What were you taught about food growing up?

RaeRaeThePandaBear

What did you learn about food/diet/exercise while you were growing up from those around you (like your parents, siblings, school, friends, etc?)

My mother was very thin and beautiful when I was young. At times her weight even dropped dangerously low, but she never ate healthily. She would only eat junk food, just very small amounts of junk food. There was never fresh fruit or vegetables in the house. I remember staples such as lunchables and juice boxes, little Debbie snack cakes, lots of cheese and butter on everything.

My mother would also reward my two older sisters and I with fast food, cheeseburgers and french fries. She would barely touch her food but as a little girl I had no self control like she did. So when we did well in school or behaved well we were able to eat junk.

By the time I was in the second grade I was going on my first diet. I wasn't even chubby, but my mother would constantly talk about dieting and withholding food and I had two teenage sisters who would do the same so very early I learned that food made you fat (not that nutrition is important and food is good for you).

School lunches were terrible. Most days I would eat pizza and french fries and drink chocolate milk. By the time I was in the third grade my oldest sister developed full blown anorexia. And that led me to hate my little 8 year old body every time I ate.

I remember coming home from school in the 5th grade and just watching tv while eating whatever chips and cookies I could find while watching TV. My mother worked nights and my sister were much older so I never had a family meal. We never ate at a kitchen table. I was left to fend for myself for every single meal growing up. And when a ten year old is left to choose her own food it tends to be crap.

In the 5th grade I also became a little chubby for the first time in my life, and by the 6th grade I was hiding food at home. I would eat so much that my stomach would hurt but I would eat in private because I was taught that eating food was bad and it made you fat. I became a vegetarian in the 6th grade because I wanted to eat healthier but that just led me to eating my weight in cheese every day. Macaroni and cheese, cheese pizza, cream cheese on bagels.

By the time I got to college I actually began to learn what being healthy meant. That food was good for you, and not evil. I became a vegan (and have been for 6 years), and I have been focused on un-doing all the harm that was done in my formative years.

Please share your experiences! I am always interested in what caused someone to have any struggles with their weight.

aquarabbit

Good for you for changing your eating. Especially if you and you family didn't always have the best relationship with food. Those habits can be very hard to break!

My family was actually really great about food. Even though my mother died when I was young and my dad was a bit of a pushover for me (only child and daddy's girl, so I got a tad spoiled by him!), but grandma and aunts were great about getting me to try new things and finish my veggies. I can remember my grandma and I have 2 hour long standoffs where I wasn't allowed to leave the table until I finished my veggies. So I started just eating my veggies first to get it over with. That's a habit that I do to this day, even though I adore my vegetables now. I was always a big lover of fruit and my grandma would let me help her bake with the fruit I was allowed to pick out at the grocery store. So I always associated fruit with dessert. And now I still see it that way. Fruit is my treat! I was allowed to have things like coke, pizzas, and the regular types of junk food, but it was a rare thing. Usually birthday parties. Even though my dad and I got take out food pretty frequently when I was in high school when he was working on a big job (he was a plumber), we still made sure to get our vegetables in. But in high school I started smoking and drinking a lot of coke. I still struggle with the coke now. That's totally my weakness. But all in all, we ate healthy, I was taught how to cook, but I wasn't too restricted. I was a healthy weight until I moved on my own!

When I really packed on the pounds was college. I had always been a big party girl in high school, so the alcohol wasn't anything new, but I went to college in Chicago. I had to work 2 jobs along with school just to afford to go out, but all the amazing restaurants, things to do around the city, and cost to get around was just so much fun! I'm definitely a social eater. So my husband (then boyfriend) and I would go out with groups and eat way more than we would have with just us, plus dessert. And that's when I really started to gain a lot. I still ate pretty balanced (although a lot more pasta), but I just ate A LOT! Then we moved to Hawaii. You'd think there would be lots of fresh produce and food, but not really. Most of it gets exported or goes to the hotels. And if not, it's too expensive (this whole island is, actually). So I was lonely, bored, broke, and I really found comfort in the cheap fast food here. Particularly a Korean BBQ place down the street from us. So good! But now that I know the island and where things are cheapest, it's easier. It's still not cheap, but I've found shortcuts. My grandma has also been sending me cheap recipes that she used to make me. So that's a great way to remind me of home and eat healthier. Slowly but surely, the pounds are coming off.

