Do women feel pressured into losing weight quickly after giving birth?

Yes

3 of 9

by Kaitlyn Black

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Walking through the grocery store six weeks post-partem with a cartful of healthy groceries-mostly food I cannot abide even to look at, such as raw vegetables, legumes and skim milk-and being assaulted with such headlines on the covers of women's magazines as "LOSE THE BABY WEIGHT NOW-OUR EXCLUSIVE THREE-WEEK PLAN!" or "HOW (insert celebrity) LOST THE WEIGHT!" was not conducive to much confidence regarding my new just-gave-birth figure.

My hubby found it quite gorgeous, glorifying my torpedo-like mammories, watermelon belly, and thunderous quadriceps now run to fat. Despite the effusive praise, all I could see was an elephant wearing a Cursive T-shirt. I cannot deceive you, here-I deplored my new figure. Looking back, now, I realize how silly it was to get upset over something so superficial and trivial, but at the time, it just seemed like the greatest tragedy in the life of Yours Truly.

Prior to pregnancy, you see, I was very active, swimming in college, hiking in my free time, and running when the weather was nice (or even not so nice.) I never measured my portions, I never bothered with overthinking healthy eating, and I enjoyed IHOP with my hubby when the hours we kept were most unholy.

Witnessing the headlines at the grocery store, finding my eyes bombarded with diet ads when I would check my email, and seeing other mothers a third my size with babies not much older than mine was discouraging. I wondered why I hadn't dropped weight faster. Wasn't nursing supposed to make the pounds fall off? They certainly seemed to be taking their time removing themselves from my waistline, even though I was nursing. The book on the first year following birth detailed that I ought to have lost more weight at the point at which I found myself, according to a national average.

"I feel so disgusting," I moaned to my mother one night my husband was working late. My daughter crawled up one great cow udder and cried.

"You just had a baby," said Mom. "It's only natural you should feel that way. See, I was lucky-within a month after having you I was back in my jeans."

I sat, wondering why that didn't comfort me in any way. It was nearly three months out for me, and still no jeans. Sighing, I thought about how I could lose more weight.

It started innocently, naturally; things of this nature tend to as a rule. I measured portions, changed my snacking habits, and took one helping at dinner. I switched from ordinary dessert fare following dinner to breakfast cereals, like low-fat chocolate granola, with skim milk.

By the time my daughter reached the ripe age of five months, I was thinner than I had been pre-pregnancy-and utterly thrilled about it. I felt like the most accomplished mother in the universe when I yanked on size 4 jeans at JC Penney. Purchasing said jeans made me want to do a celebratory jig.

"You look great, especially for having just had a baby!" one woman told me as I pored over titles at the bookstore. I beamed and thanked her. Co-workers joked that they needed to have a baby to share the slight waistline I now donned, and others joked that I had never had a baby, merely adopted one, and my memory had simply played tricks on me. I swelled with pride.

Passing the headlines now made me feel like I had done everything right. I had lost the weight in the appropriate amount of time-four or five months, roughly, when all was said and done, just like the celebrity women who had given birth about the same time I had. And I had done it without a dietitian, trainer, or surgery.

Fall came, my favorite season. I found myself searching for excuses to run, blaming the desire on the want to enjoy the weather. The truth was that I wanted to lose more weight, merely to prove that I could even though I had had a baby. I was a size 4, I reasoned, why not try for a size 2?

Take that, you foolish woman, I thought, remembering the manager who had told me that once I had had my baby, I could kiss my slight figure goodbye. I now have lost more weight having had my daughter. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

"You look just like a model on TV," a customer told me one day as I handed her the change from her purchase. "I can't believe you've had a baby!" I could not have been happier. I was the best mother in the world because I had lost my baby weight and then some, and according to the media, wasn't that what good moms were supposed to do?

Like most good things, this newfound beauty ran completely afoul. I transcended the size 2 and was nearly in a 0 when it truly began to turn on me. It happened gradually, and looking back, I can't quite pinpoint when it effectively went bad. The fact is, however, that it did-and tremendously so.

I became obsessed with losing weight, because eventually, I grew more and more frightened of my walrus-sized post-pregnancy jeans gathered from a thrift store. Every chocolate bar my husband tried to ploy me with threatened to bring them out of the closet where they rightfully caught dust. Thoughts unbidden entered my head, such as, "There is no excuse not to lose the baby weight. Not losing it is disgusting," or "Why hasn't that gross woman lost her baby weight? How can she not notice all of the magazines detailing how unhealthy it is not to do so?"

I had, until that point, NEVER judged another according to weight or appearance. It had never mattered to me. When the thoughts came, they horrified me-and I banished them, only to find that they continually returned. What was wrong with me, and what in God's name was I becoming? I wondered sometimes.

