Bad Health Habits Your Parents Passed to You

ccmccoy09

Spending last weekend with my extended family made me realize how thankful I am to NOT be spending Thanksgiving with the crazy lot of them. Just kidding family!

What it did get me thinking on was some of the bad health habits my mom passed to me that have been really hard to break. Specifically, fad diets, love of carbs, hatred of exercise, and the belief that calories don't count if I'm on a road trip or other long drive.

What are some of the habits your parents passed to you? Dieting? Body image issues? Smoking? What about some good habits? (I do love my veggies and fruits, thanks to my mom!)

OSUloulou

I was raised a member of the "CLEAN PLATE CLUB!" I still struggle with this as an adult. On the bright side, my mom was a workout junkie and taught me a great deal about getting a good burn!

FitFi74

My Mum is obsessed with weight - comments constantly on people on TV (or myself and my sisters if they gain at all) and she then proceeds to pour cream and butter in mashed potato - It is yummy though!

dalgal26

I was raised a member of the "CLEAN PLATE CLUB!" I still struggle with this as an adult.

I agree! And I also taught this to my own child. Thank goodness, he does not have a weight problem He is 'skinny' like his dad.

CaptainGordo

My mom had me smoking at 8 years old to keep me from gaining weight.




I kid.

janet_pratt

My mom is awesome and so much fun, but her bad food habits certainly had a lot to do with my weight problems. I ate the way she taught me to. Whenever we went on shopping trips we always stopped at a restaurant that served pie. We worked in the same doctor's office in my 20's and we always had fast food for lunch, followed by Baskin Robbins. Then in late afternoon she would send me on a snack run to the mini market for candy bars. Plural. And often we would stop on the way home from work (20 minute drive) for a soda and another "snack." So as an adult, in my 30's and early 40's, it was not strange for me to put away a pint of Ben and Jerry's a couple times a week, or make a junk food run late in the evening or buy a couple candy bars while I was grocery shopping. Now I rarely eat dessert when I eat out. If I eat candy, its one small piece. I look for healthy alternatives to the sweet stuff I was raised to crave.

Sheriemae

I'm with you OSUloulou I was a member of the "clean clean plate club" We weren't allowed to leave the table until it was all gone. blah! It's still hard for me to throw it out even if I'm not hungry anymore.

Grimmerick

grazing and night eating...........I still get into this habit when I hang out with my family for too long.

jill___

My mom was ALWAYS critical of my weight, even when I wasn't overweight. I remember being told I was fat, or going to get fat from the time I was 8 or 9. I was bullied in middle school and her solution to me was always "Why do you lose weight and dress like the other girls, then they'll like you." Every time a boy talked to me, she would tell me there was no way they'd actually be attracted to me, they just wanted to "get something" out of it so picked an insecure girl.

Funny thing, she has always been overweight. She has an eating disorder in high school, and regular encouraged me to do the same. I've watched her fail at every fad diet imaginable.... over and over and over.

Even now, after I've lost over 50lbs, she passive aggressively offer me her old clothes that are "too big" for her (they're really too small) and says things like "Here's some jeans, 16s and 18s, they're stretchy so you can probably squeeze into them." I wear a size 12.

Sheriemae

My mom had me smoking at 8 years old to keep me from gaining weight.




I kid.

WHAT!?! :noway: Hope you're really kidding. lol

cricketannie

Im my home growing up, a clean plate was a happy plate. If you were thirsty, go to the fridge and grab a soda. After school was fast food snack time. Pizza night happened one or 2 nights a week. If you had a glass of milk, it was always chocolate milk. We also rarely ate breakfast.

All of this sounds horrible, but we really were just a happy family with bad habits that didn't catch up to all of us until I was an adult.

I am glad I am learning some good habits to pass on to my children, now.

ratherbeskiing

I was raised a member of the "CLEAN PLATE CLUB!" I still struggle with this as an adult.

DITTO!

robinxhope

Over eating, binge eating, eating everything in sight. It's still hard for me to eat a normal amount of food when I am with them. Planning the day is constantly about when is the next meal, relaxing to digest and nap time. On the plus side, we build really good muscles, and my mom got me hooked on superfoods and interested in reading about nutrition.

erinserin

grazing and night eating...........I still get into this habit when I hang out with my family for too long.

Same! Thank goodness my husband is not a snacker so his habits have changed this!

xo_jewel_xo

My mom had me smoking at 8 years old to keep me from gaining weight.




I kid.

You mean this ISN'T normal??!! :noway:

Silverkittycat

hmm...nothing diet/exercise related. The only thing I can think of is related to financial health. I could die tomorrow so I need to go spend all my $ and have fun experiencing things NOW.

merB89

My parents were great role models for healthy eating. Salad with every meal, eating out and getting treats like ice cream was rare and usually for special occasions, not a lot of junk food around. BUT I did grow up with my mom always making comments about how she had to drop a few pounds and always trying to lose weight, and never really happy with her body (until last year when I introduced her to MFP and she lost 15 lbs. Not fair ma!). I think that constant unhappiness with body image can pass really easy from mother to daughter and I think it did with me. BUT both my parents exercise several times a week and encouraged me to be active, which i really appreciate.

heykatieben

Bad habits: eating junk food, eating late at night, snacking a lot. As a kid, I'd often have a "night night snack" of Doritos with melted Cheez Whiz. Even though I eat pretty cleanly now, that's still one of my favorite snacks.

Good habits: Despite the tons of junk food they kept/still keep, we always had healthy, home-cooked dinners, and ate them together as a family, enjoying the food and the company. None of the prepackaged dinners that other families had, no eating in front of the TV.

