The Rules

They were about bread and horizontal stripes (don't eat, don't wear), and black (be generous with it, it could only help). The rules permeated our home, my life.

My mother had a fat child and didn't like it. I loved to eat the very things she thought taboo; the words "bread and potatoes" were a sort of mantra in our home, but used as a warning: she hated the idea of bread and potatoes on the same plate. Together, they held the evil potential to make you elephantine, corpulent. Unfortunately, it was those very things that I loved most.

"Slenderizing" was a Waldman buzzword, too. If something wasn't "slenderizing," it was, by default, fattening. This included whitee clothes, back pockets on jeans (which made your butt look even bigger), and too many bananas.

These days we eat just about everything we want. I haven't had the nerve to make a bread and potato casserole yet, but I believe in eating what we want, as long as we are wise about it. There is no secret or magic to a healthy weight. Only smartness and sense.

I have a history of eating disorders; I don't want my daughter to end up the same. I try very hard to instill in her a sense of what is healthy, rather than put up rigid rules. But the girl can sure put away the pasta. I feel like the spaghetti police.