness she felt. The same way she looked at her brother’s plate, I could point to Jeff’s plate.
    “I wish I could eat what Daddy does, but I can’t,” I commiserated.
    “If you eat like me, you’re going to look like me,” her dad teased.
    “I’m eating the same amount you are,” I told her. “I know it’s not a lot. But it’s enough. Eat it and see if you’re actually still hungry.”
    She always was. Whereas my body was used to small portions and I could be satisfied after a tiny slider burger or a bowl of soup,Bea’s body still had to adjust. It wasn’t an easy transition, and I heard about it plenty.
    I also went a bit overboard at first, trying to make the program appealing by translating as many green lights as possible into junky, kid-friendly food. That first week, we never exceeded our green-light quota, but processed snacks accounted for three or four of Bea’s ten green lights per day.
    I quickly realized this was my own pathology projected onto her. Bea has a far more varied palate than I do. Sugary snacks, while welcome, are not necessarily superior in her estimation to, say, hummus and carrots. I tried to remind myself of this as I planned out her meals. She didn’t always share my proclivity for indulgence over quantity, and it was incumbent upon me to instill good habits in her. But I would kick myself anytime she asked for a dessert after dinner and I had squandered a green light on some stupid salad dressing that I could have saved for a Skinny Cow ice cream bar.
    I was pleased with how that first week went. There were no major meltdowns, no seismic shifts in how our household operated. All of us had eaten foods we liked, in quantities that generally satisfied us. Bea had been a champ at adhering to the program, eating what I gave her and grudgingly accepting my limit setting when she asked for more.
    The kids and I headed in to see the nutrition doctor after that week. This was the first time they hadn’t had the privilege of missing school for the appointment. They were irked that this nutrition thing was impinging on the first hours of their weekend.
    Are you coming to meet us?
I texted Jeff when he was a no-show in the waiting room. No response.
    I had brought Bea a small snack bar to eat en route to theappointment—something with little weight, so it wouldn’t show up on the scale. I couldn’t bring myself to look as she weighed in.
    “Lost almost a pound!” the doctor announced.
    It wasn’t a huge amount of weight. And secretly I’d been hoping for a full pound loss. But it was a decisive move in the right direction and certainly a faster loss than the