by Maria Brogna

Created on: May 20, 2009   Last Updated: May 29, 2009

In society today weight seems to be more of an issue than ever before. The evening news is filled with exposes on proposals of city and state officials to make watching weight not only an individual issue, but an educational one as well. The stress this creates on parents and children is unmeasurable. Economics, safety and over all care seems to be taking a back seat to the growing problem of government and society taking action on how an individual's physique is maintained. With the growing numbers of undereducated people constantly taking the advice of the television, would it not follow that society grips on to the illusion that if a person is overweight they are in someway deficient or bad? This myth enters minds and then relationships and can tear them down, no matter how solid it may appear.

At 29 years old I became pregnant. I had known the father of my child for 11 years and had been living with him in a committed relationship for the four years before I had gotten pregnant. Being 5'5'' the 40lbs I gained looked as if it were 100lbs. The father of my child didn't complain. I had my son and lost 20 pounds from the birth and hospital stay alone. Though two months later I still hadn't managed to drop any more weight. The doctor assured me it was normal and at my age it would be harder to shed the pounds.

I was happy to have a healthy baby but my boyfriend had other ideas. he began to ridicule me for being over weight. He would come home with take out food for himself and tell me that I was too fat to eat. This was a side of him I didn't even know existed until my weight had become an issue. Not only was he cruel, but his mother as well who would actually say to me, "My son isn't going to like it if you don't lose the weight. There are plenty of thin woman out there that will want him. So if I were you I would try to lose it soon."

I became astonished by the attitude of my boyfriend and his whole family towards my weight gain and how they didn't give any concern to what they said at all. The actually believed by insulting me that I would somehow gain the confidence required to shed the excess pounds that I had gained during my pregnancy. This of course had the opposite affect. Not only did I eat with vengeance, but I began to sneak food, hide food and become obsessed with food. Something that had never been a problem in the past.

Food became something that would make me feel comforted after their attacks and eating became a secret ritual that filled

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