How did you eat as a child?

yellingkimber

My family went through periods of eating absolutely amazingly to eating like absolute garbage and it really didn't seem to correspond to how much money they had at a certain time. My grandpa and dad (grew up with them + grandma) were both trained as chefs. My dad worked at restaurants most of the time I was growing up, so my grandpa handled the cooking. He's an amazing cook, so everything we had was always delicious. Amazing beef stews, homemade chicken noodle soup, beautifully done pork loin, osso bucco, spaghetti with homemade meat sauce, perfectly seared rare steak, and just in general, a really diverse range of food.

Almost every meal I can remember from ages 4 to moving out at 18 was served with a side of salad (iceberg lettuce, vinaigrette, tomato, raw onion, and seasoned with salt & pepper). I don't really remember ever being pushed to finish my plate and portions seemed pretty realistic. My grandma even had a garden, so we would be drowning in fresh tomatoes as the summer went on.

Other times, there was basically no cooking done at all and the house would be stocked full of boxes with Little Debbie's face on them. I still can't go near Swiss Cake Rolls, Zebra Cakes, Strawberry Shortcake Rolls, and Cosmic Brownies without wanting to barf. I got up to 155 lbs at 5'4 and 10 years old because I swear, this was all we had around sometimes beside a fridge full of condiments, so I'd just eat them pretty much nonstop because they weren't really filling. That + there were always at least 6 24 packs of Pepsi just chilling and waiting to be consumed

I think my grandpa was in the process of launching his second business and just didn't have time to cook. My dad and grandma both worked in restaurants at the time and grazed at work, so they never really noticed that homecooked meals went from daily to bi-weekly. I started eating dinner over at a friend's house and kept on horseback riding 6 days a week and started dropping back down to a normal weight in no time. My friend was only a year older than me and responsible for making dinner for her family of 4 people, sometimes 7 if relatives were visiting (Cinderella, Cinderella) and that was probably the first time it occurred to me that I could cook without adult supervision.

My grandpa taught me to cook, so I helped him make dinner for a few years and then when I went vegetarian at 15, I started cooking entirely for myself. I was only overweight from ages like 10-11 (which I can safely say wasn't growth-spurt fat because I've only grown 1 inch since I was 9 years old) and from August to now. Even now, I'm only 1.4 lbs away from a healthy range again.

My grandpa is slightly overweight now because he really likes to indulge when he's out to lunch for work and my grandma and aunt are overweight because they believe fad dieting is the way to go. My aunt has actually been taking a capful of some weirdly marketing product that's basically aloe (laxative) for the past 4-5 years and takes an extra capful every week at her cheat meal (Olive Garden, it's scary to witness) and won't be swayed that it's impacting the progress she wants to see. My dad was actually up to 400 lbs for a couple of years, but he's in the mid 200s now and is working really hard to get back down to a size where he's comfortable.

sammyliftsandeats

Born in 1988 - Canadian.

Breakfast: Corn pops with milk. Drank the milk afterwards. sometimes two blueberry Eggo waffles with margarine.

Lunch: Typically a turkey sandwich on white bread with an apple and if I begged my mom, DUNKAROOS!

Dinner: Typical Laotian dishes like rice with beef jerky, papaya salad, other proteins.

Was I overweight? No, I was actually underweight when I was younger (like 5-7) and then I got to a normal weight. It wasn't until puberty (11 years old and onwards) that I started to gain weight.

I wasn't a picky eater but I just didn't eat a lot. I would pick at my food and always beg to go play, rather than eat my dinner. My mom used to have to sit me down and feed me, but I'd always get distracted. I liked food, but I liked playing better.

I was never obese. Just overweight and maybe on the low end of 'overweight' if we used a BMI chart.

susanp57

OP, I'm in the same age range as you and my meals were similar but I think we had more variety.

Most mornings Mom would cook something. Bacon or sausage & eggs, hot cereal, etc. Occasionally we would have cold cereal but not often. Lunches were similar. They also included tuna, egg salad, chicken salad, ham, pb & banana and if it was cold out, hot soup. Campbell's, of course.

Dinners varied.

