With Love We Lost: When a Determined Mother Tackled Her Young Daughter's Obesity, She Never Expected to Face Judgment by an Intolerable Health System

By Candice M Fearn

Oh thats disgusting the stranger spat, referring to the very overweight
little girl lying in the hospital bed with a deep gash to her forehead.
Havent you ever heard of salad said another.
A tumultuous, judgmental and confronting story about childhood obesity.
Let this story guide you to successful, long-lasting weight loss for your child.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Oct 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781452522968

Candice M Fearn

CANDICE M FEARN has a literary style that was bred from a need to share her story. Candice has not only written this book based on her experiences with her obese child, she is studying nutritional medicine, has a passion for writing, and is currently writing her second book.

Book preview

With Love

We Lost

When a determined mother tackled her young daughter’s obesity, she never expected to face judgment by an intolerable health system

Candice M Fearn

Copyright © 2014 Candice M Fearn.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2295-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2296-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917275

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/30/2014

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Contents

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1   ~ SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS ~ FINDING JUDGEMENT ~

Chapter 2   ~ MY OWN WEIGHT LOSS JOURNEY ~

Chapter 3   ~ LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION ~

Chapter 4   ~ FROM FRUSTRATION TO ANGER TO TEARS. ~

Chapter 5   ~ HAYLEY’S BEHAVIOUR THROUGHOUT THIS ORDEAL ~

Chapter 6   ~ FACING THE PUBLIC ~

Chapter 7    ~ PARENTS IN NEED ~

Chapter 8   ~ FINDING SUPPORT ~

Chapter 9   ~ USING YOUR OWN INNER STRENGTH ~

Chapter 10   ~ ARE CHILDREN BEING EXPOSED AND EXPLOITED? ~

Chapter 11   ~ THE EMOTIONAL ASPECT ~

Chapter 12   ~ THERE IS SO MUCH MORE TO FOOD THAN JUST EATING ~

Chapter 13   ~ EXCERCISE ~

Chapter 14   ~ SMALL CHANGES BIG SUCCESSES ~

Chapter 15   ~ RECIPES ~

Chapter 16   ~ CONCLUSION ~

INTRODUCTION

This is a story of one Mother’s heartbreaking journey to help her daughter lose weight.

A story of hope, vigilance and unconditional love.

My name is Candice & I have a daughter, her name is Hayley. I would like to take you on an emotional journey that Hayley and I have taken for the last three and a half years. You see, Hayley was morbidly obese. At the age of 3, she was so big that she was wearing a size 12 in children’s clothing. She weighed over 35 kilograms; the average weight for a child of the same age is around half that amount. She was very unhealthy and we, as her parents, were allowing this to happen. Not intentionally of course, we love our child more than anything else, what we were lacking, was information from the best source to see us on the right track, but this wasn’t as easy as it sounds.

There were so many ways obesity affected Hayley, not just physically but she had to deal with so much emotionally at such a young age. For example, when we would go out, people would stare and point or comment on her weight. Also, while the other children wore their favorite pretty, modern or licensed clothing, Hayley was forced to wear older clothing that was neither fun nor pretty, she didn’t like to go shopping and pick her clothes because she wanted to wear all of the clothes that wouldn’t fit her like fashionable summer tops or tutu dresses, and she never liked an audience so she would always ask me why people would stare at her and call her names.

She was such a sweet, well behaved little girl, we thought apart from the weight, that everything was ok.

Sure she had some weight to lose and we were on the right track to helping her lose the weight (or so we thought) by feeding her lots of salads and vegetables, giving her low fat products and only allowing three meals and two snacks per day, with the occasional treat.

We would encourage her to walk as much as possible. We would walk to the local park every day, we would also park away from the entrance of large shopping centre’s and walk through the shops but Hayley would become tired very quickly. We opted to put Hayley in the bottom of a shopping trolley as we walked through the shops, purely because she was too heavy for prams. We wanted to view our child as the perfect angel we believed her to be, we knew we had a job to do, but we needed help.

Throughout this book, you will follow our journey, a journey of love, hope and vigilance, yet plagued with judgment, cruelty and sadness. However, this is also a story of success, of continuing and lasting success for a family who are in love with their children. A family who refused to give up on their child. A child who, like any other child, relied on her family to nurture, respect and teach her the tools to grow into a healthy, happy adult.

With love, we lost may give you some ideas to find success with your overweight or obese child. Please seek support if your child is overweight, the earlier you help to change your child’s attitude to food the easier it will be in the end. The judgment that we faced throughout our weight loss journey, in my opinion, is not common. Since I have written this book I have found many, many people from doctors to dieticians to natural health practitioners who were willing to support and guide us with respect and understanding. If you feel your doctor or health practitioner isn’t listening to you or giving you the advice you need, please move on and find someone who will listen to your concerns. Remember, a change in lifestyle may not be easy, but it will be well worth it. From our family to yours, we wish you and your child, continuing and long lasting success.

CHAPTER 1

~ SEARCHING FOR ANSWERS ~ FINDING JUDGEMENT ~

Hayley was 3700g when she was born, she was perfect! Her apgar scores were 10 then 10 again and she was just precious. After waiting 10 years between my last child and Hayley, there was a very special bond right from the start, what could go wrong? Well, I know I can say that I am grateful that Hayley wasn’t sick, but there was definitely a problem.

Hayley started to gain weight rapidly when she was fully breastfed. The weight gain was so much faster than my older two children. While the experts say that in the early months, babies’ weight gain can be a little erratic; this usually evens out to approx. 150g to 200g a week before 3 months and then slows down again at around six months. Hayley’s first official weigh in with the health nurse at our local chemist was at 2 weeks of age and she had gained 655 grams in 13 days. After our initial visit every time I saw the health nurse, Hayley’s weight gain was enough to attract unnecessary attention from the chemist staff, in anticipation to see how much weight Hayley would gain each time. At four and a half months of age, Hayley had gained over 4700 grams, from 4080g to 8750g, fully breastfed. She had been diagnosed as lactose intolerant at 3.5 months so I gave up foods that contained milk and milk products to see if it would make any difference. I had hoped that with a change in my diet, I would be able to keep breastfeeding. I tried a no dairy diet for a month but Hayley was in so much pain, it broke my heart to see her suffer, she would kick her legs in and out and scream for hours while her tummy rumbled & gurgled constantly. By now I felt my only option was to start weaning Hayley off breast milk and onto formula. I would soon be reminded that babies tend to gain more