Last night, I called my mom on the phone. I wanted to hear her tell me what I’ve come to think of as “The Green Bean Lady” story. I’ll talk more about that in a minute. But when I got her on the phone, I could tell she was sort of bummed out. She’d been to the doctor that day for her high blood pressure, and he had gently suggested that she lose some weight.

This pissed me off unbelievably.

See, the thing is, for decades, all through my childhood it seemed, my mom fought her fat. She dieted and lost weight, and regained weight, and talked about how much she hated her thighs, and how much she shouldn’t eat this or that, but she continued to eat this or that or to hide chocolate chips in the drawer under her sewing machine. I always hated that. I remember, when I was 16 or so, berating her when I caught her buying Slim Fast at the grocery store. I always knew there was something wrong with the whole dieting thing, and even though I hated the shit out of my body, dieting was one thing I sure as hell wasn’t going to stoop to.

But I always hurt for my mom. She always seemed so dissatisfied with herself, and for a brief period, my dad even gave her grief about her weight, and that just made it hurt even more for both of us. And then, one magical day, my mom came to visit me and she said, “You know, Michelle, I’m just so tired of all that. I’ve decided that I’m going to do what’s good for me because it’s good for me, and to hell with dieting or trying to lose weight.” I nearly stood up and cheered, I was so happy to hear it.

My mom has had hypertension since she was pregnant with me. She’s been on medication for it for years, and she’s switched medications a bunch of times when they’d either stop working or would give her terrible side-effects. She’s a nurse, so she’s been physically active most of her life, and other than what must be a congenital sweet-tooth, her dietary habits have never been anything but normal and moderate. But now her blood pressure is elevated again, and she and her doctors are almost at a loss for what to do. So, here comes the good old weight loss talk.

She told me that she drove home from the doctor’s and felt so defeated, she actually thought to herself, “That’s it. I’m just going to stop eating.” I wanted to cry.

It’s unfair. It’s unfair because if someone is fat (and my mom has been fat, and held a stable weight, for years), then any health problem they have is automatically their fault. Sure, heart disease runs on my mom’s side of the family. Sure, she’s had various vascular problems since she was 12 (and thin.) But still, it’s got to be her fault, right?

When my mom decided to stop dieting, she started exercising. She has developed rheumatoid arthritis and was feeling weaker, and she had less energy. She decided to start going to the gym, to work out and to feel better, and it worked. She felt great. Even though the gym is often weight-loss oriented, at least in their marketing, that wasn’t the reason she was there, and she said she never felt pressured to think about weight. And she liked going because the time went by fast and she was able to chat with the other ladies there. Plus she said it was sort of amusing to watch the little 20-somethings running their asses off in desperation, and think to herself, “Thank God that’s not me anymore.”

But when her blood pressure started going all wonky, she decided to lay low, and to lay off the exercise for a while, until they had it under control again. Now she’s not as energetic, she’s frustrated about her blood pressure, and she’s got some doctor who thinks a big ass is the source of all her problems.

She knows as well as I do that weight loss is, if anything, temporary. And she also knows that if she goes that route, she risks harming herself with the weight fluctuation and the strain of food restriction. But when you’re all alone in this, and you’ve got a doctor — not to mention an entire culture — telling you that it’s what you should do, how do you stick to your guns? I’m afraid she won’t be able to.

I wish I could punch that doctor right in the throat, and I wish I could hug my mom.