DID YOUR MOTHER MAKE YOU OVERWEIGHT?

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  • SweetestLibby
    SweetestLibby Posts: 607 Member
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    I posted this in another thread yesterday, but my mum was of the wartime generation, and I was born in the 60s, but her wartime habits stuck with her, "waste not,want not" and so on, so it was a cardinal sin to waste food! I still have a lot of her kitchen habits, like if I make custard or gravy with powder, I save a bit of the milk or water to swill out the bowl I mix it in!

    My mom was born in the 50s and my dad was born in the 40s - that combined with depression era grandparents meant that we had that same mine set. Waste not, want not. Use every last bit. Keep the fridge, pantry, and spare deep freezer stocked for times when you can't get more. However growning up we were very active - I played 4 sports every year, we weren't allowed more than 3 hours of TV per week, and we did not own video games. I did carry around an extra 5/10 pounds in high school but that was when I started droppping sports to focus on academics. It wasn't until I took control of my life that I became excessively overweight.
  • ChristinaR720
    ChristinaR720 Posts: 1,186
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    Absolutely not. I made myself overweight. It would be unfair to blame someone else for my poor choices.
  • Workinonit123
    Workinonit123 Posts: 38 Member
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    One brother is 6 feet 4 inches, weighs 160, one brother is 6 feet 2 inches, weighs 160, sister is 5 feet 7 inches, weighs 111. Same mom, same dad, so don't know how I could blame mom or dad.
  • WendyTerry420
    WendyTerry420 Posts: 13,274 Member
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    I will say that my mother (and father) are both obese. They taught me horrible habits. That being said, I was never overweight as a child because I played hard, year-round. I became obese when I was still eating 3000+ calories a day and then sat on my *kitten* all day. That was *me* being lazy. Now I am trying to inspire my mom to eat right and exercise.
  • roxierachael
    roxierachael Posts: 81 Member
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    Sounds to me like she had different priorities. She gave you foods like bread and jam that you were happy to eat and did not waste.
  • Kat5343
    Kat5343 Posts: 451 Member
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    I can inherently only blame myself for my weight problems but I think my mother AND my ex-husband have played a pretty big role in this also. I was raised that you clean your plate. It is VERY hard for me to push away from the table, even when I am full, without cleaning my plate. My ex-husband would always question what I was eating, "Do you think you should be eating that?" or he would put away ding dongs and twinkies for his lunch for work and forbid me to eat them. So, when he went to work, so did I. I would eat at least one every day just to show him I could. Then when we separated and finally divorced, I ate whatever I wanted. Yeah, I really showed him, didn't I?
  • xLexa
    xLexa Posts: 482 Member
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    I was a very skinny child. Mom and Dad always home cooked, independence, fast food and laziness made me fat.
  • nilbogger
    nilbogger Posts: 870 Member
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    I feel like my parents and my grandmother have something to do with my appetite now. When I was a kid I wasn't as picky as my brother and sister (especially my sister) and I would usually eat all my food. This lead to much praise from my family and I was held up as an example of a "good eater". I was a good deal younger than my siblings so I couldn't really be smarter than they were, and I never had any activities growing up (if I asked to do something my mom would briefly express enthusiasm and then forget about it) so it felt like that was about the only thing I could be "good" at. So I'd finish my food, eat seconds and even thirds... I just got used to that and now it takes a lot for me to be full.
  • SJVZEE
    SJVZEE Posts: 451 Member
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    Nope.

    Growing up we were very poor (think dumpster diving/food pantry poor). We ate a LOT of crap-cheap, processed foods. I actually have a huge aversion to peanut butter as an adult because we used to eat it all.the.time. on white bread. Same thing with hot dogs, cannot eat the darn things as an adult. Anyways, while the food options were not very healthy, we did get it regularly (no skipped meals/rationing). My dad (who's family were all thin), me and my siblings were all thin while I was growing up. This is in spite of the food options and my mom being obese (her whole family is).

    I was thin all the way up until had my third child, in my late 20's. I didn't change my eating habits, but my body started reacting differently to what I was eating/the quantity. Within a couple years I gained almost 50lbs, eating the same way I had eaten for years, while thin.

