It was a case study in my Weightloss book, the issue of skinny moms with fat children but now I realize this disorder often goes beyond just being skinny and to the point of actually looking male and losing all body fat.  Surely you have seen them, the fat-free muscle bound, ripped women who work out day and suffer through torturous and unhealthy protein based diets only to end up looking like old breastless men- they hate their femininity and are making themselves sick in the process.  More than that, tragically if they are mothers-who is watching or excuse me, loving and mothering their children while they are doing their thing?  This disorder which is one part OCD and another part feminine disgust is being exploited in the media by male looking work out women such as Jillian Michaels.  Rock hard abs have been clichee-ingly desirable in the States for many years but the “Boot-camp type” fem-soldier appearance is relatively recent.  What causes a woman with a brand new baby to turn her back on her needy new born and devote 50-80% of her waking existence to working out and losing all body fat?

Its NOT Health

Contrary to what these women will defensively tell you, it’s not for health.  The health lie is a cover for their workout addiction. Take for example on-line fitness guru Natalie Jill, she sells fitness program and focuses on inspiring other women to look like her and forego all pleasure and body fat to look like a prematurely aged, muscle bound fembot.  Believing she suffered from a weight problem, her facebook page has a before and after picture to help connect and resonate with other women.  The before picture is simply a heavier picture of herself with a newborn baby (who doesn’t suffer from some weight gain while pregnant?-is this a disorder?) and the after picture is her with a small child clinging to her leg and her muscles are hard, bulbous and buffed out.  Her face, aged from the tremendous stress of weightloss and insufficient adipose layer.  Its shocking on her body, but what shocks me is the amount of positive attention the public gives these types of women for their psychosis.  Instead of looking at them as masochistic capitalists attempting to take mothers away from small children with their faulty health advice, they are looked as important American heroes that sacrifice everything for the ideal American “look.”  I’m not buying it……

Another Case Study

Last year my son had a bully at school, one day as I was taking a walk with my kids my son pointed, “Look, there’s the bully’s mother!”  and there she was… A 90 pound bag of bones woman jogging at a rapid pace with two small children strapped into her jog stroller.  I knew who she was, I saw her pass by every day, she must of jogged about two to three hours a day as would see her pass by again only several hours later.  I often thought about the small children locked inside of her pram prison and how unfair it was for them to be tolerated, managed and baby sat rather than truly cherished.  Don’t get me wrong, a jog stroller is great for a jog or walk once a day-but hours a day border lines as abuse in my opinion.

My confrontation with the mother went as follows, she was visibly annoyed that I stopped her daily jogfest to talk to her about something as meaningless as her other son.  I introduced myself and noticed her two small children about a year in age munching on some sweet poison treats in the pram (this is to keep them quiet and subdued so that she can jog).  She notified me that she had recently gotten remarried and that the middle son that was bullying my son was going through “something” and she would take care of it.  These two small children were the product of the new marriage and there was a bit of a Brady Bunch melting pot going on at her house.  Clearly, I could see her son, whom I was looking at compassionately was very angry with his life and situation- who wouldn’t be!?  To my disappointment, my son notified me a week later that the bullying had stopped because the boy was now drugged and just stared placidly ahead-the mother however, didn’t miss a beat, she kept jogging.

I’m not at all suggesting working out makes you a bad mother, but like most things in our society, man-in his sickness and neurotic nature takes something good and twists it and forms it into something bad.  The healthy work out and diet therefore becomes a one size fits all obsession that hurts the person and those around them.  This is not natural, but indeed in America we can say it has become normal.

So, What’s the Cause and Cure?

Witnessing this disorder over the years among friends and peers while raising my own children, I have made some interesting correlations between fat-free moms and Wilhelm Reich’s research on the role that fat plays in the body as well as, the issue of pelvic blocking and its contributions to post-partum depression.  I am suggesting that women who give birth and then obsessively work out and change their body and diet so drastically is definitely linked to PPD.  You can say positively that at least these women aren’t sitting on the couch feeling sorry for themselves, however, anything that takes you away from the needs and attachment to your newborn is hardly a good thing.  In fact, it only proves how incompetent you are as a mother and that you need to get emotional help and learn how to connect with your child as a mother.

Reich’s research on body fat showed that fat acts as an emotional absorber and that people with less body fat were able to rage and let their emotions out more effectively *(see my book “Beyond Natural Skincare & Weightloss”).  He also explained that PPD was caused by pelvic armor being unconsciously softened and released during the birth process, thereby causing women to deal with deeply repressed issues and rage stored deep within the pelvic muscles without being adequately prepared to do so.  Basically, the birth causes a strong orgonomy treatment that one has not been able to agree to or prepare for.  More than that, in orgonomy, one would never start at the pelvis in therapy-by contrast because of the severity of the psychosis and issues in the pelvis- the pelvis is always the last segment to be treated-only after all the upper segments have been significantly freed up and loosened. * (See my book “Beyond Natural Cures”).

I conclude that women resent their husbands masculinity and their own femininity and repress those emotions in the emotional body by “hardening” their muscles.  This helps them get their mind off of whats “real and ambiguous” and onto their “body, something that is solid and physical”  This is a form of transference and sublimation.  The core feeling of being enslaved by the male by being forced to have the child as a female and giving up and sacrificing their body-is replaced with- I will become the male…but bigger and stronger than my male.  I can only imagine what men think as they watch their wives transform from mothers into super-power she/males.  It must feel immasculinating, to say the least.

Health Issues

Many women whom work out chronically have issues with hormones. Not just from all the protein and soy they eat but because the less body fat you have as a woman the more your hormones, which are stored in the fat-are disrupted.  Estrogen levels become unstable and it is not unusual to lose your menstrual cycle all together.  Furthermore, this will lead to bone density loss, hair loss, loss of breast tissue and premature aging.  It’s not hard to find faces that look at least 10-20 years older than what they are on female body builders.  Dangerous plastic, moldy and bacteria laden breast implants are often the next obsession and emotional necessity for these fat-free women…. This is not the way towards health.

In my own experiences as a mother and woman, I have most certainly felt these same feelings and insecurities at times and these types of issues that kept me from bonding and attaching to my children are what led me to seek out orgonomy treatments myself.  To this day I stand as a woman and child’s advocate.  I want women to feel good and look their best, but never at the expense of their children.  As much as I love women, I will always side with children first.  To this I say, if I offended you with this article- excuse me for loving your child more than I care about your ego.  Learn how to love and heal-now, no more excuses!

Love, Aurore