Body + Soul 5
her seventies should still want some
rumpy-pumpy with a man much nearer to
her own age is faintly disgusting and rather
embarrassing to many. I think men believe
a naked 70-year-old woman to be a decid-
edly unattractive prospect. Have they
looked in the mirror recently?
I am tempted to post a picture of myself
on Instagram in something brief, black and
sporty because I’m proud of my body, but
I’m not resilient enough for the torrent of
abuse that I’m sure would ensue. Having
just received my first dick pic on Instagram
in a message request, the last thing I want
to do is encourage more of the same. Who
knew? I’ve now adjusted my settings, but it
may take a little longer to get that unat-
tractive image out of my brain. And, sir, if
I were you, I certainly wouldn’t be proud of
that. Oh, what an ingenue I am.
So here I am, off Tinder, working from
home, going to the cinema, galleries, res-
taurants, bars, train trips to the beach — on
my own. I love living in Andalusia but
would love even more to share this fabu-
lous place with a soulmate. I would love to
go out and come home with a companion,
holding hands like lovers, as I witness so
many couples of all ages do. This is a
passionate country made for sharing.
Meanwhile, I drink too much, sleep too
little, relax with great difficulty, spend far
too much time on social media. And my
concentration skills are shot to bits and my
social skills seem to be going the same way.
So what is one to do?
I have decided to pay for it, not by hiring
a male escort, as a friend once suggested,
but by running away and lying down for a
while, unplugged. It was my brother Trev-
or’s message that made up my mind.
“Do look after yourself xxx”
I wanted to scream: “Well, no one else
will!”
I have looked after myself, my family
and my clients — as a creative writing
teacher — for many years and I love it. But
the past few years, as I have aged, have
taken a toll on me physically and psycho-
logically, and to continue the life and
work I am so passionate about I need to
reboot, rejuvenate and, yes, I hate to admit
it — detox. I see my contemporaries facing
uncertain futures because of illness and
debility, and I know I must look after my-
self better. For that I need help.
I need to escape the internet, the 24/
working, escape the daily drinking and ir-
regular eating habits, run away and replen-
ish. Allow someone, somewhere else to
make decisions, feed me, touch me, pam-
per me — a phrase I’ve always abhorred —
and rebuild my self-esteem and my resil-
ience that has been shot to pieces by the
past few years of going it alone. I have de-
cided to pluck up my courage and take my-
self on a wellness retreat, somewhere new
to me and far away, not as a teacher but as
a punter. A taste of my own medicine.
Not to find a man but to rediscover my
inner strength and reconnect with my life
as a sensuous woman, someone who is not
ashamed to find pleasure in touch. A time
perhaps to count my blessings and cele-
brate a bit more what I have, not what I
have lost.
write-it-down.co.uk
GETTY IMAGES; JON ENOCH FOR THE TIMESI think men
believe a naked
70-year-old
woman to be
an unattractive
prospect
The problem was also that I saw people’s
reactions to my child’s weight. Bigger
children get bullied, gossiped about,
sneered at. I saw (or I imagined I saw)
other parents look at my child with pity on
their faces. And those were the kind ones.
So I tried everything. First I tried to under-
stand it. What I did know was that he had
always loved his food. Even as a three-
month-old he used to stare at us all eating
and smack his lips and reach his arms out
as if to grab a chicken leg. He started on
solids pretty early and, of course, I ended
up beating myself up psychologically
about this. Maybe it was my fault because
I’d given him that wallpaper-paste baby
porridge at 16 weeks that kick-started
a lifelong addiction to overeating.
As time went on his appetite just
increased. He wasn’t obese, but he was
noticeably bigger than other children —
wearing clothes in sizes way above his age
group. This continued for a few years.
I tried my hardest to control the food
we had in the cupboards, but however
much I replaced biscuits and crisps with
apples and carrots, I couldn’t control
what was eaten outside the home. Also,
my other three children got fed up
with no “treats” being allowed in the
house. I felt stuck between a rock and
a hard place. And I couldn’t bear his
hurt face when I’d gently intimate that
maybe he didn’t need seconds of
everything.
I now know that wasn’t a good
tactic. As a counsellor to teen-
agers I hear many of them re-
late how shamed they have felt
when parents have suggested
they eat less or don’t have a
second portion of pudding. As
parents we are supposed to love
the entirety of our children.
Why couldn’t I comfort the per-
son who seemed to be eating for
comfort?
