How many people grew up with...?

SandraD89

That and if you dont like it dont eat. But in my family we made our own plates so we had to learn not to get so much.

MinnieInMaine

Yup, I had that grownig up too. It is a hard habit to break but I'm mostly ok with leaving food behind these days. It can be hard to stop eating when it's something particularly yummy though. Like last night, hubby made an awesome potato casserole on the grill (potatoes, onion, dijon, bacon bits) and I didn't want to stop eating it! I try to make sure my plate is mostly meat and veggies with just a little bit of carbs so even if I do eat it all, I'm not completely overindulging.

AlyAnt26

Mine was off and on with that --- very inconsistent! If I don't want to finish my dinner now, I slide it to my Hubby's plate! He's a calorie burning machine and will eat anything!

lsd007

*Raises hand*

My mom was always sure to throw "There are starving kids in Africa!" in there too.

LilRedRooster

My grandmother did that (thankfully, we didn't eat with her that often, because she was an atrocious cook), but no one else did. My grandfather's policy was actually "You don't have to finish it if you don't like it, but you do have to try it."

I think for my grandparents' generation, they took that mentality of having to eat everything on the plate, because when they grew up during the Great Depression, a full plate was a rare thing, and wasting food was just unthinkable. That mentality passed down to generations that no longer had that worry for waste, and is now just a superfluous carryover from a time long gone.

Shalimarmandy

I did, but then we were very active kids. We left in the morning after cartoons and some cereal and didn't go back inside until lunch and then we would leave and be back at dinner time and then out again until dark. Not only that but we were pretty poor and there were to many mouths to feed for a single mom at the time, so our plates were not always filled.

So, we ate everything on our plates because we couldn't know for sure if the next plate would be.

Same here.... the problem was the food we could afford wasn't always to healthiest because in general it is far cheaper to buy junk than healthy food. We even received "government cheese" for a a while and that was super high in fat and calories but it was yummy cheese... anyway it's a habit I still have a difficult time breaking!!

Whatareherthings711

I did, and I hated it.

karleen

i grew up in a house where my stepfather not only forced us to eat everything on our plates.. but purposefully made the portions HUGE. like, two large burgers, yes TWO.. like hand molded giant patties not just the already made patties you buy. he was a mean drunk and also cooked for a living but never hardly ate.. just force fed everyone else! i never make my son eat, he'll eat if hes hungry and if not then no big deal

baisleac

Kind of...

Once we could serve ourselves; if we didn't finish everything we put on our own plate we couldn't have any snacks between meals... and we had to try at least one bite of anything new.

melsinct

I didn't grow up that way, though many people I know did. I don't think plate clearing has much to do with the obesity epidemic (am sure it does in some cases). I think that stems from too many Americans eating out too much. They eat monster sized restaurant portions and have no clue what a regular portion looks like anymore. Just look at how the sizes have grown over the years, e.g. today's small fries at McDonalds is what their standard size (the only one they sold) was in 1950s. Today's 55 gallon drums of soda from restaurants are 5 times larger than what they used to be. So many people have no idea what a real serving size is. I include myself pre-MFP in that category!

mgaither

I'm going to venture a guess that finishing our plates filled with home-cooked food (even home-cooked fatty food) is not the driver for obesity in America, but rather the horrid amounts of readily available fast-food (and frequent trips to such places) that we've grown so accustomed to.

I'll expect my children to finish their plates because I will fill it with appropriate portions of nutritional foods necessary for their growth and development.

kapeluza

Me.

Thanks mom for making me FAT! Jk, it's not her fault. Completely mine, she is a wonderful mother and I love her!

sewerchick93

Oh yeah I remember sitting at the table for an hour after everyone else was done because my mom said I had to finish everything before I could go. I notice now my husband will tell me while we are eating dinner and he can see me struggling to finish that if I am full stop eating, but it was drilled into my head to finish everything on my plate. Whether it's related to me being overweight or not I won't be doing that with my kids.

What she said!
I sat at the table until bed time.

Same for me....there were even times when my mom would get so frustrated with me because I wouldn't eat my baked beans, that she would send me to bed and the next morning I was given my baked beans cold for breakfast.......

I refused to do this with my daughter. I did make her take two bites of everything on her plate, otherwise she never would have tried most vegetables.

End6ame

The problem is not with enforcing “eat what’s on your plate”, the problem is with the portions that are put on the plate. I personally raise my children to eat what is on the plate, primarily because I hate waste, but I also don’t give them adult sized portions. If I encourage my children to clean their plate and the plate consists of 2oz chicken, ½ cup broccoli and ¼ cup brown rice, that is a lot different them telling them to eat a whole pizza.

End6ame

I'm going to venture a guess that finishing our plates filled with home-cooked food (even home-cooked fatty food) is not the driver for obesity in America, but rather the horrid amounts of readily available fast-food (and frequent trips to such places) that we've grown so accustomed to.

I'll expect my children to finish their plates because I will fill it with appropriate portions of nutritional foods necessary for their growth and development.

Agreed.

lovetowrite73

I say that to my kids now - but I also reasonably control their portions. Not everyone gets the same amount, based on their appetites as well as what I've made for dinner that night.

koosdel

*Raises hand*

My mom was always sure to throw "There are starving kids in Africa!" in there too.

Yeah, me too. I remember suggesting "mail it to them", that didn't go over well.

fiberartist219

My parents tried to teach me how not to waste food, but they forgot to teach me about portion sizes.

Honestly, I was such a skinny kid, that no one ever thought I'd be an overweight adult, and telling me to eat past what I wanted probably didn't seem like a bad idea at the time.

Now, I try to put less on my plate and get the tupperware out right as I'm dishing it up. I eat half, and put the rest in the fridge or freezer for later. I don't wait until the end of the meal to put the food away unless I'm eating with others that might want seconds.

fiberartist219

i grew up in a house where my stepfather not only forced us to eat everything on our plates.. but purposefully made the portions HUGE. like, two large burgers, yes TWO.. like hand molded giant patties not just the already made patties you buy. he was a mean drunk and also cooked for a living but never hardly ate.. just force fed everyone else! i never make my son eat, he'll eat if hes hungry and if not then no big deal

My grandmother force feeds, and then she wonders why I don't visit often.

I specifically remember a time when she asked me if I wanted more noodles. I said, "No thank you" and clearly shook my head no, because I know she can't hear very well. She scooped up a giant pile of noodles and threw it on my plate.

I was not pleased.

She gets offended when people don't show up hungry, and she doesn't even cook from scratch. She makes stuff out of cream of whatever and packaged foods.

I love her, but I wish we could bond over something other than food.

Rae6503

No, and my mother was really proud of it. However her cooking was NOT healthy and she'd get offended when my father asked for things like non-salted butter. She was weird.

Rae6503

No, and my mother was really proud of it. However her cooking was NOT healthy and she'd get offended when my father asked for things like non-salted butter. She was weird.