Dear Doctor,
I am engaged to a local girl. When we first met, I thought she was the most beautiful person I have ever seen, on the inside and on the outside. She is thoughtful, kind, intelligent and all of the things I love in a woman. She is small framed and when we met she had a body that could have stepped off the pages of Playboy magazine. That was when we met.
Now, after only a year together, she has started to pack on the weight. She has probably gained fifteen pounds in less than a year and almost all of it went to her butt. The rest went to her waist. She still looks good but at this rate I’m going to have to push her around in a wheelbarrow in three years because she will be too fat to walk.
I know that it seems shallow and superficial to be so concerned about her weight but the truth is that one of her biggest attractions for me was her incredible body. I can see it turning to fat right in front of my eyes. She is young, too and is way too young to be gaining weight like this but it doesn’t seem to bother her.
I’ve been hinting around at her to eat healthy foods but she is addicted to junk food and sodas. She might not take the hint because her mom is fat and both of her older sisters are fat and their men seem to like them that way. I’m sorry, but I don’t.
Should I come right out and tell her that I don’t like fat women? If so, how can I do it without coming off as some kind of control freak who wants to run her entire life?
/s/ Second Thoughts
Dear Second,
You are in big trouble. You say her mother and sisters are fat. Well, the mango doesn’t fall very far from the tree. Unless you stop her now, she is going to be fat and happy and you are going to be unhappy.
You’d better lay it on the line and tell her that it makes you uncomfortable and that you think it will affect your lives dramatically, which is entirely true. Tell her you are worried about her health, which is entirely true.
Give her a chance to see what she is doing to herself and make a change for the better. If it doesn’t happen, then you might consider doing some shopping around.
