If you take a 14 year old (and I don’t know if said child needs to BE male, I just know mine is) who happens to be BOTH Aspergers and High Anxiety and you ADD a Health class… well that equals Hypochondriac.
At the beginning of the year my oldest son, Luke, began health class. If you’ve read the blog you know his struggles and mine. You may even know his twists on normal teen rebellion which manifest into politics and religion. But you may not know how he hit the trifecta of extreme when he took Health class.
sigh.
The first step down the slippery slope was when the teacher taught about drugs and mental disease. Now, for a boy who is on daily medication this was troubling to him. Lucky for me he has no problem talking to me about things that trouble him. So we had lively discussions about drugs (and most people would agree or find shocking my opinion but since my addiction is books I suppose I’m less of an alarmist than others who may be addicted to food, alcohol or holier-than-thou religious precepts.) And we had a matter of fact discussions of mental disease, how it’s sometimes NOT the fault of the individual but of genetics or environment. So the medication is less like “drugs” and more like “vitamins” in its application.
I thought we’d weathered that without much problem until the teacher showed a movie in class called Forks Over Knives. Sigh. This film brings together ALL the negative consequences to a diet high in meat, processed foods. “Forks Over Knives examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting animal-based and processed foods.”
So of course, he then demanded to become a Vegetarian and began to pepper me with questions whenever I shopped or cooked. “Is this organic? Why don’t you buy organic? Do you WANT to give me cancer?” [Yes, boy, I birthed you only to slowly kill you with cancer by feeding you… am I not devious! Sheesh]
Then his teacher told him that dairy also causes cancer and now he refuses all dairy. He begged for soy milk and tofu and more fruit. My compromise was a small test pint of soy milk and one package of tofu he’d have to learn to cook himself. Which he did, but now just eats it raw and loves the soy vanilla milk. Personally, I’m not sure HOW he can eat straight tofu and his brothers won’t even carry the grocery bag it in cuz they see it as THAT gross. But I’m a mother willing to let her teens do a bit of harmless exploration in their self discovery process.
Yet after a few months of this I noticed a change in his body that began to panic me. Prior to all this he was developing a lean and muscled body and was taking pride in that. Doing sit ups & push ups and he even had a nice 4 pack going! After this diet change which was heavy on carbohydrates and soy as a substitute for EVERYTHING; calcium, protein, fiber. I watched an unsightly layer of fat seem to appear overnight and cover him. Now his stomach protruded as if he had no muscle tone there and were those early man-boobs? My thoughts go to “isn’t soy a natural estrogen? Isn’t that BAD for a growing MALE!”
Yet every time I expressed my concern he would get upset saying, “I’m trying to prevent heart disease!!” I’d shoot back, “You’re 14!!!! You do not HAVE heart disease!” Lectures on moderation were met with deaf ears. Parental orders of meat once or twice a week were met with sullen words of, “You don’t respect my choices.” Cursing the health teacher whenever Luke would come home from school with ANOTHER bad thing he’d now had to take preventative measure for I began to joke about High Anxiety + Health Education = Hypochondria.
Finally I just stopped buying the soy & tofu. I cited money reasons to Luke and bought Chocolate Almond Milk in hopes the OTHER children would like it. My middle son stopped liking milk a while ago and I’m trying to get HIM to eat less carbs for breakfast and more protein AND variety. That was a no go, but I know Luke will finish it off once he’s done with the soy milk (curse that Costco bulk!)
The good news is today I found an article to combat the movie Forks Over Knives. Ironically to help write this blog.
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/10/13/vegetarian-movie-forks-over-knives–critically-reviewed.aspx
Sorry, it won’t link in but you can copy paste I’m sure. This article promotes non-processed food eating but advocates meat and points out the faults in the logic of the movie. Thank Goodness is all I can mumble and cannot WAIT to show this to my 14 year old.
I don’t mind a health enthusiastic teen and I’ll admit I’m doing a bit more healthy eating than before but extremes are just no fun, right or left! I kinda dread the next school year’s batch of learning! What drama lies in wait for me!!!