Were you the overweight/obese kid? What were dietary mistakes adults made for your upbringing?
Was anyone else here the big kid growing up? I was definitely the obese kid and I can pick out the exact time I started to gain weight rapidly. I had suddenly acquired a taste for fast food and no one stopped me. I was told to finish everything on my plate and to ask for seconds. The larger I got the more my family (the very obese family that I dearly love) encouraged my "healthy" over eating. I remember eating until I was going to pop was normal growing up, nobody slapped my hand or told me the slightest bit about nutrition!
There was a saving grace in HS, nutrition class! I had told the teacher that "I switched from milk to soy milk! I drank so much of it I must be so healthy!" And she said no, you can even drink and eat too many calories. You have to watch out for calories to lose weight. I gotta find her and thank her for that lightbulb she turned on.
What was your childhood horror stories? I hope this thread can also help some aspiring parents to avoid bad upbringing
There was a saving grace in HS, nutrition class! I had told the teacher that "I switched from milk to soy milk! I drank so much of it I must be so healthy!" And she said no, you can even drink and eat too many calories. You have to watch out for calories to lose weight. I gotta find her and thank her for that lightbulb she turned on.
What was your childhood horror stories? I hope this thread can also help some aspiring parents to avoid bad upbringing
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I know that I always /felt/ like the bigger kid. But looking back at pictures I didn't really gain weight until middle school. And, I gained it fairly quickly. It's never been that I eat a lot. But I made horrible choices when I did eat. Soda, chips, boxed dinners....
We didn't really keep fresh veggies around when I was younger. Not much fruit either. If we wanted a snack before dinner there were hotdogs or other similar things to pop in the microwave. Dinners were high in breads and pastas, but low in meats, veggies, variety in general..Which had a lot to do with income at the time. Single mother, 3 kids. top ramen is cheaper and easier to get kids to eat than to sit them down with a salad or something.
There are/were other factors besides foods.
I was dealing with a lot of depression and self image issues. Which, when brought up around the adults, was just brushed off as a phase. So I didn't get any help on that front.
So I withdrew from meeting new people, spent time online a lot.
The friends that I did have nearby often chose to sit inside and watching movies, ordering pizza, instead of going out and being active.
I'm working on fixing the bad habits I've settled into over those years. I walk wherever I can, watch what I eat a little better((though currently limited by/relent on what someone else is paying to put in the house)) and I'm trying to meet new people in the area who are hopefully going to be better influences/willing to hangout outside.0 -
I was also that overweight kid. But my mother DID have pretty much only 'healthy' foods in the house, and she DID tell me off when she saw me overeating (as I did all the time). NEITHER of these things helped. I ate the 'healthy' food, I just ate way too much of it. And all her nagging just made me resent her and hate myself for my lack of control. So I don't know what I would have done in her place!
(ps- my mother is overweight as well, that just adds in to this interesting mix)0 -
We were a poor family. We could only afford cheap, processed foods that we got from food pantrys or on sale. When my dad had time to spend with us between working 3 jobs, he spoiled us with junk food. He regrets it now, but he just wanted to see us happy.
That pattern of eating put my body on a bad path. I was addicted to bad food before I was old enough to know better. I know better now, but I still struggle to get my weight under control.0 -
i was actually super skinny. well fat baby but then i was always tiny until 26yrs old
my family did try to instill good eating habits.
it wasn't that i was eating poorly, i was just eating more than i should
well ok, i may have had a cheesecake and brownie habit. and I miss malts0 -
I'm Italian...
enough said, you never say no to food, basically a sin.
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I worry about my kid. He's skinny now. In fact, he's too skinny, so I tend to let him eat a lot of junk between meals just to get the calories he needs. . He also has a very limited diet. I don't know when it happened, but he just stopped tolerating new foods and slowly has started rejecting foods he used to like. . And his friends are even worse so whenever I have to feed all of them (which is often), it's chicken-nuggets, mac-n-cheese, pizza, or hot dogs.
