weight_watchers_for_kids neoncrackle my therapist calls them "teflon moments" when i will mention an absolute travesty or horror from childhood with the same level of ceremony i'd mention an old commercial i remember remember BFS foods? also my stepmom put me in WW when i was 11 did you ever have polly pockets? my step-sister had the exact same name as me & was routinely held up as a golden example of how i should be so much so that when she passed from overdose some years back now my parents had shit-talked me so widely that many assumed it had been me were shocked to see me out & about when i tried to go to the dentist they had deleted my records assuming it was me who'd died i didn't go to the dentist again for 16 years when i went back i only had one cavity despite years of food hoarding & a sweet tooth that my therapist calls a defense mechanism the natural response of an inner child who lived through constant denial & food insecurity upon regular insecurity i wore a winnie-the-pooh shirt to my first WW meeting none of my parents congratulated me on my relatively stellar dental health when i finally went to the dentist last year afterwards i bought a tub of storebrand vanilla frosting just to keep in the pantry just in case 220314 ... epitome of incomprehensibility They offer that to children?? It seems a dangerously narrow focus, equating health with weight, especially for a kid. There's so much potential for harm: loss of confidence, self-doubt, even setting people up for eating disorders. That little rant over - and I'm probably preaching to the choir - I love your sense of juxtaposition. It doesn't just speak to personal resilience (that too!) but also a great poetic voice. Also, I DID have a Polly Pocket! (being obsessed with tiny things as well as Antarctica) 220314 ... neoncrackle omg antarctica! i was obsessed with siberia. it's funny how we fixate on things like that as kids & become so interested/invested in them. like how so many of us had dinosaur phases, unicorns, etc. or were really into ancient egypt. 220315 what's it to you? who go blather from