Salon.com > Stephanie Booth

Teenage Waist-land

Tue, 16 Mar 2004 20:59:00 +0000

Even as a child, Natalie Moore, 19, was aware of her weight. When she announced to her Yoder, Ind., kindergarten that her favorite animals were pigs, a classmate shouted, "That's because you are a little piggy!" By age 10, Natalie, already a Size 28, had been called "pig, cow, hippo -- really any type of large animal," she says. "When I walked down the hall, kids would say, 'Here comes an earthquake!'"

Coming home from school in tears was bad enough, but in eighth grade, Natalie, weighing well over 250 pounds, began experiencing mild heart attacks. "It was very scary," she says. "My doctor told me I only had a year to live if I didn't lose weight."

Going on a strict 1,500-calorie-a-day diet, Natalie managed to lose 40 pounds in six months, but the weight -- due to a family history of obesity as well as a sedentary lifestyle and cravings for Mountain Dew and HoHos -- gradually crept back on. After reading about weight-loss surgery on the Internet, and then discussing the procedure with her parents and her pediatrician, Natalie went for a consultation at Cincinnati Children's Hospital's Comprehensive Weight Management Center, one of the only places in the country that performs gastric bypass surgery on adolescents. On May 18, 2001 -- a month before her 16th birthday -- Natalie's insurance paid for her to undergo a gastric bypass, in which her stomach was divided and stapled down to the size of an egg.

“I know God will hate me for this, but God is unfair”

Wed, 10 Sep 2003 19:45:00 +0000

In the early evening of May 18, 40-year-old Fizoon Ashraf was cooking steaks in the small kitchen of her Brooklyn home when there was a knock at the front door. Her two youngest children -- Safraz, age 7, and Shavana, 10, jumped up from the TV to answer it while she continued draining vegetables over the sink.

They returned to the kitchen, confused. "Mom," Shavana said, "two strangers dressed in uniforms like Rasheed are at the door."

That was all Fizoon needed to hear to know something very bad had happened to her son, 22-year-old Rasheed Sahib. Fizoon's eldest, and a specialist with the Army's 4th Infantry Division, Rasheed had shipped out to Iraq on April 1. Fizoon had been deeply against his going; she worried constantly about his safety and about his being so far away from his family. Two days before he left, she had demanded, "How will I know if something bad happens to you?"

Relying on the good nature and patience that had earned him the nickname "Smiley" from his friends, Rasheed had tried to comfort his mother. "Everything's already taken care of, Mom," he'd said. "People will get to you if I have an accident. Two soldiers will come to the door and they'll have a sheet of paper that will explain what's happened to me."

Casualties of victory

Thu, 21 Aug 2003 16:10:00 +0000

Just past midnight on May 30, Ron Griffin stepped outside his ranch-style home to light up a cigar. As production supervisor at a cheese factory, Ron had become accustomed to late hours. His wife, Robin, was already asleep, as were the couple's two teenagers. The Griffins' eldest son, 20-year-old Kyle, a specialist in the Army, had shipped off to Iraq in February, so Ron had the night sky to himself. Not until the family's 4-year-old yellow Lab, Bailey, began to bark from inside the house, did Ron notice two shadowy forms coming toward him across the lawn.

"Are you Mr. Griffin?" one of the men asked. Suddenly realizing the two men standing before him were dressed in Army uniforms -- and that his family's worst fear was about to become a reality -- Ron blurted out, "No." Running into the family's living room, he dropped to his knees and yelled to his wife. "Robin! I need you! Come here!"

Robin emerged from the bedroom to find an Army chaplain and notification officer standing in her kitchen. In soft tones, they explained that the Griffin's son, Kyle, had been killed the morning before in a car accident in Iraq.

