Heal & Grow with Nickie
Join your host, Nickie Kromminga Hill, and her guests on a journey of personal stories and insights into healing and growth from past and current trauma. The focus is on fostering true connections through conversations centered around vulnerability and authenticity. The goal is to collectively heal and find opportunities for growth, promoting a sense of togetherness.
Heal & Grow with Nickie
48: Size 12
Can the way parents talk about their own bodies shape their children's self-esteem for years to come? Witness the lasting effects of generational attitudes toward body image as I share personal memories from my childhood, like the shopping trips with my mom where her self-criticism left a deep imprint on my own body perceptions. From the pressures of the dance and theater worlds to the suffocating societal standards that dictate our self-worth, I recount my journey to self-acceptance and the liberating realization that our value isn't defined by a number on a tag.
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Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal health or professional advice.
Nickie is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast.
This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.
Hello everyone, I hope you're doing great. Hey, before we start today's episode, I just want to give you a little bit of a content warning that I'm going to be talking about weight today, and if you don't feel like talking about that today, if you don't feel like listening to an episode about weight, you totally get it. Go ahead and skip this one and we'll see you on the next one.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Heal and Grow with Nikki.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, Nikki Kraminga-Hill here we talk about everything Grief, hope, illness, work, family, tragedy, possibilities, fun stuff and not so fun stuff.
Speaker 2:It's all on the table. Let's take a look at our lives and work to heal and grow together. I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1:Hello, lovely people of podcast land, If you enjoy my work. I would be ever so grateful if you bought me a coffee or purchased my book Things I'm Thinking About A Daughter's Thoughts on the Loss of Her Mom. Both of those are linked in the show notes. You could also share my work with others. Share your favorite podcast episode with someone that you love. Share it on social media. I'd love to get some more listeners to the Healing Grows Nikki podcast. Thanks for considering. Hey everyone. So today, as you already know because you made it past, the first disclaimer is, today we're going to be talking about weight and our sizes of clothes and our relationships with our moms and our weight and our sizes of clothes. So, just as another reminder, if that's not something that you're up for right now, no problem, just go ahead and stop this episode and we'll catch you at the next time.
Speaker 1:When I was little, one of my very, very favorite things to do was to go shopping with my mom, and actually, as I grew older, that was one of my favorite things too. We would go into the fitting room and she would try on a bunch of clothes and I would give her my opinion. I was pretty young. I don't think she listens to my opinion or when I was older it was a thing we would do. I would bring in just a heap of clothes and her job was to put them back on the hanger after I was done trying them on. Ooh, I just got a little catch at my throat. Thinking about my mom is making me a little emotional today. At any rate, I was little. I don't know exactly how old. I was Old enough to remember and old enough to hold on to it for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:My mom never spoke highly about the way that she's looked, even when she was her smallest, her tiniest. She never spoke highly of her body. I would always hear about it when we were in the dressing room. You know she'd make noises like oh I'm so fat and how did I let myself go, and things like that, and I didn't understand so I didn't say anything. But I remember one time in particular she was furious with herself because the size that she fit into was size 12. If I remember correctly, she started tearing up that she fit into was size 12. If I remember correctly, she started tearing up that she was a size 12. And she talked about how fat and overweight and ugly. She was as a size 12. And when she got older she stopped smoking and, naturally for many people, she started gaining more weight and she would get bigger and bigger and the sizes would increase, increase, increase. She hated it, she hated herself, she hated the way she looked. She hated that she, in her terms, couldn't control it, that she, in her terms, couldn't control it.
Speaker 1:As I got older, it was very, very difficult to hear those things, but when I was young, I just thought that this was the mom experience. You know, all moms hate how they look and God forbid that I should ever be a size 12, because that is the end of the world. So when I got to size 10, I was like, oh shit, double digits. You know it's next, it's 12. You got to get it under control and I have no idea how old I was when I hit size 10. I just knew that that was bad. That was bad. That was the gateway to the end of your life, essentially. And then COVID came and I happily ate myself silly and I got to size 12. And I couldn't believe how horrible of a person I was, and I definitely got to a size 14, but I wouldn't allow myself to do that, so I never wore the appropriate size clothing.
