Earliest Memory of having weight problems...

Earliest Memory of having weight problems . . . I must have suppressed all of them. I KNOW there were times of being teased by boys that I wasnt anorexic like the rest of the girls in my class, but I was the athletic one so I just thought to myself "Well I cant be a twig to play sports now can I". I think it was a self image thing for sure; I was bigger than the other girls but I was still healthy and fit. My mom helped me through it all, the whole stage of "it's cool to be anorexic" which was all of K-11. I didnt have a problem and I thought I did. I dont think it was until I went away to college that I started packing on the real pounds. I didnt know how to cook, let alone cook healthy. And I thought my weight was still fine. I dont think I actually realized it until I tried to put on a pair of jeans I owned and they didnt fit anymore, way too small. And yet I thought I was still a good weight for my age. I was happy with who I was and the weight wasnt going to bother me. (funny how when I didnt have a problem, I thought I did, and when I did have a problem I didnt want to see it. hmm.) I had gained more weight, and then I got married. My husband has a metabolism like a friggin jack rabbit(pretty high) and can eat anything he wants. It was then that I had to realize that I cant eat like him. He loved me the way I was, but if I wanted to make a change it was up to me. And he weighed less than me, so that kinda triggered something too in my head. So a year ago, I joined this forum, lost 30 pounds and am happier than I have ever been. I even set a goal to do a half marathon at the end of May, something that I have always wanted to do.

Guess I told my journey, not an early memory. But its the journey that counts, right?:bigsmile: How to overcome it.

I don't remember ever having people be mean to me because of my weight but then again I was too involved in all my activities to even take notice! I was always much taller than my friends so it wasn't too easy to compare myself (I stalled at 5'7" at 13). I look back at pictures and I was always the quirky (quite chubby) kid laughing and carrying on starting at about age 9. I thank my mom for never telling me I was chubby and doing nothing but encouraging me to be the crazy nerdy kid I was (she was mercilessly mocked even though she was healthy and atheletic all through school).

High School I figured it out finally and started to try and lose weight. Always unsuccessfully because my course load, work, and life changes drove me to food for comfort. I chose to change schools and put it out of my mind and concentrated on having fun and school. I was a 190lb Prom Queen if you can believe it!!

Well this queen enjoyed college far too much and put on a little weight since then!! It took me 22 years to fully realize I wasnt happy being the big girl and I certainly know its not "normal" for a 22yo to get winded up a flight of stairs!

My earliest memory of have weight problems was right around puberty -- somewhere between age 12 and 14. I never really paid attention to my weight until then. My pediatrician told my mom to have me walk a mile every day to get the weight down -- she never encouraged me to do it, so I didn't.

I wasn't a chubby kid -- I was average -- until puberty. Not super fit -- couldn't do a pull-up to save my life, hated running for P.E. (I'm short -- 5'1" -- and my lung capacity was NEVER very strong) but I loved playing on the jungle gym equipment, biking, swimming. I was picked on at school for other reasons than weight (everything was fine up until 4th grade when someone randomly decided I was a "nerd" and it was all downhill from there) and my mom finally pulled me out of public school at the end of 6th grade. I went through some pretty bad depression, started snacking too much, didn't get outside a lot -- got up to 165 by the time I was 14.

i know this is supposed to be the motivation and support board, but reading through all the posts, made me cry. Why? Because I don't ever remember a time that I wasn't overweight or teased for being overweight.

I think I was around 7, and I remember we were going to my cousin's house to play in the sprinklers. Someone had given me a New Kids on the Block swimsuit and I remember wondering if I looked fat in it. Right around the same time, my mother made a comment on my birthday about how I was "looking a little chunky" in my swimsuit (I had gotten a plastic wading pool for my birthday and we had been playing in it). Over the next few years there were lot of comments made about my weight and about my need to lose weight. It must have always been a sensitive issue for me, because I can remember clear as day, every single time a comment was made about my weight. I was overweight all through school, aside from about three months my senior year of high school, and I was definitely obese for most of my 20's. This is the only time in my life that I've been a healthy, normal weight for my height.

i started really feeling heavy around 4th grade. i was not a fat kid...but i was a solid kid.....i was tall and muscley...i was in gymnastics and loved it. i remember stopping gymnastics because all my friends did. not long after that, before i would consider myself fat...my grandmother used to tell me "don't worry, you will thin out as you get taller" followed by offerings of various sweets. ironically, she would then tell my sister that she was too skinny, who was just an average size child. from that point forward, I always saw myself as overweight, that i needed to slim down. it's amazing how the smallest remark can have such a big impact....it still bothers me to this day and i haven't heard it in over 20 years!!!

My earliest memory of being overweight was around 5th grade. This was also about the time I hit puberty. It was never a big deal, as I was not really that big, but I remember it always being in the back of my head. I remember after my mom had my younger sister her going to nutrisystem meetings and being so secretive about her weight. This was also around 5th grade. I also remember in middle school, my cousin who was the same age as me doing a million work out videos everyday and worried that she had an eating disorder. I felt like we were too young to really worry about weight and to this day I have never discussed it with her. It wasn't until college that I really felt like my weight was getting out of control, and I gained about 5 to 7 lbs a year, so even though it was a lot, it kinda just crept up on me. It was this summer that we went to Magic Mountain and I had to get off of a ride that we waited almost an hour to get on because I was too big for the lap bar to lock. This was totally embarrassing! I had to get off of the ride and everyone could see. I wanted to cry, but didn't want anyone to know how awful I felt. I think that was the moment in time when I really remember I need to change my life and I need to change it now!

I remember in 4th grade i wasnt HUGE but probably 20-30 lbs overweight. My dad was a highschool teacher in my little school and during lunch times i had to go to his class room and drink slimfast... i drank that for lunch, and he and my mother gave me healthier choices at home. I was sooo embarrassed at school during lunches.

Callie

First time I realised I was putting on weight was when I was in my mid thirties and I went on a shopping trip with a friend and I tried on something that would usually looked great on me and I looked at myself in the mirror and thought 'oh my god! I don't fit in this!' Then my Mum said to me 'you have put on weight! I always thought that you were taking after your father and not me!' I was devastated!

As to your children MAMAKAT, I work in School Nursing and we see children all the time that their parents think are too skinny, (did today) and they are almost always exactly in proportion for their height. We have developed a very skewed idea of what a healthy weight for a child is because so many of them are above what their ideal weight is and we have become accustomed to heavier children. Children should be on the same centile for weight as they are for height in a perfect world, but anything more than 2 centiles difference and I would speak to your Dr for advice.

Sorry if everyone took my post wrong....I don't think my kids are too skinny!! They are just tiny little peanuts and I don't say eat more or anything, they just know they are tiny...my son is the smallest in his class and we joke that he'll never be out of the 5 point harness carseat cause he'll never hit 40lbs...we don't say it to him but other moms joke....He ate 4 pieces of pizza at a birthday party the other day and everyone wanted to know where he put it. He's just tiny and has always been at the bottom 10 percentile. It's normal for him. My point was how it's funny how that is "okay" but no one would ever joke about a kid being too large.
After reading the posts I was just curious if anyone noticed that one person would say "my parent's restricted too much" and another person would say "I wish my parent's would have restricted more" The question was more..."what's the healthy balance?" My kids have a very good change of becoming large (both sides of the family are bigger) and we of course will have them in sports but I was super active as a kid but I ate too much. I wish my parents would have said "stop eating" but my BFF's mom always told her to stop eating and she has food issue's...It's a fine line and I was just wondering if anyone had come upon a good balance with there kids.