14 DAY TRIAL // Aly Gilardoni is overweight. Her mother was too. Thinking she’s doing daughter Corleigh a favor, she put her on a low-calorie diet when she was just 2, keeping her underfed at all times.
Speaking with Closer magazine, Aly says that, while she does feel some guilt about being so strict with her daughter, the thought she’s acting in her best interest makes everything alright.
Having grown up obsessing with her weight, Aly married and had a child. When her husband left the two of them, she decided her daughter would never be fat and she would do everything in her power to prevent that.
So she developed for her a 700-calorie diet that she started when she was just 2, six years ago. That’s 1,000 calories less than the recommended number for a healthy nutrition.
Still, Aly doesn’t see what she’s doing as a bad thing. In her mind, anything is better than being overweight – even an eating disorder is to be preferred, she says for the magazine.
“Being overweight dominates my life. I don’t want Corleigh to be like me. I don’t want a fat child. I’m obsessed with how she looks,” Aly says for Closer.
“I want her to be pretty and popular and she wouldn’t be if she was bigger. My mum is 17 stone, so I think it runs in our family,” she adds.
As per the mother’s words, what she’s doing is breaking off the cycle by “training” her daughter to eat less. And, as long as she doesn’t feel like anything is missing, certainly there can’t be anything bad with her.
“I feel some guilt about having treats, but Corleigh’s not bothered. I’m glad I’ve trained her. I want her to grow up happy and do things I never did,” Aly says.
“When I look in the mirror I still see a huge, monstrous woman. Corleigh’s not so underweight she’s going to die next week,” the woman further says.
And then comes the shock statement: “With an eating disorder you can get through it with therapy. But when you’re fat, you’re fat for life.”
Aly herself goes through 3,000 calories a day on average and, while a recent exam showed that Corleigh was underweight but otherwise fine, several groups have already spoken out against the practice of keeping a child on a low-calorie diet.