There was the scene on the roller coaster when the bar wouldn't close and she had to get off again with the protesting child. There were the beach days that were canceled because she didn't want to show up in a swimsuit. But there were also the sandwiches and birthday cakes, which were nowhere healthier than with the Muijsers family.
“I always had the pressure to be a particularly good mother because people didn’t trust me to be a mother,” says Jolyn Muijsers. At her heaviest, the 44-year-old from Flensburg weighed 140 kilograms. When a child whined on the bus, she sensed exactly what the passengers were thinking: "I have no control over my weight, so I have no control over my children either."
“Weight stigmatization”
Frankfurt scientist Judith Pape-Greif from the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Fra UAS) is researching parents with high body weight. How do they experience what Pape-Greif calls “weight stigma” and how do they deal with it? Pape-Greif interviewed six mothers and four fathers for her dissertation in the field of social work. Jolyn Muijsers was one of them.
She was born in the Netherlands, studied psychology and education and works as an equal opportunities officer at a university. Her sons are now 15 and 17 years old and - like her husband, with whom she has been together since school - are tall and slim. Her parents were also of normal weight. She attributes the fact that she gained a lot of weight early on to a traumatic experience as a young girl. “Being thin is not an achievement, being fat is not a failure,” says the 44-year-old, who at times only weighed 85 kilograms.
Talk to fat parents instead of about them
Pape-Greif approached her topic using a method that is rather unusual in science: she simply let people tell the story. “A lot is said and written about fat parents - I wanted to talk to them and not about them,” said the 35-year-old, who went on parental leave after completing her dissertation. Next year she wants to publish her work as a book.
After the interviews, Pape-Greif looked for commonalities in the stories. She discovered “a wide range of experiences,” but also “many common experiences of exclusion.”
“Parents with high body weight are under special observation,” she summarizes. “Their parenting and caring skills are often questioned because of their body weight.” This puts particular pressure on these parents to meet social and moral standards of good parenting.
Am I embarrassing the children?
This pressure also weighs on Jolyn Muijsers: “I always wanted to be the best mother.” Her high weight bothers her because it limits her everyday life with the children. She can hardly keep up on bike tours and when they finally get to the top while hiking, the boys want to go back down.
But what bothers her even more is the way others look at her weight - especially that "overweight is equated with being underclass." At parents' evenings, she asked herself whether she should go "or whether the children would be ashamed of me."
At the pediatrician, she had the feeling that she was particularly responsible for her children's weight: if the children had been overweight, it would certainly have been their fault, she believes. Since they were thin, he accused her of eating all the candy herself and leaving only the paper for the children. The fact that it was meant as a joke didn't make it any better for her.
Parenting “despite” being overweight
“In addition to open experiences of discrimination, the respondents also report an increased pressure to justify their parenthood,” the researcher summarizes another constant in the reports. Body weight is perceived as a lack of attractiveness. If they had children, it would be “despite” their weight. Overweight people often see having a family as “proof of their own normality”.
Jolyn Muijsers and her husband have known each other since school. For a long time she had doubts that he would like her “despite” her weight. After two and a half decades of relationships, marriage and two children, this should be proven enough, but “Weight is a big factor. Not for him, but for me." She has just lost 30 kilos. She bought a racing bike and is determined to at least maintain the weight.
