I remember specifically how, whenever there was stress in the household, my mom would try to soothe me with food.
Anything could happen, conflicts, work stress, tension in the home, and suddenly we would have food on the table.
To this day, I still remember it was an evening at home and my mom had served me a tomato and feta cheese sandwich with a warm glass of milk before bed in the evening after a stressful day.
I vividly remember the setting of my parents being stressed and me sitting with them eating that sandwich.
Behind The Weight Struggles
The real root cause of my excess weight in childhood was a deep feeling of never being enough for anyone.
I had this huge sentiment that I never belonged anywhere and wasn't good enough for anyone, especially at home.
Coming from an immigrant household, integrating into a new country and making new friends was very difficult for me. I was bullied because I was overweight and quiet, and kids picked on me very easily.
At home, my parents were unfortunately too busy trying to provide for us in a new country. They never really had the time to care about how I was feeling or whether I was doing well.
Because of that, I never fully felt like I belonged, even in my own family.
How Family Dynamics Shaped My Eating Habits
I grew up observing different kinds of addictive patterns in my family. Patterns that were very closely tied to emotional coping mechanisms that nobody in my family was aware of at the time, and that many still struggle to understand to this day.
Coming from an Eastern European family, there was a lot of drinking and smoking in my environment. And especially, a lot of eating.
Emotional eating was something many people around me struggled with, and therefore it became something I ended up struggling with myself.
Not to mention the stress of seeing my parents fight to provide for our family.
My father was flying out for work for most of the year. My parents had to either keep two jobs or go to school while working under the table in the beginning.
Thinking back now, those things really played a role in increasing the stress in our household environment and pushed me more and more toward coping with food.
How Struggling With Food Held Me Back
I'm now able to see that struggling with food prevented me from having a lot of childhood experiences every child should have.
Things like not being bullied, having a nice group of friends, going to play at friends' houses, having other kids come over to my house, or even being able to play on a sports team. Any sport.
That struggle with food made me feel like I didn't belong with any group of people. It made me assume that nobody really liked me.
So I naturally gravitated toward video games instead for socialization and belonging.
But when you look at it, that didn't really help me with my food struggles. Instead, it pushed me much deeper into hiding away from the things that caused me emotional pain, instead of learning how to address them, as every child should.
This also held me back into adulthood.
Despite being capable and smart enough to navigate the world, I lacked the opportunity to learn soft skills like communication, empathy, and how to bond with others.
That held me back from getting better job opportunities, forming relationships, and even doing many basic things that involved communicating with people.
Why I Joined Step Together
I joined Step Together because the second I heard about the company and what it was doing, my entire life flashed before my eyes.
I felt like there was nothing more beautiful than being able to offer other children the opportunity to avoid all the pain I had personally been through as a child.
And to help them grow into the healthy and confident adults every child should be able to become.
There is nothing more meaningful than helping parents offer that gift to their own children.
Decades of my life, my childhood struggles, family struggles, emotional struggles, the things I went through as a child, and even the things I was still going through in adulthood that never got addressed, all of it could now be put to use to help other children.
Why do anything else at this point?
Children are the future. Children are tomorrow.
And I believe the greatest investment and duty we have as human beings is to invest in the greater good of tomorrow.
Invest in the children.
We all want children to become the best possible version of themselves, and ideally get to a point where our entire society doesn't have to go through as many struggles as we are currently going through.
To add to that, I really love helping families throughout the entire process, in all aspects of their journey.
It's extremely rewarding for me whenever a family has a realization about a certain aspect of their child's life that has been a certain way forever, and then they realize it may actually be one of the root causes of their child's excess weight.
What Makes Step Together Different
What makes Step Together different is that we're doing something deeper than just giving families a general plan that is supposed to work for everyone.
We work with people to really understand them and meet them where they're currently at in their lives.
We help families recognize what parts of their child's environment may be causing them to struggle with weight, and then help them navigate those exact challenges without shame, pressure, or guilt.
How My Unique Experience Helps Families
This is a funny one because I come from a background in engineering, which most people would normally think has nothing to do with weight loss.
But in a way, it does.
Having a highly analytical mindset, coupled with my own personal experience of being overweight and being raised in a family where people struggled with weight, helped me develop a natural ability to recognize behavioral patterns that lead to weight gain in children.
It also helped me understand how those patterns can be overcome and reshaped.
On top of that, I have a certification in Nutritional Therapy and have successfully helped multiple families help their kids lose weight.
What Most Parents Misunderstand About Food and Weight
Most parents misunderstand the real drivers behind their child's weight.
Too often, parents focus on the child's behavior around food and try to address that behavior directly.
The child eats too fast at dinner, so the parents say, "Stop eating so fast."
The child eats second portions, so the parents say, "You don't need a second portion."
The child puts on weight, so the parents say, "You've been gaining weight. You should really stop eating so much."
But what most parents misunderstand is that the real thing they should be asking is: why does my child act this way?
Is it because they're anxious about something at school?
Is it because they feel shame about their own behavior around food?
It could be many things.
But overall, the biggest misunderstanding is that the food and the weight are never the real things to focus on. There is always a deeper root cause somewhere, and it is usually a blind spot.
The biggest mindset shift families need is to stop seeing the food as the problem, and start seeing it as communication.
A child's eating habits are often trying to tell us something.
They may be telling us that the child is anxious, bored, lonely, overstimulated, ashamed, disconnected, or looking for comfort.
When parents shift from correcting the behavior to understanding the reason behind the behavior, everything changes.
The One Message I Want Every Parent to Remember
Always question why your child acts that way.
Is it because they've learned to deal with anxiety by snacking?
Do they go to the pantry because they're bored and would rather spend more time socializing or doing other activities?
Never tell the child that what they're doing is wrong.
Instead, take the time to ask how they're feeling when you see them go to the pantry. Invite them into a conversation. Go play a game with them outside.
That time spent with them will have a lot more positive impact than simply telling them not to grab that extra snack.
