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[quote=Anonymous]I was slightly overweight from late elementary school through most of high school but always had a pretty healthy self-image and am much more fit now than I was as a kid.

My parents set a healthy model for me and did not focus on my weight. We ate healthy at home (thank goodness, or I think I would have weighed much more!) and I remember my mom encouraging me to join her for walks and pushing me to play a sport in high school. In retrospect, she might have been pushing those things to help me stay a healthy weight, but at the time, I just thought she wanted company and thought it was important that anyone (regardless of weight) be active. Later in high school, when I chose to join weight watchers and a gym, it was very much my own doing -- even though they could have easily covered the costs, they made me pay for at least some of them, which I think helped me take ownership for my own choices and health. They encouraged me with complements, but I never had the sense that their opinion of my self-worth was in any way tied to my weight.

I remember my dad commenting on how pretty I looked often - I believed those compliments were sincere and took them to heart. I also distinctly remember my mom telling me around age 10, when I was struggling with recent weight gain and a close-in-age sister who was tiny and adorable, that she (my mom) had to shop in the 'big girls' department as a kid. In retrospect, I think that might have been a lie, but at the time it made me feel better about myself and that being a bit overweight as a preteen did not predetermine that I would be overweight as an adult.

I grew up into an athletic adult with a healthy self-image (I'll never be super skinny, but am a healthy weight) so I guess those things worked [/quote]

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