Obesity: Our Struggle
■ The Adolescence: The Fragility stage
Adolescence is a transitional stage of physical developments. It is also a critical period in our lives.
Oftentimes, these developments urge us to reject our bodies. Women become aware of their sexuality and of its effect on others, particularly, men. Men become conscious of their potency.
Adolescence is the period of total rejection.
The mental and physical developments that add up to the already existing complexes in obese children are very unsettling. They are a source of an unbearable unease when it comes to mastering one’s body and mind. In the absence of help and moral support, obese teenagers can lose control and make some serious errors in their own perception of things which could affect them forever. Adolescence, which is a transitional period, is a fervent period of our lives that is full of idealism, and of attitudes that are quite subconscious such as the feeling that nothing is to be done in this world and that nothing really matters since one is worthless.
It is the stage of excessive fragility, self-destruction, addiction, bulimia and anorexia. Therefore, to order to survive this period, the body depends on the taking in or the taking out of nutriments and food.
Adolescence is also a period during which the body needs a rich and varied alimentation.
Parents should assume their responsibilities and help their adolescent children to pass through this disturbing and difficult period.
Parents should set the example; they should insist on a healthy alimentation for their children.
They should teach them to love themselves and to understand their bodily developments.
Parents themselves must learn to accept their children as they are, to respect them and to stand by them in order to instil these fundamental notions in them.
Abstract from the book by Sophie Reverdi, L’obésité ou la maladie vue de l’intérieur, éditions Jugurtha International, May 2007, Tunis.