I think the biggest thing for me was exercise. I played sports in high school, but I never did home or gym workouts. So that's a new frontier for me. I'm doing Turbo Fire right now. It's super fun!

Mutant13

I was pretty lucky in that respect.

My parents loved food and taught me a love of food, as a family we are quite adventurously and it would occassionally weird my friends out if they visited for tea. However they had a great focus on health too- so we would be eating camel meatballs or shishaka or sashimi but there would be a great focus on vegetables and we rarely are take out.

They were strict in having us eat all out veg, and having the family sit at the table for dinner which I think is really important.

My stepdad was a boxer so he taught us the value if exercise and taught my brother and I to box, and too eat in a way that supported your exercise regime, and not to starve yourself.

All in all I'm very grateful for the way I was brought up

slim4health56

What a cool question...I've never given this a lot of thought, but here goes. I was pencil thin as a kid. My mom was good about fixing a healthy breakfast and dinner as a routine, but there was a drawer in the kitchen with Bazuuka bubble gum and Oreo cookies that I could always help myself to. Too, I wasn't forced to eat vegetables, so I didn't, and wouldn't drink milk unless there was chocolate in it. Coke was always in the fridge, ice cream in the freezer...lots of sweets available. I pretty much continued that way until age and thyroid disease made it impossible to stay thin eating junk. I've learned to eat vegetables if they are raw, love salad, and some fruits, but I still battle with the Coca~Cola addiction!

On the activity side, I was extremely active. Not quite sure how I mutated into a couch potato but it happened. It's still an issue to make myself walk/exercise, but I'm doing it. It's interesting that you asked what we were taught versus what we learned about food growing up. I wasn't "taught" anything about nutrition or exercise, but I learned I could eat anything I wanted without consequence (as a kid) and am finally learning that there are consequences. Thanks for the question!

Joreanasaurous

One of my favorite memories as a child was going to the Farmer's Market with my mom every weekend. We would always hunt for something new to try. Passion fruit, Star fruit, ect. She would also occasionally take us to farms where you could pick your own produce. Both gave me a really healthy appreciation for fruits and veggies and a willingness to try new things

Grace215lbs

I was never taught anything about food growing up. My mother was jealous of her children and would always tell us we were fat and always would be. She never let us participle in sports or hobbies. She didn't cook or clean and dad worked 7 days a week so he'd end up having too cook at 9pm or order take out eat night. My sister (12 years older then all of us) was a princess and refused to help out.. But by about 12 i started cooking for everyone. Still wasn't too sure about nutrition.

My father figured out what was going on and chucked us into netball and basketball which my mother went nuts over... I remember my brother won an award and was accepted into state league and she made one comment and that was. " I played better when i was your age". Yep. Some people shouldn't have kids. She's better now that we're all older and she's come to realize none of us will talk to her when she's being a B... So she's more laid back.

I think the only way we can really remove obesity is to educate the new generation of kids. Our kids. SO mine will be cooking twice a week, 1 sport of their choice and 1 after school fun hobby. I will take them to growers markets and tell them what's healthy and why. I'm scared i won't be a good parent but if i ever have kids. I will try to be the best i can be.

Still1Workoutatatime

I have to sit there until I eat it all

and never waste any of it..

honeysprinkles

Basically no one in my family really knew anything about healthy eating and we would eat at restaurants a lot. I also ate out of boredom often.

Nothing too terrible and nothing intentional, honestly I'm just happy that I always had food to eat when I was growing up so I'm not going to complain.

But I did have to learn how to eat in a reasonable way on my own.