He does like fruit and a select few veggies (carrots, peas, corn, and broccoli). . so It's not hopeless!. .0 -
My parents made mistakes with me when I was growing up, as did other adults. They did the best they could.
I've tried to learn from those mistakes with my own children, but I'm sure I'm making plenty of my own mistakes. I don't relish the thought that they will pick apart my parenting in 10-20 years.0 -
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I don't think I was ever really obese as a kid, but I was definitely overweight. Looking back on pictures, it wasn't even that bad, but it was moreso that most other kids and teenagers were just so small in comparison until they became adults (obviously some are still tiny, but I digress).
I think my family's lifestyle definitely led to some of that. The whole "eat your whole plate" mentality combined with eating in restaurants a lot more than eating at home, and eating fast food before my dance classes because my father got out of work so soon before we had to leave and there "wasn't time". Dance I think was the thing that definitely kept me in that lower-middle overweight range instead of it being higher.0 -
i was never overweight until 2014 i was deprived as a child of many "sweets" especially cake, thats probably why now i just freaking love cake, Juice i never drank and i still dont like it. Only thing i was allowed to have as a child was pretty much Pop, and Halloween Candy.0
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I was always the taller kid so I always felt lumbering/bigger than the other girls. Then gained weight rapidly in middle school. My parents were poorer, Docs never really said anything about it back then and my mom was very depressed at the time so it just kept going. My father's family was Italian as well...so I did learn the "eat until you burst, then eat some more" was a good thing and I love that feeling. That is what I most have to fight today.0
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_A_Real_Mouthful wrote: »i was always a chubby kid.
one little thing i look back on and laugh at now though...when i was a kid, I hated lettuce on anything. on burgers, salad, tacos, whatever- I hated it.
i'm talking about the typical iceberg lettuce. something about the consistency always bugged me...the crunchiness and to me at least, plastic taste that it has.
anyhow I hated it with a passion. my ma, grandma, everybody used to give me such a hard time about it...like oh you're gonna be fat because you won't eat healthy stuff instead. legit made me feel bad all the time when it came up but i don't care i hated lettuce.
got older and discovered fresh spinach and how i love it more than anything. i always try to keep some in the fridge at home. makes me laugh now though thinking how they kept trying to force something on me i hated and still do when there was something else i could eat a ton of and still want more.
And it actually has more nutrients and healthier for you.0 -
I remember back when I was 11, I would always watch cartoon on TV at around 5pm and even when I was or wasn't hungry, I would eat rice with soy sauce (kicap as we call it). In retrospect, I'm a very fast bloomer, both body and mind and what would've been my rebellious teenage years turned into my rebellious pre-teen years. My emotions were eratic, etc etc. I suppose to combat all that the only way I knew how - I ate my feelings. When I asked my mum about it now, she told me that that was the period I bloated up. I was a bit chubby, nothing serious before that but that started from 11, the weight gain was rapid and I got severely obese.0
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The whole "make a Happy Plate" thing messed with me. Now I don't feel guilty if I don't eat everything. Yes of course my parents did a lot of things that stuck with me. But I'm a freaking adult now and have had to take control and responsibility for my own actions and behaviors. I'm sure I'm screwing my own kids up somehow, parents only do the best they can with what they have. My mom showed love with food. But she loved me. So I'm not going to dwell on the negative.0
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I had horrible body image issues my whole life, still battling them! I was tiny growing up, until I hit 30 and had an injury that pretty much kept me down for over a year...But thinking back, my mother always said I was chubby, and she was constantly on some diet or another. Every day, I heard her complaining about her body, about her fat, about her wrinkles....She did needles, diets, surgery, you name it.....I don't want to blame her for my issues, but I do believe she had a lot to do with the hard time I've given myself, daily, for the last 40ish years. When I see her now, weight and fat is still the #1 conversation topic
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JustMissTracy wrote: »I had horrible body image issues my whole life, still battling them! I was tiny growing up, until I hit 30 and had an injury that pretty much kept me down for over a year...But thinking back, my mother always said I was chubby, and she was constantly on some diet or another. Every day, I heard her complaining about her body, about her fat, about her wrinkles....She did needles, diets, surgery, you name it.....I don't want to blame her for my issues, but I do believe she had a lot to do with the hard time I've given myself, daily, for the last 40ish years. When I see her now, weight and fat is still the #1 conversation topic
I can closely relate.
