Rochel has always had problems with food.

“For as long as I can recall I’ve had food-related issues” she says. “I was raised in a house with a mother who was absolutely obsessed with food and health.”

Rochel’s mother was so vigilant about health she used to weigh everyone weekly even her husband. Tight control was kept over food. “I had to ask for everything; there was no such thing as taking food by myself even when I was grown!” At mealtimes her mother watched what everyone ate commenting whenever she thought anyone was overeating. “She was always telling me I was too fat that I should stand up straight to look thinner.”

Rochel shows me a picture of herself as a teenager. “The irony was that I wasn’t even fat! But my mother lived in fear that I’d become fat; she was always threatening me that she wouldn’t go shopping with me if I gained another pound.” This threat was never actually carried out but it was enough to put enormous pressure on Rochel.

“My mother kept an eye on all of us but I got the worst of it. On Fridays she would give my siblings cholent to eat but she never gave me any. She felt that I had a weight problem so I couldn’t afford to eat extras. To this day I have a bit of an obsession with cholent.”

This double standard made Rochel feel that her mother loved her thinner siblings better. “I always liked to eat” she recalls. “As I grew up it became a control issue between me and my parents. The food took on new meaning and became tied to many emotional struggles.” In the hopes of keeping their children from gaining too much weight Rochel’s parents took some extreme measures. When cake disappeared from the freezer or leftovers vanished from the fridge her parents would threaten to call the cops in to take fingerprints.

Down a Slippery Slope

Rochel was terrified but that didn’t stop her from bingeing. Her obsession with food led her to take it whenever and wherever she could. “I was once by a friend and they had a bunch of pills that I thought were candy corns. I sneaked a bunch out of the bottle and went to the bathroom to eat them. When I tasted them I realized they weren’t candy so I flushed them down the toilet. Later on they asked me if I knew anything about the medication but of course I denied it. Since it was heart medication I’m lucky no one had a heart attack because of me!”

When babysitting Rochel literally ate people out of house and home. “Some people never noticed. Others would call my mother and ask her what kind of a nutty daughter she had. Needless to say those people never called me back.”

On Friday nights and Shabbos afternoons she’d visit friends. Away from her mother’s eagle eye she would eat large amounts of food. Though she also liked to socialize what she really was after was the chance to eat whatever she wanted.

“I would sulk until they brought out the food. As soon as the nosh was brought out my bad mood miraculously disappeared. Today I look back and I realize something that took years and years of therapy to accept: the fact that food was the one source of unconditional love in my life that was always available.”

There are many messages we send our children about love and food many of them negative. Reflecting on her personal story Rochel feels that mothers should not get involved in older children’s eating habits beyond modeling healthy eating and offering a balanced nutritious menu. “Don’t comment on what they eat. All you are doing is compounding the issue by affecting their self-esteem.”

One thing led to another. Rochel’s desire for food led her to sneak it; sneaking it meant she had to hide what she was doing so she ate in the bathroom and then had to lie to cover it up. Eventually she stopped waiting between milchigs and fleishigs. “If I wanted that chocolate bar badly enough I would eat it even if I was still fleishig.”

The pain she was trying to escape was compounded by the painful guilt of violating halachos. Rochel suffered the terrible pangs of a tormented conscience. When she learned about ben sorer u’morrer in school she thought “Although my teacher said there had never been one I was sure it was me.”

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