This is the story of a 14-year-old overweight teenager who is sent to boarding school abroad because his parents are ashamed of him. , mais il réussit grâce à sa détermination à maigrir afin de regagner l’amour de sa mère…Alone and in the face of adversity
He succeeds thanks to his determination to lose weight in order to regain their love. The story that I will tell you today is certainly one of the most moving and exemplary regarding childhood obesity. It is the story of a very brave young boy that one of my French friends told me about that traumatised me. She knew a French expatriate couple who had two little boys. The eldest was 14 years old who had a younger brother who was ten. My friend had been dining at their home one evening, and had witnessed a very uncomfortable scene. This young man of 14 years was not loved by his parents because he was fat and did not look like his little brother, who was slender and very beautiful. When the young man said something at the table, both parents would start to reprimand him, to disrespect him and during the dinner had not ceased to scold and insult him about his weight. His parents had sent him to boarding school in France and he was only coming back for the holidays. The mother had repeatedly called him “fat” during the meal and my friend was outraged and very sad. At the table my friend told the story of Smart and Light and asked the Mother if she could accompany him to to see me, the Mother agreed but insisted on coming also. When they arrived the boys Mother continued to label and insult her son in front of me so I asked her and my friend to return at the end of the session and leave me alone with her son. I was worried that if I made the slightest remark she did not like, she would have taken him away and I could not have done anything to help him but she agreed. The teenager was deeply sad about his life. He felt lonely and abandoned, he missed his family, and the boarding school was like a prison and a punishment when he felt he had done nothing wrong. He was very gentle, intelligent, neither sullen nor weird, nor violent, nor badly brought up. A normal teenager of his generation just very unhappy.
I explained the programme to him but I did not know how he was going to organise himself at boarding school, and I strongly doubted the cooperation of his Mother to inform the boarding school of the requirements he would need for the programme. He constantly reassured me that he was going to get by and that I should not worry, to trust him. I was amazed by his strength of character and I believed him.
He went back to boarding school and in 5 months he lost 20 kilograms, organised himself and managed as he had promised, on his own. He saved himself by the strength of his will and his courage because he wanted to show what he was capable of to his parents and to himself. He succeeded because he no longer wanted his parents to treat him as that “fat child” and to look at him, as they looked at his Brother. This boy had lost his weight to be told, finally, that he was loved and not to have to spend another five years in boarding school, in his prison. I am infinitely proud of him. I often quote his example to my clients, because to fend for himself as he did, at his tender age, in a situation that was his alone, I can only say, so can you.
You too can think of this little boy and in what circumstances of life and disenchantment he won in the face of such adversity …
Obesity is now considered a pandemic on a global scale, but the facts about obesity are frightening, worse still for childhood obesity. We should all be aware of it and not react like this boys parents. Love is always the best way to reach out … I taught this boy to lose weight without dieting, eating healthy foods at will, and all parents should be aware of what is needed to help an overweight child before making the same mistakes.
If you want to know more about the rejection and discrimination of overweight: http://voyonslarge.be/Le-rejet-du-surpoids