I watched with a sick feeling in my stomach as my 18 year old daughter finished her 4th piece of chicken and swiped at the corner of her pretty mouth with a napkin. She had been putting on so much weight since her fiance left her three months ago and it was beginning to concern me. She was still stunningly beautiful, looking so much like her mother it scared me, but the extra 20 lbs she had picked up was beginning to show in her rosey pink cheeks. The last thing I wanted to see was for her to lose control and hate herself as her mother had done for years.

As my wife and daughter sat across from each other I compared their beauty. Balinda was so like her mother. She had inherited her mother's dishwater blonde hair and kept it long and tied into a bun on top of her head. She also got her mother's round doe eyes and had learned to get her way with a flutter of her long dark lashes. Her lips were full like her mothers, giving her the appearance as if she were pouting all the time. Everything was so alike except Balinda had put on that extra little weight to make her face a little fuller and her legs a little thicker.

Balinda reached for an extra serving of potatoes.

"Why don't you try to eat a little bit less," I tried to say politetly but I could have kicked myself right after I said it. I knew Balinda was not going to take that well. What a jerk I was!

"John, leave her alone," my wife pleaded sympathetically. "I'm glad she's eating healthy."

"Healthy?" I scoffed too quickly to stop myself. I was really digging myself deeper now. "I hope she doesn't get too much healthier."

Balinda sat her heavy scoop of potatoes back in the bowl and withdrew into herself, folding her hands in her lap as she stared at her plate in front of her shamefully. She was killing me with those big sad eyes and those pouty lips.

"That wasn't neccessary John," My wife fumed angrily.

"I'm sorry honey," I offered Balinda in total sincereness. "It's just that your so beautiful. I don't want to see you let yourself go like this."

"I want to stop eating so much daddy," Balinda sniffed, barely holding back the tears. I felt like she had just jammed a knife in my heart and was twisting it around. "I really do..I...I...I just can't do it."

Balinda was weeping now, her pretty young face burried in her hands.

"Now, now," My wife reassured her as she scooted over next to her and wrapped her arms around her. She was glaring at me now as she rubbed our daughters back. "I used to be heavier too. Much heavier than you. Wasn't I John?"

The tone in her voice indicated I'd be sleeping on the couch for the next month if I didn't answer correctly.