One woman shares her fears and explains why she'll teach her children how you can live healthily, eat correctly and workout regularly

The woman within the supermarket peered 2 day diet lingzhi past my basket and into the pushchair where my one-year-old daughter, Matilda, sat contentedly eating a rice cake.
'Oh she's gorgeous,' she said. 'Look at those chubby thighs - I possibly could just eat them.' As she waltzed off on the aisle, I possibly could feel my cheeks stinging red as if she'd slapped me.
A perfect stranger had just explained how beautiful and healthy my baby was, however the only word that echoed throughout my head was...fat!

When Sam was a baby I struggled to give him and that he spent his first couple of months scrawny and scrabbling around at the end of the weight charts. It caused me so much heartache and distress to have a baby which was noted as 'failing to thrive' on his medical notes which i was positively insane with angst.
When a woman in the same shop had commented how little Sam was (he was weeks old) I promptly burst into tears.

So you'd think I'd happen to be thrilled when my daughter arrived, weighing a bouncing 7lb 4oz.
Unlike her brother, she was a really good feeder, and soon had those rosy, chubby baby cheeks -- the type I'd desired when Sam's hollow face had smiled back at me like a baby.
'She's had a good covering,' my mum reassured me, as Matilda grew bigger and stronger with every week. I sat back, content that she would be OK, and this time motherhood will be a breeze.
But, as her little limbs became podgier and chunkier, a dark, fearful thought began to stir inside me: let's say my daughter would be fat?
I didn't dare open up to anyone. Particularly when one of Sam's nursery workers admired her extra tyres of blubber and exclaimed how she missed the days when her own toddler daughter was as fat like a little Buddha. She'd have been horrified if she'd known that which was going on within my head.
So when I take a look at my dear little Matilda, I can tell that while she might be tubby, a minimum of she's not obese. And, just Twelve months, she isn't properly up contributing to yet.
I know -- well, I'm hoping -- that as soon as she starts racing around with her brother, body fat will melt off, leaving her a normal-sized little toddler.
It doesn't take a genius or perhaps a psychiatrist to figure out what is really happening. It's clear that my fears and obsessions are actually only about one individual -- me.
While I am not overweight now, Used to do struggle like a litttle lady. I always had solid thighs and felt bigger than everybody else in junior school.
Then, like a teenager I did not feel at ease within my ever-growing body. I hid my flabby bits away under baggy tracksuit bottoms and jumpers, and desperately avoided any parties where a dress would be required. I joined Dieters at 14 so that they can lose the additional 21lb I was carrying. I had been convinced losing weight would be the answer to my unhappiness and insecurities. And slim down I did.

With hindsight I'm also able to observe that, even in a size 14, I truly didn't look that bad. However, what: 'She really should not be st nirvana herbal slimming capsule wearing that dress together with her legs,' still ring in my ears today, despite the fact these were spoken 20 years ago by one of the 'cool' girls on a school camp.
I doubt the girl who whispered them even remembers my name, however i hear her voice each time I glance within the mirror, deciding whether to buy an outfit or otherwise.