JasmineOravec

My mom was/is really, really thin. I believe she has an eating disorder but would she will not ever admit it. She shows all the signs. When I visit her, I joke (to my fiance) that it's fat camp since she makes such small portions of lean, lean food. I lost two pounds in a four day visit one time eating what she prepared. She put me on a diet when I was in the fourth grade and I had to stay after school. Not cool because I wasn't very overweight. She has given me books on how to speed my metabolism. She worries about me when I'm even 10 or 15 pounds overweight. She doesn't when I'm thin.
Once when I was 26, I was the worst off I've been emotionally. I was thin. That was all that seemed to matter to her. I must have been fine. Thank god I have an amazing therapist for work through these difficult issues. I feel like I have a good relationship with food since I've been tracking for so many months. I wish you the best in working this out in your head and would be happy to be there to talk if you need a friend who understands.

alisonlynn1976

I was a normal weight as a child, and my parents were too, but I think I picked up some unhealthy patterns due to things like my parents using candy bars and trips to McDonalds as rewards and my mom often complaining in front of me that she needed to lose a few pounds. On the plus side, my dad was into going to the gym and took my brothers and I with him on the weekend, and as a result, I've always known that exercise is important and have been a gym member most of my adult life (though I was sometimes one of those who pay the monthy fee but rarely go).

tryclyn

I have to sit there until I eat it all

and never waste any of it..

.. and not allowed to drink anything until finished eating.


Needless to say I've had a few discussions about how the grandchildren will be treated.

FranceyPants

All these stories about their mothers... putting you on diets when you are children, negatively associating food with bodies, it's no wonder society today is so screwed up about food.

I had the same deal. For my mum and her family, being thin has always been very important. Eating disorders run in the family.

I can remember as young as 9 my mum was speaking to her friend about her friend's 5 year old daughter. I can remember her friend said if her daughter didn't eat anyuthing in one day, she lost weight really quickly (I guess she was 5). My mum said, "Oh, I wish it worked the same for me!" And they both laughed about it. I remember wishing mum would let ME go a day without food, so that I could become really thin too.

I have always been small and have never been overweight according to my BMI. Yet at the ages of 9 and 10 I was wondering whether I was fat and comparing myself to other girls my age. This has continued my whole life.

I definitely blame my mother and her family for this. Only now that I'm older I can witness the way my mum treats food, the way she speaks about food and her body is really skewed, and I'm not surprised it rubbed off on me the way it did.

Not that my mum is a bad mum - she's the best - but it's sad that food has been a problem for her whole life and now it's going to be a problem for me too.

I think if I ever get pregnant I will seek therapy to speak about food issues and how to convey positive body and food messages to my children. I don't want any of my children going through what I've had to go through.

cupcakekate28

My mum used to tell me I ate too much and made me believe that food was naughty and you should feel guilty. I wasn't fat as a child but it led to a life with eating issues

That's why I love nigella so much, she wants food to be celebrated and enjoyed and you shouldn't feel ashamed to indulge I have all her cook books and her attitude helped me a lot

pinkraynedropjacki

Food while growing up? Hell...we lived off jam sandwiches for about 13 years. Milk was unheard of in our house. Fresh veg or fruit? Forget it. Rice perhaps we did have it sometimes, plain rice...nothing added. Meat was a treat perhaps once a month.

Yeah we were poor. Very poor.

be_patient

"Eat everything on your plate", which was a ridiculous amount of food. Ruined my intuitive eating. Parents, DON'T do this to your kids!

My mum was constantly on diet shakes, (they don't work...not for her anyway) and we used to eat out a lot. I remember when I was little, on a Sunday morning, the family just happened to gather at the table and we downed about 4 loaves of white bread, toasted, each and every one slathered with butter.

DawnieB1977

My mum didn't work when we were young, and we always had proper, home cooked food, always with vegetables. We had things like fish and veg, stews, meat pie, shepherds pie etc. We rarely ate out, never, ever went to places to McDonald's and I didn't have a take-away until I was 20 and at university! We also always had whole meal bread as my mum didn't like us having white bread.

And you know what? I was still overweight as a teenager! I have always kept up the healthy habits though, apart from the odd take-away and bit of chocolate!

My own children have never been to McDonald's, and they never ate food from jars as babies, I made it all myself.

I put on some weight in my mid 20s from eating too big portions and not exercising enough, and the stress of teacher training! I lost it, but have put weight on in my pregnancies. Now I'm pregnant with my third and determined not to gain too much weight!

CollieFit

Really interesting question.

I was born in 1970 and grew up in rural Germany. My parents were born 1945 and 1947 respectively so were post-war children born into poverty. My mum learned to cook from her mother. My grandmother recalls making soup from other people's discarded potato skins when my mum was little. She also cooked a lot of offal which was cheap, such as liver, kidneys etc. My mum's grandparents lived with us. So that's the historical food context of my family.