Women during that period were encouraged to use convenience foods. In retrospect, I'm amazed Mom cooked as much from scratch as she did.

Also eating out was rare. Takeout was unheard of.

I was never fat as a child. Very few of my peers were either. By today's standards, none were.

cwolfman13

Born in '74...

My parents were pretty much pay check to pay check, so we rarely ate out. Breakfasts were typically Cheerios, oatmeal, or cream of wheat except on the weekends my dad would make eggs, bacon, and potatoes. Lunch was usually a sandwich of some kind with an apple or banana and other little snacky things and dinner was usually some kind of meat/veg/starch or grain combo...

I wasn't overweight at any point in my childhood. I ran track and field starting in 2nd grade through my senior year in high school and participated in a variety of other sports as well...little gymnastics, swim team, football, wrestling, etc.

I didn't have a weight issue until I graduated college and took a desk job in my 30s.

lthames0810

susanp57 wrote: »

OP, I'm in the same age range as you and my meals were similar but I think we had more variety.

Most mornings Mom would cook something. Bacon or sausage & eggs, hot cereal, etc. Occasionally we would have cold cereal but not often. Lunches were similar. They also included tuna, egg salad, chicken salad, ham, pb & banana and if it was cold out, hot soup. Campbell's, of course.

Dinners varied.

Women during that period were encouraged to use convenience foods. In retrospect, I'm amazed Mom cooked as much from scratch as she did.

Also eating out was rare. Takeout was unheard of.

I was never fat as a child. Very few of my peers were either. By today's standards, none were.

About the convenience food...

Yes, I remember that most of the neighbor mom's used them a lot of the time. They were heavily advertised during the daytime soap operas. My mom was raised on a farm and didn't know anything but eating from the farm raised vegetables and live stock. My dad was from an immigrant family (Sicilian) who were not at all familiar with American convenience foods. I actually felt a little deprived by not getting Chef Boyardee (sp?) canned dinners.

My mom would only go so far as to make Spam and eggs** some weekend mornings. Maybe even serve Tang!

**Edit: Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch.

ChelzFit

I was pretty thin until about middle school and things started to catch up to me. My house didn't have any healthy options. Breakfast was usually two bowls of fruity pebbles or pop tarts. Lunch was always frozen meals or butter sandwiches with ham. For dinner my parents were huge on steak, porkchops and casseroles with cream of mushroom. Once highschool hit my choices really went out the window. I remember eating oatmeal cream pies, several at a time for a snack, KFC for lunch followed by handfuls of m&ms, etc. I was gaining weight and not happy and remember using food as an emotional tool. After some teasing began because of my weight I developed an eating disorder and compulsive exercise which left me really thin and lasted all the way into my college years. I still battle with disordered exercising/eating but consider myself in a much better place. Now that I have two children at home, I really don't want to deprive them of treats, but I also want to make sure that they have other options to choose from as well.
The funny thing was that in my family I was the one who joined a gym in Highschool and then my family followed. My family is not overweight and actually fairly healthy, but they just choose to not eat all day and then binge at night. I know for me that does not work.

junodog1

Same age range here. Born in 61
My Dad was a navy pilot and home 6 months of the year if we were lucky. Mom was SAHM

Breakfast – you ate depending on your bus schedule
MWFS was cereal, hot or cold.
T Th was eggs.
Sunday was family breakfast and either pancakes, waffles or French toast.
Always milk and OJ or another citrus available

Lunch was usually either a school lunch or a packed lunch of sandwich, chips and a sweet – fruit, pudding, snack cake. Milk

We could usually snack in the afternoon as available – cookies, ice cream, fruit.

Dinner was sit down. Protein, veggie or veggies, rice more than potato, and for a long time bread. I remember if we didn’t have rolls there would be a plate of sliced white bread. And Milk.

Then dad was retired. 100% disabled – surgical error. Started retirement pay but not the same income as before. After life settled down Mom went to work and Dad begin to cook. There were five children and not much money to stretch. We had many experiments that did not last long (ones that really scarred my taste buds powered milk; tang) and some experiments that did last: do you know how many recipes there are for SPAM? Somehow, overall food did not change. The breakfast ritual never changed. However, we ate a lot more casseroles.

