It's My Parents' Fault!

Lawrence Toppman

I phoned my brother in Las Vegas -- the once-athletic member of our family, who used to be 6-foot-2 and 190 pounds of muscle -- to say I was starting a weight-loss project, and he told me the stairs at his apartment complex wear him out these days. My supportive mom and dad shared their own stories about endless roller-coaster rides up and down the scale. Genetics, I see, have lined up against me.

I never met my mother's father, who took off when she was an infant and wasn't heard from again. (Until I was in my 30s, my folks never mentioned him. Does every family have some shadowy relative like that?) The three grandparents I DID meet varied in build from "stoutish" to "fireplugs with feet." My father's parents were shaped like the potatoes that no doubt formed the basis of their childhood diets in Ukraine.

That doesn't mean I'm losing heart or complaining about the propensity for "that old avoirdupois" (as pianist Fats Waller called it) to cling to my frame. But knowing this history, I realize that losing 15 pounds won't be the snap I secretly thought it was. Alas, my jeans are full of my genes. But I press on....