Nobody in my family was overweight when I was a child. I can't think of any other children in my village being overweight.

When I was school age I had rye bread sandwiches with ham or cheese and an apple in my lunch box. We had free milk at school.

Although my dad wasn't a farmer, we lived in a farming community and all the men in the village helped out at harvest time. In turn you would get payment in kind by way of meat, fruit or potatoes. We also had a big garden and were pretty self-sufficient. Dad bred rabbits for sale & consumption (frequently eaten at Easter or Christmas in Germany). We also had chicken and often had surplus eggs to sell. We also had some ducks and geese. In terms of fruit & veg, most of the back garden was beds of potatoes, carrots, turnips, onions, various cabbages, strawberries, bushes of raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, an elderberry bush, a pear tree and a plum tree. My grandma made jams from any fruit that weren't eaten outright.

We were in quite an isolated area, so the nearest supermarket was a 45 min drive away. We only went shopping there every 2nd Saturday and it was a real event!! My parents would also buy snack foods, chocolate or sweets, but it was rationed and I didn't have free access to it. You had to ask if you wanted something from the pantry. You didn't just go and help yourself. That was considered really rude.

We never really had money to eat out in restaurants and it also wasn't part of my parents culture really. There were no companies doing delivery foods. I think I was a teenager before I had my first pizza. I believe the first German McDonalds was opened in 1971 in Munich (7 hours drive from us...). Eventually they also came to other big cities, but the eventually the nearest to us was still an hour drive away. I think I was 14 or 15 when I had my first Mc Donalds and we used to think it was the coolest place ever to hang out. Trouble was that a Big Mac Meal was about half of my weekly pocket money!!

I can't recall any particular emotional "messages" about food being passed down in my family. My grandma hated waste and did use the line of "think of the poor starving children in Africa" etc. However, I was never forced to finish food that was on my plate if I was full. You were reprimanded for "your eyes being bigger than your stomach" and the message was don't take more than you need.

Big handouts of chocolate were limited to Easter, Birthday and Christmas, when you'd virtually gorge yourself on the stuff.

When my grandparents died and I left home, my parents downsized to a small bungalow with a tiny garden and moved closer into a town. Now they exist mainly of processed frozen convenience foods, like frozen pizzas and microwaveable stuff. Their access to places like a local cake shop also means that they eat a lot more stuff regularly that we only ever used to have on special occasions such as cream cakes etc. Both are now a bit overweight and have issues with cholesterol and blood sugar.

Karababy51

I grew up on a farm until my Dad died when I was 10 and my Mom sold all the animals. Before that happened, we always had a huge vegetable garden, fruit trees, chickens for eggs & to eat, a few beef cows, horses and a couple hundred hogs. My Mom canned the fruit & vegetables, including dill pickles and froze some of the veggies too. Whatever we didn't grow, we'd get from a pick-your-own local orchard or farmer's market, such as strawberries, cherries and asparagus. My Dad made freezer jams and jellies as well.

Breakfast, evening and weekend meals were always as a family at the dining room table, 3 squares plus snacks. School days, my sister and I took a brown bag lunch packed by Mom which often included little love notes or trinkets. Milk was the beverage of choice for all of us, we went through at least 3 gallons+ a week. My grandparents had a large dairy farm and it was always a treat to drink fresh, unpasteurized milk from their fridge. Not the smartest thing to do I know now, but nobody really thought of that back then. In Winter during the school year, breakfast was always hot oatmeal with something in it such as, milk or cream, maple syrup, raisins, peaches, honey, peanut butter, etc. I loved it then, but can't stand it now.

Both parents were advocates for the clean plate club. We were always reminded that children were starving in Africa, so we should feel lucky to have such an abundance and eat up! We always had vegetables with every meal, so I love all kinds, except lima beans. I hate those, but was forced to eat them, gagging and crying the whole time. I never ate lima beans again once I moved out when I was 17.

If my sister and I didn't eat our veggies, we didn't get dessert and believe me, we wanted dessert! Mom was an excellent baker & cook, with many recipes handed down from her grandmother, who was also an excellent cook. Great Grandma's homemade beef & noodles were to die for! I loved watching her make them and when she baked a pie, she'd let my sister and I make little tarts from the leftover dough. She always had all this delicious old-fashioned candy for my sister and I too.