Casualties of victory

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 22:32:00 +0000

When Sgt. Micheal Dooley, 23, shipped out from Fort Carson, Colo., to Iraq on April 11, his wife, Christine, began taking the phone to bed with her. Around 3 a.m. every Monday, Micheal would call without fail. The connection could be frustrating -- a few seconds delay followed every sentence, and sometimes there were so many soldiers waiting in line to call home that Micheal could only talk for five minutes -- but still, Christine lived for those calls. They were her only connection to her new husband. She wanted to know everything about what Micheal's unit, the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, was doing and seeing in Iraq, but he always managed to steer the conversation back to Christine, who is due to give birth to their first child -- a son -- in October. Was she having morning sickness? Was her belly growing? Did she feel tired? He told Christine that he kissed photos of her and their baby's ultrasound every night before he went to sleep.

Real women, agonizing choices

Sat, 07 Jun 2003 16:23:00 +0000

For the first time since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion, the federal government is poised to restrict women's right to terminate their pregnancies. In early March, the Senate passed a bill to ban late-term, or what abortion opponents call "partial-birth," abortions. On Wednesday, the bill, HR-760, easily won the support of the House, with a vote of 282-139. Former President Clinton vetoed earlier versions of the ban, and the Supreme Court ruled three years ago that similar state bans were unconstitutional. But President Bush has promised he will sign HR-760 into law, making illegal a procedure that he has called "an abhorrent procedure that offends human dignity."

"Partial-birth abortion" is not a medically recognized term -- it's an expression born of politics. It refers to an abortion procedure called an "intact dilation and extraction" (D&X), performed in the second or third trimester, in which a physician partially delivers a fetus, punctures its head while it's still inside the mother, and then delivers it dead. Opponents say the procedure is tantamount to infanticide. Supporters argue that there are a host of reasons, both medical and psychological, why women need to have the right to have late-term abortions.

Log in! Double-click! Get clean!

Tue, 13 May 2003 18:34:00 +0000

Two years ago, Jake, an engineer with a major telecom firm in Northern California, found himself snorting up to 10 lines of crack a day -- on his lunch break from work or, because his job required him to travel, in airport restrooms around the world. After staying awake for days at a time, Jake learned to down eight ounces of straight tequila and pop a few Xanax in order to get a few hours of sleep. Then, he'd start the whole process again.

When Jake's girlfriend threatened to leave because of his drug abuse, the 29-year-old California native quit his job and sought help for his addiction. Not able to afford the high cost of rehab, Jake searched the Internet for alternatives and signed up with eGetgoing, the only online drug treatment program.

Armed with a headset microphone and special software, Jake began "attending" twice-weekly group therapy sessions. Although he already had several weeks of Narcotics Anonymous (N.A.) meetings under his belt by the time he began eGetgoing, Jake attributes his ability to get clean with the online program.

“Why is my country turning against me?”

Tue, 01 Apr 2003 18:40:00 +0000

Army Sgt. Heather Marie Wright has always had a fierce patriotism for her country, from the American flag T-shirts, purse and belt buckle hanging in her closet right down to her insistence on sleeping only on made-in-the-USA sheets. Earlier this month, dressed in her Army battle dress uniform, Wright, 25, served as her niece's kindergarten show-and-tell project. Last week, for good luck wearing the same dog tags her grandfather wore in Korea, she shipped out to Kuwait.

"'Re's probably crapping a brick right now, but she's got her game face on and she's ready to go," her sister, Debra Husted, says proudly. "She's tough as nails and this is what she was meant to do."

Husted, whose ponytail, jean jacket and sneakers make her look more like a high school student than a 28-year-old mother of two, says her daughters are acutely aware their aunt is gone. Whenever Shawnna, her 3-year-old who's hard of hearing, spots a yellow ribbon on a house or business near their home in Warminster, Pa., she pounds her chest with both fists -- sign language for "soldier."

"It upsets both Shawnna and Kayla terribly, not to know where their Aunt 'Re is," Hulsted says. "It kills me, too, to see my baby sister going off to war. But 'Re told me before she left, 'Don't worry. I'm making the world a better place for you.'"