I grew shaky and numb, forgetful and unable to concentrate. I could barely carry my sixteen-pound daughter down the stairs to the car. Wiping the glass display cases at work became a Herculean task. All I ever thought about was food. Desperately, I waited until I could eat again, and once I had finished whatever tiny bit I had allotted myself, I waited still more until the next small meal. I hated my hunger. Hunger would only lead to the post-pregnancy size huge. I never wanted to deal with that again. I had lost the baby weight, and I would keep losing, because societally, I was applauded for it.

My husband studied me one day. "You know, you're getting awfully skinny. My friends have even said some things about it."

"No, I'm not," I snapped, "I'm not even near my goal yet."

"What's your goal, to look like Lara Flynn Boyle?" he returned just as snappishly. "You know, you're not far off. But at least you're still reasonably attractive, let's keep it that way, all right?"

"No," I hissed, and poured myself a glass of water to forget my longing for more food.

My husband started employing other methods, such as bringing home some of my favorite lunchfare, such as pineapple chicken from Stir Fry 88, broccoli cheddar soup and chicken pesto wraps from Roly Poly, pizzas from Arris'. When he would take our daughter to his mother's to be babysat while I worked, I would take the food which I claimed I would eat later, stick it in plastic bags, and throw it in the dumpster outside where he wouldn't discover my transgressions. I threw the empty containers in the trash, hoping it would look like I had eaten the food.

One Sunday night, I called to tell my hubby that I would be running after work. He pleaded with me to come home and share pizza with him. I told him there was no way I was going to come home and eat pizza without running first.

Something about his tone, however, made me think as I deliberated outside the mall in my running shoes, hesitating to take off. I seemed to be far too preoccupied with my weight, I thought, could this be a real problem, not just a desire to shed some pregnancy pounds?

The thoughts plagued me until my mother's visit the following weekend laid my terrible habits bare. "Oh, my GOD," she said the second I walked inside my house from work, "you are so thin. You don't have boobs anymore. Seriously, where's your butt, even?"

I stood speechless, unsure how to respond. My husband supplied an answer. "THANK YOU!" he cried, imploringly looking at my mom. "Please keep telling her that! Nothing I say works!"

"That's it, we're going out to eat," said my mother in the manner of a stern matriarch, "you need the calories. We're getting ice cream afterward. And I don't want to hear a single word about what those stupid magazines you keep reading say."

Ice cream is my favorite. I can't even begin to tell you how much food I consumed over that weekend. I was utterly ravenous-and once I started, I couldn't stop stuffing my face. Frankly, it felt and tasted delicious.

Within a few weeks following Mom's visit, I found myself talking to a counselor. These talks led me to the scary truth that this experience is hardly unique to myself, like I feared it was. The counselor told me point blank that she saw many new mothers who had followed the same frightening path that I had.

"Heaviness is considered the most heinous thing of all when it comes to looks these days," she told me, "with the exception, maybe, of age. Magazines don't bother to consider all of the details when it comes to weight brought on by childbearing. Diets make a lot of money off of new moms, I'm suspicious they target that crowd for that reason."

"It seems like there are plans meant to get rid of pregnancy weight everywhere," I conceded.

"Well, there are," she told me. "Unfortunately, younger moms like yourself are often particularly susceptible."

I sighed. "I just wish it didn't seem so important to me."

It turns out, I learned, that it's important to a lot of women to look beautiful, and looking beautiful is frequently acquainted with looking thin. After giving birth to a child, a woman's body undergoes unthinkable changes, particularly when it comes to weight. Even to this day I still carry my weight differently than I did before having my baby. Thinking that this story with which I have regaled you pertains only to me would be a lie. Speaking on it to a close friend enlightened me to the fact that a college friend of hers who had had a baby also bemoaned her post-partem body. A friend from work told me she didn't want to have children because she didn't want to get fat. My ob-gyn told me that so many women that came through her office for their check-ups wouldn't even look at the scale, and would cry if they were told how much weight they gained.

I feel very strongly that women are pressured unduly to lose weight gained through pregnancy. It's perfectly fine, and healthy, to lose the weight naturally and over a gradual period of time, but not with the rapid sense of urgency the magazines and television spots push. And if those last ten pounds don't come off, does it really matter that much? I saw many articles about the last ten pounds during my bout with unhealthy dieting habits.

The fact is that those first few years with a new baby are such a beautiful time, and that pressure to lose weight so often uglies that time. Perhaps it's time the media rethought pregnancy weight and how quickly women should lose it, particularly celebrities who hold tremendous sway over the youth of this country. Not everyone cares that much, naturally, but we do have to remember that many do, and the pressure can lead them to do some very dangerous things to themselves. Considering the personal nature of these things, they frequently are left unsaid, and therefore might not seem so prevalent a problem as it definitely is.

Long live the embracing of the beauty of childbearing... even if it means taking up to a year or more to lose all those pounds!

(FYI: I did not mention the names of magazines because I did not want to give them a bad name or demonize them in any way.)

Learn more about this author, Kaitlyn Black.
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