A Common ‘Sem Syndrome’ Seldom Discussed

By Esther Shemtov for COLlive.com

Your daughter is almost off to seminary and you’re so thrilled as you imagine her upcoming experience: Making new friends, absorbing incredible Chassidus classes and seeing the sights. And there is another experience you should expect: Food. A lot of it.

If that made you cringe, you might be contributing to another common sem syndrome; Stressing over weight gain. While weight gain in seminary is to be expected, the emotional turbulence that often accompanies it is unhealthy, distracting and sometimes dangerous.

As a seminary student, my number one goal at the start of the year was to NOT gain weight. I even had a plan. I would avoid certain foods, exercise daily and go to sleep at a reasonable hour. For the first few months, my plan worked, and I received praise from staff and friends for being ‘so healthy’.

As the year progressed, however, my healthy habits became more and more difficult to maintain. Every Farbrengen turned into an internal debate about whether or not to eat a cookie from the table. Avoiding the provided seminary meals became tiresome, and expensive. Trying to fall asleep while my apartment-mates were socializing led to arguments and tension.

But every time I allowed myself to ‘let go a little’, I felt unable to stop eating, totally out of control, and petrified that it would lead to weight gain.

With ‘healthy habits’ that were unsustainable, and a complete lack of trust in my body, I reached a point where I just didn’t know how to eat anymore. And to top it off, the number on the scale started to creep up.

Studies show that 70% of first-year college students gain weight. Seminary girls will also typically gain weight during their year away from home. This is totally normal, and due to many factors, including; adjusting to a new environment, changes in eating and exercise schedules, stress, lack of sleep, and social eating.

Despite my best efforts, I gained weight during seminary. In addition, I lost developed a disordered relationship with food, and experienced tremendous guilt and shame.

We live in a society that worships thinness and views weight gain as a personal failure. This has led many seminary girls to resort to extreme measures to avoid watching their bodies change. Just a few weeks ago, as the seminary year was coming to a close, one student called me up in a panic. “My mother won’t let me into the house looking like this – I need to lose weight ASAP!”

As a seminary teacher, who also works with girls on their relationship with food, I see the effects of our culture frequently. Girls afraid to ask their parents for money to buy bigger clothing, opting out of group photos so that their family back home won’t see them, and frantically trying to lose weight before Pesach break.

Knowing that your daughter may gain weight can be intimidating. “Should I say something?” “Is there anything to do about it?” “She’s almost in Shidduchim!”.

Research has shown that parents have a strong impact on their children’s attitudes towards food and their bodies. You can’t control what will happen to your daughter’s weight, but with a few steps of awareness and consideration, you can help your daughter cultivate a healthy approach to food and her body, in seminary and beyond.

It took me a full year post-seminary to regain trust in my body and learn to eat without fear. I know a dietitian who works with grandmothers who are still battling eating disorders that they developed in seminary. You don’t want to set up your daughter to a lifetime of challenges. She deserves better than that.

Here are a few practical tips on a better way forward:

1. Educate your daughter on body diversity.

Everyone’s weight fluctuates throughout their life. Fighting this reality puts people at war with themselves, in a battle that they cannot win. In addition, not all bodies were intended to be thin, and studies show that our weight is a lot less in our control than it is made out to be.

2. Encourage your daughter to trust her body.

Your daughter should treat her body as a gift given by Hashem and therefore worthy of respect, regardless of whether or not it is changing. Avoiding the scale can really help. This will set her up with tools to navigate her new seminary environment with self-care and compassion and prevent her from falling into an endless cycle of dieting, restrictive eating and self-loathing.

3. Reflect on your language.

Discuss with your spouse the way that bodies are spoken about in your home, and on your own relationship with food and body, since your children look up to you as role models in this area.

4. Give unconditional love.

Assure your daughter that your love for her is not dependent on the way that she looks, or on her self-control around food. (You’d be surprised how many girls believe that it is!)

I hope that seminary can become an environment that equips our daughters to take care of themselves without fighting their biology, value themselves beyond their appearance, and become mothers who role model a healthy attitude toward food and body to the next generation.

 

–Esther Shemtov, a resident of Jerusalem, is a Teacher at the Mayanot Institute of Jewish Studies, Certified Health Coach, Intuitive Eating Counselor, and mother. In phone sessions, she helps young women end the food guilt, obsession and anxiety. She can be reached at [email protected], www.estashemtov.com or @estashemtov