I never had a weight problem until I went out on my own and then it has just gradually increased as my life became more sedentary. My biggest problems are lack of activity, empty calories – like Rum and Coke – and food that is just too darn much in one serving. And I am still trying to fit in milk as much as possible.

Calorie counting is perfect for me and in the age of the internet it is so darn easy.

peaceout_aly

I always ate healthy. I was a naturally chunky kid, therefore I started counting "macros" (at the time just fat, later on calories, and it evolved to the full blown macro tracking that I'm at now) in 5th grade. I would skip cake at parties, eat apples, Special K cereal, and indulge every so often on French Silk ice cream and Rita's Water Ice. I knew that I wanted to "save my macros" for stuff that I actually liked and valued as worth it. I had a general idea of what eating healthy was, and that helped me to have a genuine interest in it now.

cabwj

Yes, OP, I was a child in the 60s and my diet was nearly identical to yours. I was the oldest of four, with a stay at home mom and a working dad.

Cereal and milk for breakfast. PB&J or bologna sandwich on Wonder bread and a fruit for lunch. Meat (often fried), potatoes (often fried), vegetables (usually canned) and a slice of bread with margarine for dinner, with a glass of milk.

On the weekend breakfast might have been pancakes or french toast and lunch might include grilled cheese sandwich.

We didn't drink soda pop but we did drink kool-aid. Treats were usually cookies or popsicles- real ice cream was for birthdays. The occasional candy was generally Good N' Plenty or something like that- generally not chocolate.

I was beanpole thin.

amusedmonkey

I grew up in the 80s and I started gaining weight when I was 7 or 8 years old.

Breakfast with the family was usually several plates of food akin to tapas that included eggs, hummus, falafel, cheese, Greek yogurt, olives, zaatar, mortadella, beans, chopped tomatoes and cucumbers...etc. Along with hot out of the oven pita bread and a bowl of olive oil for dipping and a cup of milk. If mom woke up late or my grandmother wasn't feeling well, it was a quick Greek yogurt sandwich with a tomato and a boiled egg for the road. I did not know what cold cereal or peanut butter were until way later in my adulthood. About 5 years ago in fact.

Then I would take a sandwich and a few cucumbers and a piece of fruit with me to school, and pocket money to buy something if I'm still hungry or want something to drink. I usually bought tomato juice. On non-school days before noon my grandmother would gather the women for tea, biscotti, gossip and a game of cards. I had bowl of biscotti soaked in tea and sprinkled with sugar and powdered milk.

Back from school, snacked on tomatoes until lunch. Lunch with the family (main meal) which usually consisted of lots of vegetables in sauce with rice and meat, usually chicken and occasionally beef or lamb. I skipped the meat because I didn't like it. Sometimes we had spaghetti with bolognese or marinara sauce, very rarely a white sauce, and I don't recall ever eating a cheese pasta. Never had mac and cheese - I still haven't tried it. Sometimes we had bean or whole grain based dishes, or dishes that were eaten with yogurt.

Every now and then we had extended family gatherings on weekends with lots of food for lunch and a platter of light snacks and veggie sticks for adults with alcoholic drinks before lunch, and colorful veggie sticks for the kids, then some type of dessert after lunch.

Then out to play and snacks. I usually packed a head of lettuce for playtime. We also had pocket money and could buy a single serving of something. Back for homework, more tomatoes, and maybe a butter and salt or butter and sugar sandwich. Sometimes a Nutella sandwich but it was rare because it was expensive. Occasionally, maybe once every 6 or so months we would go out for pizza or something.

Dinner was usually similar to breakfast if eating together, if not I either ate a sandwich or asked for a grain porridge like millet, buckwheat, barley...etc (semolina was my favorite). I did not know oatmeal back then but I suspect I would have loved it.

After dinner we would sit together as a family and watch TV. Sometimes we would make popcorn but not often. It was simple, oil pooped on a gasoline heater with salt and nothing else.

Then tomatoes until bedtime, a cup of milk, then off to sleep.

Come to think of it, I was eating all day... No wonder I gained so much weight.