So I did more. We went
to the doctor. He said my
son would grow out of it
and that he wasn’t actu-
ally that big anyway.Childhood obesity
is rising. Lucy
Cavendish explains
what she has learnt
Then we went to a specialised NHS clinic
for children to help to support them with
different food choices and encourage
them to exercise. We took up going to the
gym together, then a bit of boxercise and,
finally, a boot camp in Derbyshire. I
think we enjoyed spending time to-
gether, but I didn’t notice his weight de-
crease dramatically.
Then, one day, I just gave up. I realised
that, actually, he was perfectly happy and
that it was me who was worrying. An inner
voice kept telling me that part of it was
about myself and my history with eating
disorders, and I think that’s true. I’d been
so beset by my issues with food and my
body that I was desperate for my children
not to suffer the way I did.
I grew up in a postwar era when parents
served up the sort of tiny, rationed por-
tions of not-very-tasty food that they had
to eat as children. Despite the lack of
edible stuff in my household, I was
anorexic as a teenager. I knew the calorie
content of everything. After I recovered
from anorexia I became bulimic. It was
a horrible way to live.
So I was always determined to be very
careful not to give my children any weight
or eating hang-ups. As my mother once
said: “Don’t make food an issue.” This has
meant that, in the past, I’ve gritted my
teeth as one or other of my children has
eaten their way through large chunks of
chocolate cake or reached into the freezer
for a second ice cream. I’ve kept that man-
tra in my head: “Don’t make food an issue.”
But I am not sure if this has held good
in a world where children just don’t eat in
the way we used to. I was lucky if I got
a biscuit a day. Now supermarket shelves
are bursting with food that doesn’t resem-
ble food at all — bright and shiny and
designed to get children snacking in an
addictive fashion. The sad fact is, there’s
no “normal” when it comes to children
and eating these days.
What I have realised is this: making food
an issue doesn’t help, it just makes a child
feel shamed. Constantly talking about
weight and body shape doesn’t help. Exer-
cising with your child and having healthy
food in the cupboards, and showing them
how to make healthy food choices, does
help. But in the end it has to be up to them.
My child lost weight because, one day,
he decided to change things for himself.
I don’t know if it was an age thing or a looks
thing or whether or not, once he’d gone to
secondary school, he felt more exposed.
All I know is that he started losing weight.
Rather than eating vast quantities of food,
he started going to the gym, playing rugby,
working out. He began to follow people
such as Joe Wicks online. He bought
cookbooks and changed his diet.
He lost weight very quickly — this is the
joy of being young. The gym has become a
daily part of his life. It’s what he does, I
believe, to stay fit, slim and in control. It’s
not that he doesn’t like his food. He con-
sumes twice the amount of the rest of us,
but he keeps in check by working out. He
has found a way through.
I have long since stopped trying to
find out what’s behind it. He has
a grandfather who struggled with
addiction, so maybe there’s a
genetic link that means there is no
“off” button. Who knows. What
I do know is that he is very fit,
very healthy, looks like a Greek
god and makes good choices
about what he eats. He is very
proud of himself and rightly so.
Sometimes when he sees photos
of himself as a child he giggles and
tells us all stories about how much
he loved his food. He just sees it as
something in the past that he
reminisces about, and that feels
pretty healthy to me.25%
of Year 6
pupils are
obese
National Child
Measurement Programme
(NCMP), England2.5m
children
are obese
NHS, EnglandLucy CavendishI
have four children, most of whom
have had weight fluctuations
throughout their lives. This is not
uncommon. I’m 54 and my weight
has yo-yoed all my life. The problem
is that when it comes to our children,
parents feel responsible. We are the
people who feed them after all, and most
children, at a very young age, get their cues
around food and body image from their
parents. So, given this, what do you do if
you think your child has a weight issue?
It’s certainly a growing problem. Figures
released last week by the National Child
Measurement Programme show a rise in
obesity among primary school children.
Nearly half (40.9 per cent) of 10 to 11-year-
olds were found to be overweight or obese.
The NHS has announced that a new
national network of weight-loss clinics is
to open, with the aim of treating 1,
severely obese children each year.
For parents, though, it’s a hugely taboo
subject. Women (and men) can go around
and talk about their bodies and how much
they hate them (or like them) ad infinitum.
We feel “guilty” for eating a dessert. We see
food as the enemy, but we also see it as our
friend. We snack, we binge, we throw up,
we starve ourselves. But what do we do
when we see our children out of control
when it comes to food?
I have a child, now a teenager, who got
very big when he was younger. As I saw
him eat more and more I just didn’t know
what to do. I thought he was eating
because he was upset over his father and
me separating. This made me feel awful
and I’d spend many hours, days, months
trying to work out how to help him. Behind
all this was guilt — and fear.My son was overweight
— was it my fault?