Speaker 1:I've always been someone who has ebbed and flowed with their weight. I think a lot of us are. But weight is a huge thing in the dancer world and in the theater world and I've always, always been aware of my size and that I was typically curvier than all of the other women in the dressing room. I've always been one of the larger sizes in the dressing room. I've always been one of the larger sizes in the dressing room and it's taken its toll. It's taken its toll. By the way, the average size, the average United States female, is a size 16 right now and this is all just really, really messed me up. And this is all just really really messed me up. Now that I'm a little bit older and I understand myself more and I understand my mom more, I'm kind of over it, like I don't. I wish it would have been different, but it wasn't different. It was what it was and it is what it is. So I know that, like at this one store, I'm a four to six because of vanity sizing and I know, at a different store I'm an eight, but I'm mostly a 10. Hell, yes, I'm mostly a 10, like everywhere else, and I don't think cyber, I don't think dudes have to deal with this, right, like guys are. My waist size is a 34, so I'm a 34. It is not like that for women, anyway 34. So I'm a 34. It is not like that for women. Anyway, I just lost some weight and I'm happy about it because I I worked to make it happen.
Speaker 1:I, when COVID hit, paul and I happily ate. It was wonderful, I do not regret it. We ate and drank our way through COVID, and it was lovely. It was wonderful, I do not regret it. We ate and drank our way through COVID, and it was lovely. It was lovely, actually, and to not have to worry about being on stage or being seen in public that much it was great. But now it's not COVID anymore and now I want to do things like being on stage again and speaking again, and I just I haven't loved the way that I have looked. It hasn't necessarily been so much about the size or about the pounds, but just I haven't loved the way that I looked, and so my goal was to get into some of my clothes that I haven't been able to wear for a while. But during this whole process, this actively slimming down, I realized that I have been dieting my entire damn life, which is so sad to me and I'm just so tired of it.
Speaker 1:And it all started in those dressing rooms when I was a kid and my mom did the best that she could with the information that she had at the time. But now we have new information and we know what happens with our words. We know that children will listen Into the woods, reference anyone, but we know that kids are listening to us all the time. Even if it seems like they're not, they pick up on what we're saying. My mom said things to me like Sorry, you're built like me and not like your dad. Sorry, you inherited my genes and not your dad's genes. Ugh, look at my thunder thighs. You know she would say that after she told me that I was built like her and not like my dad. So if she's got the thunder thighs, I've got them. She's told me you're not built like the other girls, which I think was meant to be comforting, but it wasn't.
Speaker 1:And when she got to size 12 and had a breakdown in the dressing room, I knew then and there, I can never get to size 12, because that means you're gonna have a breakdown in the dressing room, that means you're not lovable anymore. And even though I know that that's not true now, there were many, many years where I did think that it was true. So, mamas and daddies, if you've got kids, especially if you've got younger kids, I beg of you, honor your body and love it the way that it is. Speak positively about your body in public and with your kids. And if you're unable to really feel good about your body right now, like that's okay, I understand that, but don't say anything negative about it in front of your family. Don't say anything negative in front of your impressionable young kids, because that will mess mess them up.
Speaker 1:Paul and I were talking the other day about how our parents describe people by their weight, or they talk about how much so-and-so weighs. Oh yeah, you know Bob, he's the really, really big guy who can't move without a wheelchair. Or have you seen Bobette lately? Wow, she's really let herself go. I don't know if that's a generational thing or what, but stop Stop doing that. There's so much. Your improvement plan includes losing weight. Awesome, good for you. But please be careful about the way you talk about it in front of other people.
Speaker 2:As always, thanks for healing and growing with me today this podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, health or professional advice. I am not responsible for any losses, damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.