KJLaMore

Born in 1966 to a stay at home mom and postal worker father. The fourth of six kids. We lived the life of that facebook meme: kids outside from the time chores were done (right after breakfast) right up to the time we heard my mom calling through the neighborhood for us for dinner.
Breakfast for me (as a relatively "non" eater): A piece of peanut butter toast and water (I didn't like milk)
Lunch was always (whether home or in school): half a peanut butter and butter sandwich and some carrot sticks
Dinner was: whatever mom put on our plate and she was a great cook, albeit a creative one. She liked to try "new" cuisine. Needless to say, my parents had the rule that you ate what was on your plate. Many days I tried to feed my veggies to the dog, but he was not having any of it.
Desserts were served on birthdays and holidays, eating out? didn't happen. We even packed a cooler on our "road trip" vacations.
I didn't have my first piece of franchise pizza until I was in high school. When I finally began to make a little money from babysitting, I discovered chips and sodas and other wonderfully high caloric morsels of deliciousness.
I was bone thin, through my childhood, teen years, early married life and even after I had my own kids. My parents died when I was 27 and shortly after that the weight started accumulating. Depression and stress. Because I am 5'8 and started out thin, the weight crept on slowly and my body actually carried it well. For a while. When I hit menopause early (age 45) it began to look ridiculous. So...found mfp, joined a gym, made friends with another gym rat who became my workout partner and accountability person. I am still about 80 pounds over weight, but I am on the road back to my normal weight and healthier lifestyle. Life still likes to put up roadblocks and knock me down, but you just have to get up and dust yourself off and keep going.
I often think about my relationship or non-relationship with food when I was young. I sometimes wonder if the lack of "treats" made me want them even more. But it is what it is and I am quite happy that for about five years we (my family) have been a non-processed food household. All meals/soups/sauces etc. created from whole foods. Back to basics is the way for me, I think.

bathsheba_c

I basically ate nothing but carbs growing up (US, late 80s and 90s). Cereal or white rice or plain pasta with milk for breakfast, though the cereal was always no sugar added. Lunch was a strawberry jelly sandwich, chocolate milk, and an apple because I pretty much refused to eat school lunch and there are very few room temperature foods I can stand. When I got home, I'd have cookies or crackers with milk as a snack. Dinner was meat, vegetable, starch. And then I had a glass of milk and a small snack before bed.

I was surprisingly not overweight. I was a little overweight during puberty, but not before and not after. And my blood lipid counts are perfect. I will say that I'm naturally very muscular.

amusedmonkey

Thank you for this post. I have never thought of myself as an emotional eater, but I guess joy is an emotion too. You made me think about it. My food memories are all happy. Family, joy, fun, feeling loved and being around loved ones. My love for food apparently has its roots. I derive extreme pleasure from eating for a reason and it's not just because it tastes good (it does)... Something to think about.

R2che

I was born in 1979 in the U.K.

I am the oldest of 5 kids and my mum was a single parent who didn't work. We had cereal and milk (if there was enough milk left) or toast for brekki

Lunch was either skipped or a bag of chips from the Chinese at lunch break.

Tea was usually meat, potatoes and veg or freezer food. Very rarely a pudding was on offer.

I was a skinny kid and as I grew up I was very slim until I got pregnant with my first child. I was only 6 1/2 stone (91lbs) when I went on maternity leave and I started to love food!

The rest is history...

janjunie

Canadian born in 1984. I had a terrible diet. I'm an only child and was raised by a single sahm.
Breakfast: Cereal (the most sugar coated kind possible) with full fat milk or bacon.
Lunch: Whatever my school served, which was way better than anything my mom could have made. School lunch was provided by a community school cafeteria, I was very lucky in this respect. If it was the weekend refer to what I ate for dinner.
Snack: Freezies or chips or a chocolate bar from the corner store.
Dinner: Mac and cheese with hot dogs, or hot dogs or a deli meat sandwich or something else cheap, heavily processed and easy to prepare. I rarely had anything of true nutritional value.

