Does your childhood diet affect your eating habits?

SailorKnightWing

My dad has always had high blood pressure so when my parents got married, Mom stopped cooking with salt. Fast forward 37 years later with me at 25 and I don't cook with salt, either. Of course, I have low blood pressure and never meet my sodium goals...

trogalicious

Of course it is.. why wouldn't it be? We're programmed how we should eat by our folks, right? As kids, we weren't exactly given many options on how to eat.

It gets back to nurture vs nature. I would go as far as to say that the majority of us fed, by either our parents or caregivers, as kids.. and then that plays into what and how we choose to eat later in life.

Francl27

It does. My mom always did the minimum when cooking, except maybe once a week... throwing some meat in the pan, reheating canned veggies, that was pretty much it. It wasn't good by any means and I really didn't like meat much at the time (so much that I stopped eating meat for 3 years when I was 16). The net result is I never learned how to cook, and still don't like cooking (and I pretty much do the same thing she did, except I don't use margarine and use frozen veggies).

But the habit that it took me probably 10 years to shake off after I moved out was snacking when going out. My mom always let me buy food when we went out (I'm French, so bakeries are all over, and she'd buy us donuts at the beach etc). Seriously it took me a long time not to crave a croissant or something when I was going out... which is one of the habits that got me where I was. And buying anything I wanted at the supermarket too. She'd let me load the cart with all kinds of yogurts, chocolates, puddings (HUGE selection of puddings of all kinds over there). Then we'd sample things when we came back home. Took me a while to get rid of that habit too.

I'm totally blaming my mom for my bad eating habits and getting overweight in the first place, but I'm finally over it...

pinkledoodledoo

I think that eating habits during childhood definitely have an impact on adult food choices. I was primarily raised just by my mom and she worked 60+ hours/week most of the time just for us to survive on our own... this didn't leave much time for well balanced meals. She would try really hard to keep fresh fruits & veggies in the house and pack them in my lunches but dinner was often fast food/pizza until I learned how to cook and help out and then it became more about easy frozen stir fry mixes and other things that were easy for an older child to make with minimal supervision. Breakfast was typically sugary cereals or from a drive-thru on the way to school. There were always candy and ice cream around the house and they were never limited. As an adult I've struggled to get away from the fast food and pizza delivery habits. I LOVE to cook now but some days I just feel stressed out and all I want to do is order a pizza and let someone else worry about what's for dinner... probably because that's what mom always did. Or it could just be that I love pizza... :laugh:

KenosFeoh

Not much. My mother was very much into cooking vegetables and using boxed convenience foods. I prefer salads and making foods from scratch. I buy very little of what she used to buy.

Im_NotPerfect

Yep, absolutely. We had NO shortage of carbs, cookies, etc in our house and because of that I'm a severe carboholic. Every meal we had some kind of bread, roll, garlic bread, etc. I even made my husband adopt that habit when we got married and he doesn't eat many carbs AT ALL. We always got a "goodie" before bed (cookie, ice cream, etc) and I still crave that today.

Now, I don't bring cookies into our house because they are my ultimate weakness. I can no longer eat bread because of a yeast intolerance. And there are also certain meals I MUST have while camping because we always did as a kid.

vjohn04

my childhood diet - and all the contradictions that went along with it from my parents are the reason I had no concept of portions and portion control.

As I've aged, I've tried to keep the good habits they instilled (ample fruits and veggies with meals) and cut out the bad ones (eating two whoppers in a sitting)

I cook a lot, and I see myself preparing foods the way my mother did--- when I reflect on those aspects, it makes me very happy.

ninerbuff

Only in the sense of cultural food. I love my cultures food, but know that too much of it will pile on the weight, so I'm aware of how much I'm eating.
Once I moved out on my own and was responsible for my own meals, I ended up eating out everyday.
Now that I do all the cooking, I'm back to eating more of our cultural foods since I know how to make them now, but I don't cook for an army.

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LuckyLeprechaun

I can't speak for the rest of the people in the world, but for me yes. My mom's idea of veggies was throwing frozen veggies in a pot of boiling water for 30+ minutes. Never any seasoning. We rarely had fruit in the house. If we did it was an apple or box of raisins. Never had salads, ever. We would have corn on the cob and tomatoes in the summer. That was about it.

Not only on the veg and fruit front, but our weekly meals were the following. Baked chicken breast, shake-n-bake pork chops, steak, pasta and meatballs, pizza night or fish sticks, and some sort of roast (beef or pork). EVERY NIGHT (except pasta or pizza night) had potatoes. I'm not kidding. All the food was OVERCOOKED.

Are we related!? This was my mom as well.

Also, we rarely (almost never) were able to get fast food. When we did, it was severely restricted as far as what we could choose/order. (Going to Taco Bell gave us the choice of hard taco or bean burrito. Period. All I wanted in life as a teenager was a Mexican Pizza.)