I make it a huge point to not talk about body image in a negative way with my daughters. That crap sticks with young girls.0 -
I was an overweight kid. I was picked on and teased relentlessly (the other kids called me "fat and ugly"). My mom was always putting me on diets...my lunch would consist of plain tuna , 1/2 piece of white bread and water. I would get home from school and binge on whatever I could get into my mouth until my mom got home from work. The binging eventually led to purging, which led to anorexia by the time I was 15 and dealt with it on and off until I was 30.
My mom was really just doing what my pediatrician wanted her to do, so I no longer blame her. I think I was just overly-sensitive, but I definitely still have self-image issues.0 -
I have been some form overweight my entire life. While I wasn't picked on per say, It was always there. People always seem to think calling a man big guy or something is OK. I learned to just laugh it off for the most part. I am from the Midwest so my Mom was usually cooking all of those great Midwest foods that are so horrible for you. While not her fault she didn't do me any favors that is for sure. LOL0
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I was not; however, my cousins, who grew up about a mile away from me (similar socioeconomic, same schools, some level of shared DNA) were...
Looking back on it, the biggest differences that I can see? They drank whole milk--always, and well beyond toddlerhood. Soda freely available at their house--and not just a small glass--usually the whole 16 oz bottle. Donuts--every Sunday morning.
I used to be jealous, but now I'm not...0 -
I was on the high end of the normal weight range as a kid. I grew up poor, and we lived on Jack's frozen pizzas and M&Ms. I think my parents pretty much gave up on life a long time ago and didn't even try.0
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I was a fat kid compared to others and I got teased often and picked last in PE team games. For some reason it never even occurred to me that I could get skinny back then. It wasn't so much the junk food (though my dad and I had ice cream every night... HE was skinny!) What I remember is that my mom used to make my plate for dinner and then insist that I eat it all. There were all those starving children in <third-world-country> you know. My mom herself was always trying to lose weight and I'm sure she could see *I* was fat, so I don't know why she contributed further to my fatness. To this day, I hate seeing parents making their kids clean their plates. Also, the only nutritional guidance I really got was "eat it; it's good for you."
I've done well at losing and maintaining now, but it's a constant struggle. I can't mention dieting to people because they say "you're so tiny already!" But of course being fat is in my head forever!0 -
I have been overweight my whole life. As a young child my parents would restrict my lunches at school but at dinner my siblings and I were always told to "clean your plate, there are starving children in this world". Talk about mixed messages. I was diagnosed with Hypothyroid at age 8 and going on Synthroid helped but I was never a 'healthy' weight. My Mom was perpetually on a diet and both she and both my grandmother's made comments about my weight. I would hide food and binge eat whenever I could to make myself feel better. Finally at age 14 my mother and I went to Weight Watchers together. Thankfully I was able to learn healthy habits and good nutrition and portion control. I have had many setbacks related to various situations in my life and the secretive eating has always made matters worse. I feel like I have finally reached the point where I am healthier emotionally and ready to take care of myself for life. I am honest with how I feel and what I need and while losing weight is still not easy it's working and I get a lot less 'less than helpful' help from my friends and family.
I have learned to love my body, in any form, but I want to be the healthiest me that I can be. I feel bad for my Mom because she still hasn't learned that.0 -
I've always been overweight, felt bad about it, but not all too concerned to do anything about it...just accepted I'm a big girl. We didn't have much junk in the house (at first), but portions weren't discussed (I think it was to not make me feel bad because my brother ate A LOT as a competitive swimmer) and we were to finish what was on our plate. The concept of nightly dessert blew my mind - I was at a friend's house for a typical dinner, before the dishes were cleared from the table, the cookies and cakes came out. For us, dessert was often eating the peel from an apple my dad was snacking on (I love that memory). Things changed when my parents divorced - mom turned to food for comfort and suddenly there was junk (usually salty) in the house.