I have three kids now and there is no way I'd give them my childhood diet, ugh makes me cringe reading this back to myself.

deputy_randolph

I ate a pretty balanced diet...for the most part: meat, veggies, bread, etc. (80s/90s). However, my whole family drank an excessive amount of soda and ate an excessive amount of sugar. I was an overweight kid; the whole family was overweight. It was not uncommon for me to eat 3 donuts or a half gallon of ice cream in a sitting.

I did develop a taste for healthier foods, b/c I was exposed as a kid; but I had a MAJOR sweet tooth and bad sugar habit that I had to break as an adult.

My kids eat very well. They aren't picky eaters. The only veggie they dont like: brussel sprouts (oh well). I'm not overly strict about sweet treats, but the rule is 1 a day (and it's usually a small serving). They seem satisfied with small portions of sweet treats...so it is working for now.

JessicaMcB

1991 in Canada. We were pretty poor so nutritionally things were a little off but our mom did the best she could and we ate a mostly balanced diet (hotdog corn chowder still haunts me though). I only started to gain after I met my husband because ridiculous food choices plus sedentary living.

I do remember if there was any treat type food in the house I was all over it (cough the chocolate chip jar cough) because who knew when those would be around again. So I got bad for attacking calorie dense foods young, I just didn't get fat until later on because I was active as a kid and not so much as an adult until I got my shiz together.

All of this makes me a lot more conscious of the dietary decisions I make for my own children which is the blessing

roserly

1990's. Breakfast was milk and cereal. (now that breakfast upsets my stomach lol)

For lunch it was a standard school lunch or packed lunch of campbells soup, bag of chips, a brownie and an apple. I mostly drank milk.

After school it was a pb&j and chocolate milk all the time. As a teenager it was ramen noodles and brownies. Haha

Dinner was usually pizza or mcdonalds, when with my grandparents it was biscuits and gravy type stuff. Lots of gravy meals with potatoes and meat and a canned veggie. Drank milk.

Now I eat way differently. I still love gravy though. I was always bigger than kids my age. First i hit puberty early, was taller, just bigger. I played outside a lot, jumped on trampoline for hours plus rode bikes with friends. I got muscular calves to this day, but after i got into TV and video games...then I slowly got fat, I ate a lot of processed and packaged or instant foods when I was in my preteens and teens. Stopped playing outside.

Now I cant hardly stand that stuff, plus i love taking walks now. Oh, and milk and I no longer get along sadly. It hurts my stomach.

Irishcream822

Most mornings we had eggs and toast. Sometimes bacon or sausage. Some mornings oatmeal or cream of wheat.
Lunch was usually packed with a turkey and cheese sand or baloney or tuna salad, carrot sticks or an apple or a banana. I liked pizza day or Mac and cheese day and spaghetti day so I bought lunch those days.
Supper at home on weekdays was usually meatloaf, pork chops, steak any meat that was real no chicken nuggets or pre made. Real mashed potatoes. My father was not one for instant. Potatoes every night unless we had lasagna or spaghetti some nights we had fish and potatoes. We had a vegetable or salad every night. Sunday dinner was usually a pot roast with potatoes and carrots or roast chicken. We usually did not have dessert. Sometimes tapioca or ice cream. We would have pizza night with moms friends about once a month. We kept chips in the house but I wasn't a big fan on them. We had cookies that we baked at times. Especially Christmas time. Pumpkin pie around holidays and sometimes Apple blueberry and cherry. We had tasty cakes for our lunches at times but they weren't for sitting around and eating just any time. I liked to eat blueberry yogurt for a snack or a can of peas. We had fruit trees and kept fruit at the house also so we didn't do much snacking on junk. Occasionally we made popped corn or had cheese curls or cake. Grandparents took us to Mc Donalds and ice cream. My father wanted meat and potatoes daily so we didn't have things like casseroles and nachos or burritos. My husband likes to cook and likes different things. That has made an entire new food choice for me. There's so many foods I didn't know were around

lynn_glenmont

From the mid-sixties to early 70s in the U.S.