As a result, when I went off to college, I ate ALL OF THE THINGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sockergurl04

Yup, my mom always forced my skinny sister to eat all her food. She would be in big trouble if she didn't. Soooo I always ate a lot so I wouldn't get in trouble. Mom always made us eat everything even if we weren't hungry any more so that we didn't waste anything. I still struggle to quit eating this way. I catch myself sometimes, I wish I realized this earlier in life!! I love my mom to death but she still tries to stuff me when I'm already full!!

DawnieB1977

Yeah, I think it does.

We never, ever had take-away as kids, my first ever take-away meal was in my 2nd year of university with my housemates! My parents also never took us to McDonald's or places like that. As a result I never eat at fast food places, and although we do get the occasional take-away, I actually prefer not to. Not just for calories, but for taste. I'd actually rather eat a jacket potato and tuna than a Dominos.

My mum cooked all our meals herself, no packets, microwave meals etc, and I am the same.

I guess I'm a bit more adventurous food-wise than my mum though as she doesn't like spicy things, so we never had curries, chilli etc, and I like making things like that. My husband has an aunt from Thailand and an uncle from Iran, so they grew up with more exotic food influences, so being with him has meant that I've tried new things.

I think I'm bringing my kids up in a similar way as we don't do fast food, and we make meals from scratch. I like to bake the kids fairy cakes as treats rather than buy chocolate or whatever, and they're not allowed sweets.

icimani

I think it definitely has an impact - and we can chose to stick with it or change it.

My Dad was a steel worker so my family was very blue collar working class. Comfort food was the idea - meat and potatoes, sometimes rice, usually frozen vegetables, sometimes in the summer we had fresh corn and tomatoes. My Mother wasn't a terrible cook, just not very imaginative. And I still find myself wanting to go back to the comfort food when I'm stressed.

lilac67

I think it does. There were food issues in my family. We ate some things that were good for us, some things that just tasted good, but it was always to excess. I have battled my weight since I was a kid. I have tried to lose weight, yo-yoed, but I think that now after 40 years....I get it. I now understand and I'm fixing me!

brit__2006

Yup, my mom always forced my skinny sister to eat all her food. She would be in big trouble if she didn't. Soooo I always ate a lot so I wouldn't get in trouble. Mom always made us eat everything even if we weren't hungry any more so that we didn't waste anything. I still struggle to quit eating this way. I catch myself sometimes, I wish I realized this earlier in life!! I love my mom to death but she still tries to stuff me when I'm already full!!

I understand that one, and not just wasting, but my grandparents would think it was disgraceful not to eat the food. Like you thought it was bad or something..

But it's a habit that is hard to realize at first, and then hard to break.

BabyCerise

When I was a child, I used to eat french fries twice a day, since my 18's !! There was never any fruits/veggies at home, we drank Coke, ate crisps, and stuff like that. Today I try to eat healthy and I'm so much happier, I like cooking and I enjoy real food!

southerndream24

Interesting question. Growing up we had the standard junk food in the house, but we weren't aloud to have it all the time. Dinner was always some kind of meat, rice, and veggies. I've always loved them. My parents also kept fruit stocked in the house. Things like McDonald's breakfast were a rare treat as my father loved to cook us breakfast on the weekends.

Now as I got older, my parents got lazier in cooking dinner since I was involved in so many sports and activities. I wouldn't be home around dinner time so I would grab food from McDonald's, Subway, etc and that continued into college. Around my 2nd year in college I started cooking again, but it wasn't until my Senior year that I really made better choices. The year after college is when I gave up fast food and processed junk. I attempted to take my new found passion for eating better to my family, but that wasn't easy. They loved the food I was making but the laziness of making out of the box, quick meals was hard to get rid of. It took some time and my sister seeing how easy it was to actually cook before she stopped feeding my niece and nephews garbage. Mom is still a work in progress.

NovemberJune

I eat a lot differently now than I did as a kid. I hated onions! ONIONS! My #1 favorite food now. Lol.

SkinnyBubbaGaar

Mom: Here Sweetie want a snack.

(Hands me a piece of Weber's white bread slathered with butter and 2 tsp of white sugar)


Me (age 5): Mmmmm, may I please have another.

---

Me (age 5 - 51): Sugar = Love.

firstsip

Only in the sense of cultural food. I love my cultures food, but know that too much of it will pile on the weight, so I'm aware of how much I'm eating.

Roughly this. Garlic, seafood, olive oil, etc. is very constant in my diet from growing up in a household where I was one of the few born in America instead of Italy, but primarily because my Nonna was very present in our lives.

Otherwise, I eat virtually nothing I was raised eating, but still fight lots of the food issues I got growing up. I plan to be incredibly different with my kids so I don't shoot eating disorders into them.

alwaysgreen17

I think so, although I am trying to be more conscience of what and how I eat.

Growing up, my mom used to make everything with rice. I am Asian. I ate a a ton of rice. I still eat more than I probably should, but I have scaled back. The meals would usually be a 2:1:1 ratio, with rice in the lead and meat and a vegetable.

Also, we were taught to eat everything in our bowl. I mean everything. Even the scattered grains of rice. Bones picked clean. I think this is why I overeat sometimes.