My weight became an issue when I got to college - I regularly made poor meal choices (cheesesteak and fries almost daily and could buy candy with my meal card). So I'd say the mistake my parents made was simply not teaching me how to eat properly when faced with options. In my early 20's, my dad would lovingly talk to me about losing weight naming health issues I'd face later on as well as emphasizing that "it's more difficult to lose the weight as you get older" (so true!). My mom said nothing as she had her own issues with her weight after their divorce. Today, I'm more fit than I ever imagined through determination and family support. Some days I feel like a damn superhero!0 -
I've been overweight pretty much my entire life. It's really hard when your father's side are all over weight (mainly his paternal side), and on your mother's side everyone is slender. My parents are West Indian so every house you visit you must eat and or drink something. My dad used to tease me when we went to the buffet and I couldn't eat 3 plates of food. My mom still cooks for 4 rather than two and gets upset if I don't eat enough to cover the rest.0
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MissDeeDee78 wrote: »My mom still cooks for 4 rather than two and gets upset if I don't eat enough to cover the rest.
"Uh, mom shouldn't eat that much pasta ok!"
I pretty much get you. Mom thinks we didn't like the meal if we don't want seconds. I started cooking for her and others and I can't really understand why one would get upset to not over eat. The only time I get upset is when I make food and there is leftovers, the leftovers don't get eaten and i'm asked to make a new dish. THAT sucks. Like... come on, lets not have food go to waste. You like me to keep making food, eat it before I add new stuff to the fridge.0 -
At the age of 2 I weighed more than my 4 year old brother. I have always been heavier than him and he's always been in the middle of his healthy BMI range. Indeed, I was the heaviest kid in school until 5th grade when a fatter boy weighed 164 to my 160 (which, by the way, is now my goal weight). Back then, my hypothesis revolved around the extended period of time my mother kept me on the bottle. I actually remember being weaned when I was 3 and my sisters had given my bottle to the dog. While that may explain the first few years, many following years of pancake breakfasts and white bread snacks and fried suppers put me well over 200 lb by the time I reached high school. I was 37 before I began turning away from the "more" of food and then blundered in ignorance for another 16 years before finding mfp.0
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Growing up we only ate low fat, nutritious foods at our meals. Baked skinless chicken, boiled vegetables, plain rice, always a salad with dinner. Only Bran cereal for breakfast. Fruit was available for snacks. No junk food or eating out (at least for us kids). We had to ask permission for anything we put in our mouths. I used to chalk up the strict control on our food consumption to growing up fairly poor, and our parents needing to ration food, but underneath there was a whole lot of food dysfunction going on in our house. My mom was always dieting, my Dad regularly berated my Mom for being fat and for the food she ate, in turn Mom would "spite eat" in front of my Dad, both parents hid food and binged, when we had treats they were given to us like sneaky naughty secrets.
My best friend growing up was the exact opposite: all junk food, all the time, so I liked to sleep over her house A LOT! I became a binge eater at a very young age: first at my friends house (usually in the middle of the night so no one would see my decimating their cupboard) and then when I made money baby sitting, I'd spend all my earnings on candy and chips and binge while my parents were at work. Then eat the nutritious dinner when they got home. Junk food became very special to me and I was special when I ate it. I definitely became one of the biggest girls in my class.
It wasn't until I was older that I realized that my family's relationship with food wasn't the healthiest! Nutrition was understood, but the twisted values we put on food and the emotional connection we had to it was what we needed help understanding. Of course, I can't blame my parents for it. They were the product of their childhood: being born during the depression. My grandparent were the product of their childhoods: being born into extreme poverty in Ireland, and so on and so on. So I can easily imagine how on an emotional level, food became so much more than just sustenance. At least I can change my own relationship toward food.0
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