Breakfast, weekdays and Saturdays: usually cold cereal with milk, maybe a banana, rarely berries, and a small glass of orange juice (we used small empty jars that originally held spreadable flavored neufchatel cheese). But sometimes my mother would make hot cereal (not so much oatmeal as cream of wheat, which my brothers liked, or Ralston whole wheat cereal, which I preferred); sometimes she made hot chocolate from scratch, and served it in a chocolate pot, so we could refill our cups, and made buttered toast, and we would dunk the toast in the hot chocolate like people dunk doughnuts in coffee, and you'd get a lovely buttery film on the hot chocolate -- like bulletproof cocoa ! And sometimes she'd make poached eggs with toast, which I really liked. Looking bad, I wonder if her repertoire of weekday hot breakfasts was influenced by always having a baby or toddler to feed for the better part of two decades, and just making the same thing for whatever older kids were around, and we got to like it.

Breakfast, Sundays: this is when we might have pancakes or french toast with bacon or sausage, maybe fried eggs. Not every Sunday, but pretty frequently. But if for some reason or other people didn't get moving in time to do that before church, we might stop after church for doughnuts -- a couple of dozen in the years I remember best, when there were six or seven people in the house, and two to four of them, depending on the year, were teenage boys.

Lunch, on school days: If I brought lunch, it was usually a peanut butter and jelly or egg salad sandwich. I would take a sandwich made from deli meat, if there was any in the house, and when I got old enough to wield a knife I'd make a sandwich from any leftover ham or roast beef/pork/lamb/chicken in the house, but my mom either wouldn't cater to or didn't understand or I didn't explain my deep loathing for fat on meat, especially cold fat, so I wouldn't take regular (non-deli) meat sandwiches when I was younger and she was making my lunches. I liked tuna salad sandwiches at home, but my mom made it too wet to take for a lunch sandwich, because the bread would be all soggy by the time I got to eat it. Sides were usually fruit of some kind (apples, tangerines, grapes), maybe cut veggies like carrots, celery, bell peppers. And I would buy milk, and sometimes an ice cream sandwich or cookie for dessert.

I would also buy the school lunch sometimes, if it was something I liked. The woman who ran our school cafeteria made insanely good garlic bread when spaghetti was the lunch, so I always bought lunch on those days. And some days I would walk home for lunch, because we lived close, if there was something especially good to be had, like homemade soup leftover from dinner the night before.

Snacks: I don't remember having after school snacks very often. If I was really hungry, I might have graham crackers and milk, a piece of fruit, a slice of bread and butter, especially if there was homemade bread around, or a bit of cheese, but it was after three when I got home from school, and we sat down to dinner around 5:30, so it wasn't encouraged to ruin your appetite.

Dinner: Usually some kind of meat, a starch, and a couple of vegetables (sometimes salad, vegetable-based soup, or V-8 juice would sub in for a cooked vegetable on your dinner plate). Meatless dinners on Friday might be fish or grilled cheese or scrambled eggs with cheese, usually with tomato soup. Always served with milk, whole milk when I was a child, then reduced fat by the time I was a teenager.

Dessert: not an everyday occurrence. We often but not always had something on Sunday (layer cake and brownies were frequent, but also simple things like pudding from a mix, and then my mother went through a phase of making trifles, although that was more of a special occasion dessert). Then as my brothers got to be ravenous teenagers who had to fuel themselves for football and other sports, my mother started keeping more calorie-dense ready-made snack and dessert foods (a.k.a. "junk food") on hand, like cookies and ice cream, and I of course wanted to have some too.


I was healthy, and usually did a fair amount of running around/biking/skating, but my mother always seemed to be worried I was going to get fat -- well, roughly half of the females on her side of the family were obese at some point in their lives, so it wasn't an irrational concern. Anyway, there was a certain amount of her discouraging me from eating the snack foods, which led to a certain amount of my sneaking the snack foods, which I wasn't precisely forbidden to have. Photographic evidence tells me I was never fat as a child or teenager (but never skinny), and my memory of my height and weight from the age of about 12, when being warned about getting fat had me actually start paying attention to my weight, tells me that until I went to college, I was always in the "healthy/normal" BMI range. Oddly, I was never overweight until after I started going on "diets." (Atkins, cabbage soup, the diet of the month from magazines, some "meal plans" that were perfectly sensible other than feeling that one had to eat exactly what was on the plan for that day...)