We always had fresh home-baked bread with real butter or homemade apple butter, cakes, pies, cookies, fudge, brownies, tarts, ice cream, etc. Every Christmas my Dad would make his famous peanut brittle and Mom made hard rock candy, divinity fudge, jelly roll cake and a luscious German chocolate cake because it was her birthday and a favorite. I have a humongous sweet tooth as a result.

Mom grew up very poor, so she always made sure we had plenty of food in the house, vowing she'd never go hungry again. We might run out of fuel oil for heat and would close off the kitchen with a blanket in the doorway while we huddled around the open oven door, but we always had food. o.O She and all my 13 Aunts and Uncles were overweight as a result. My Dad was always slim and fit. Food was a reward for everything, including birthdays. My birthday cake was always cheesecake, my favorite, and then a special dinner at Red Lobster with all the shrimp I could eat. I still love deep-fried jumbo shrimp to this day.

We ate well, but I was a very active child so it didn't have much of an impact on me then. My sister & I had chores to do around the farm and helped Dad take care of the animals. We lived in the country 10 miles from town, so I rode my bike everywhere, plus loved sports and was voted the most athletic girl in grade school. In middle school and high school I was a cheerleader & on the pom-pon girls squad, plus played saxophone in the marching band.

I met my future husband at 16 & married him when I was 22. At 25, our first of three children was born and that's when the weight problem began. I was encouraged to eat by everyone since, "you're eating for two now." I had no problem doing just that. I never really regained my pre-pregnancy figure, packing on more pounds after each one. Now my youngest is 22 and I have 70 lbs to lose if I want to get back to my ideal weight of 120-25, which is what I weighed before having children.

cdjs77

I was fairly thin growing up and I actually credit that to how my parents taught us to eat.
The biggest things were:
- We always had to sit down at the table to eat. It didn't matter if it was a meal or snack, we had to put everything away and sit down at the table until we were finished. It was definitely harder to overeat when you had to concentrate on your food like that.
- We only got small portions to start, but could always take seconds if we were still hungry. We were also never forced to eat everything on our plates.
- My parents gave us healthy snacks and they always treated them as fun treats. We had junk food, but since they always made things like fruit seems fun, I always wanted it.
- My parents never forced us to eat. If we weren't hungry for dinner, we had to sit down with the family, but we didn't have to eat anything.
- We always had a vegetable with dinner and we each had our own night to pick what the vegetable would be.

ChrisS30V

I was never really taught anything about food. We always had the usual boxes of Little Debbies and such sitting in the kitchen, which I visited frequently throughout the day. For breakfast, I had Eggo waffles every morning with a very generous portion of maple syrup and butter. Dinner usually consisted of something that was either boxed or bagged (not frozen fruit or veggie bags). A couple days of the week we broke the monotony and went out to Mcdonald's or Burger King. Grazing was also a common practice and it seemed like I was always going to the kitchen to grab a handful of Oreos or an oatmeal cream pie, even if I wasn't hungry. I'm just now learning how to deal with the impulse to graze.

My family pretty much followed the standard American diet. Lots of processed foods, a sprinkling of fast food and not that many fruits or vegetables. Food wasn't regarded as anything bad, or something to be ashamed of. It was provided and I (as well as my brother) ate it. Unfortunately, the food itself lacked any real nutritional value.

Since getting serious about losing weight and creating an account here, I have had to come to terms with a lot unhealthy habits that I had come to regard as normal. The types of food I was eating and how I was eating it had to be changed. Once you've done something for years and years it can be hard to change the habits you have developed. That's been the toughest part of this whole process, adjusting my mindset and the way I view food. It's a day by day process and I have come a long way. I'm at a point now where this healthier lifestyle has become a habit itself and now that I'm in maintenance and don't log my food anymore, I don't even have to put much thought into it anymore.

JasmineOravec

Wow. It sucks that so many people can relate but it has somehow comforted me to know I'm not alone. Thank you for asking such an interesting question. For those of you who shared your story, your honesty is appreciated. I can't wait to see what question you ask us next, Dr. Panda Bear.