Erindipitous

I was raised a member of the "CLEAN PLATE CLUB!" I still struggle with this as an adult.

My grandparents and parents all pushed us to "Eat our plates".. I know they meant well, but I struggle with this every single day. It takes a strong conscious effort and self restraint to leave any food on my plate.

Fayve

Yeah, I'm also a member of the Clean Plate club, and it was already a "wow, good job!" when you finished your plate. My mom and I used to graze and snack a lot before dinner as well. My sister and I enjoyed getting tons of junk food to binge on once we had a car as well.


In the end though, I don't blame them for any of these behaviors being the "cause" of gaining excess weight. They didn't put food in my mouth.

Cristy_AZ

I was raised a member of the "CLEAN PLATE CLUB!" I still struggle with this as an adult.

ditto

plus bread an with every meal

and also dessert -- maybe not EVERY weeknight, but close and for sure on weekends.

and Sundays... coffee cake with breakfast in the morning, cookies or other sweets, a big afternoon meal AND a fancy evening meal with a "special" dessert.

Funny now both my parents eat very healthy and very small portions (they are 78 and 80 years old now), but they didn't when they raised us!

ccmccoy09

You guys, it's so great to see where so many of our personal habits come from. I love reading that a lot of us learned good things from our parents too.

Jill____:

Even now, after I've lost over 50lbs, she passive aggressively offer me her old clothes that are "too big" for her (they're really too small) and says things like "Here's some jeans, 16s and 18s, they're stretchy so you can probably squeeze into them." I wear a size 12.

That's sad to hear that your mum still picks on you, I'm sorry. Treating other people poorly really comes from our own insecurities, doesn't it?

PlunderBunneh

More than anything, my mother taught me what it feels like to hate my body. It's been harder to get over that than any of the habits like munching on half a pound of cheese cubes and potato chips, never drinking anything but milk or soda, bowls of ice cream every night.
Instead, it was the childhood of watching my mother hate her body and try desperately to change it, only to move on or lose focus because there were four of us, and only one of her. Even when my father was stationed in the same state, he still drove over four hours a day to base, and she worked two jobs just to make ends meet. Her years of yo-yo dieting reenforced the public opinion that if I wasn't a size 6, I wasn't worthy of love.
I love my mother, but I wish she had for one day during my childhood realized how beautiful she was, and told me just once that it didn't matter what size I was, as long as I loved myself others would too. Mind you, she never ever called me fat or told me I was ugly, so I have a lot better than many others,
I try to feed my own children healthy food, and encourage them to exercise with me, but I also try to help teach them that in the end, they are the only ones whose opinion matters. A healthy body is important, but not as important as healthy body image.

CaptainGordo

Get this... my mom would make me eat vegetables! Yeesh...

TDGee

Get this... my mom would make me eat vegetables! Yeesh...

Mine too. That b!tch is going down...

surfrgrl1

Oooooh, mom always pretty much seemed to buy what she wanted - when she wanted. Silly me, I didn't realize that it doesn't really work that way. The kicker for me should have been when she told us kids we were broke, and be careful not to get hurt because we didn't have insurance, then the next day I come home from grade school to find a brand new piano in the dining room.... um, mom, I think your priorities were a bit screwed. Needless to say, yah that rubbed off on me. I struggle with watching my money.

Ocarina

I definitely inherited some lesser attractive traits from my parents. My parents yelled ALL the time at each other and when you got in trouble you were yelled at so I became the same in fights. Thankfully I dropped that sooner then later but I had to do therapy and learn from mistakes. The other bad habit that sticks out is smoking. I totally picked it up at 18 but told myself I would have fun with it until I was 21 and I did just that. Haven't smoked a cigarette in a few years.

My mother also has really bad body image problems and dieting issues. Somehow this came into my head as well and I have battled with body image my whole life. I even thought I was a whale when I was 157 lbs! It made me drop down to 125 then I let go of myself until I hit 208...

Honestly though I came out being nothing like my parents. They were great at teaching me how not to be. This is probably thanks to my dad's extended family who are all very amazing and successful/loving people. My parents were no where near bad parents but they gave up easily on things in life and it has ended with them barely hanging on financially in their 50's. Plus a divorce never helps.

raevynn

My childhood was not happy. Food was just another means of control.

I'm really glad I no longer have to live that life.

Savemyshannon

One of the worst habits I picked up in my family home was that meals weren't really family meals; instead of sitting down and eating (causing us to be aware of what we were eating), we heaped food on our plate and then vegged out in front of a TV.

So growing up, I would often grab a bag of chips or cookies and just sit down and start eating until everything was gone. Today, I have to make a conscious effort to make myself a serving of food and eat only that serving; if I want to eat a snack in front of the tv, I pour my food into a bowl and eat from there, instead of the bag.

klewis81

This isn't an awful thing (although I could talk plenty about that), but I wish my parents had been a little more daring and open about the foods they fed us. My parents were both very midwestern, plain and simple with the foods they ate, and we never strayed from the same few foods. Vegetables were almost always frozen peas, corn, or carrots. I never ate broccoli, brussel sprouts, asparagus, or any lettuce that wasn't iceberg! I had my first steak in college, and I didn't know any other cheese besides american or swiss (and even then, it wasn't real cheese). I refused to eat spicy foods and had a hard time warming up to new and different foods. I am a lot better about it now, but I still really crave the bread and cheese that was omnipresent during my childhood.

Elizabeth_C34

My mom used to make me a giant bowl of popcorn with a ton of butter on it when we did movie-night at home. I still do this periodically, but only like once every 2-3 months instead of every weekend. The smell of popcorn still brings back wonderful memories.