    Now I've lost the weight and I eat healthier than I used to, but I also still eat fast food on a regular basis, some processed foods etc. For me, it turns out it really is all about the calories now-who knew :D
  • lilbearzmom
    lilbearzmom Posts: 600 Member
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    For me, yes, my mom was definitely part of the problem. Add genes in there, and I was screwed. She passed her incredibly f'd-up relationship with food onto me. She watched everything I put in my mouth and when I was away from home she would grill me on every morsel I ate while gone. She made food and my weight a HUGE issue. I became a "secret eater"- basically binging when no one was looking. She knows this now and feels really pretty guilty because she didn't do it on purpose.

    But now I'm an adult and it's time to take control and do what I need to do to help keep the weight off. Therapy has helped me a bunch. I haven't binged in 6 months.

    Whew.
  • Ohnoes
    Ohnoes Posts: 98 Member
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    my mom is super fit! she is in her fifties and has been working out daily since her twenties... aerobics, jazzercise, bootcamps, etc. she taught me how to love salad and steamed broccoli. she cooks from scratch. she has never been overweight. she does not have a sweet tooth.

    beer made me fat. and having babies.
  • abbyrae1
    abbyrae1 Posts: 265 Member
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    Parents may dictate what you eat as a child, but it doesn't influence the choices you make as an adult. It may have put you in a bad position, not taught you about balancing out your diet, etc. but ultimately the choices you make on a daily basis are your own, not your mother's, father's, society's, etc.

    Too often I think people are looking for someone or something to be their scapegoat. You are ultimately responsible for the way you are, you can make a choice to change, improve, be healthier, or you can choose not to. It really is that simple. Obviously there are different things that happen in life that can contribute to weight gain (or loss) but for the most part, its the daily choices we make.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
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    I was a child born of the post 1939-45 conflict.
    During my childhood, there was rationing, and some foods were not available on the market. My mother fed me generally well, but my staple diet was bread and jam - toast and jam at breakfast, sandwiches for lunch, usually cheese,pr more jam and a meat and three veg dinner at night, followed by a pudding with custard sauce. My mother and father worked very hard, and of course, they were slim. As a child, I lived in an urban house with very little interaction with other children so I didnt play a lot, or run around, because our house fronted a busy road and I wasnt allowed out there. I grew up with a sweet tooth, because most of my food was sweet, and to this day, I still have that sweet tooth - one biscuit or one chocolate is not an option, because it leads to a binge, so I dont eat them any more, not to say that I dont crave them, I just know where they will lead.
    My question is this - did your mom bring you up loving a particular food that may have led to your weight problems? Is obesity "taught" and not genetic. I think it may well be.

    Absolutely. Your observation sounds dead on.
    This is not the case with me, but my FIL was about your age and also grew up during the same years.
    He was a Jewish kid born and raised in Brooklyn.

    He had a sweet tooth very much like you describe. My MIL also talks of the influences of rationing as she grew up also during the same years, born and raised in France.

    There were lots of things they told us about their childhood that shaped their views on food, and as a student of human behavior, I find it really interesting.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
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    Parents may dictate what you eat as a child, but it doesn't influence the choices you make as an adult. It may have put you in a bad position, not taught you about balancing out your diet, etc. but ultimately the choices you make on a daily basis are your own, not your mother's, father's, society's, etc.

    Too often I think people are looking for someone or something to be their scapegoat. You are ultimately responsible for the way you are, you can make a choice to change, improve, be healthier, or you can choose not to. It really is that simple. Obviously there are different things that happen in life that can contribute to weight gain (or loss) but for the most part, its the daily choices we make.

    While I appreciate your point of view for myself, (as in that's the way I feel for me personally) but taking into consideration what I know about how my in-laws describe their childhoods, children were not taught to question their parents like they are today.

    Obedience was what parents wanted from their children, not thought provoking open minded point & counter-point conversation. It's important to note it was a different time =)
    I always imagine it in black & white :blushing:
  • dandelyon
    dandelyon Posts: 620 Member
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    No, and my father didn't make me overweight either, even though he makes awesome pancakes.
  • CrazyTrackLady
    CrazyTrackLady Posts: 1,337 Member
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    Parents may dictate what you eat as a child, but it doesn't influence the choices you make as an adult. It may have put you in a bad position, not taught you about balancing out your diet, etc. but ultimately the choices you make on a daily basis are your own, not your mother's, father's, society's, etc.

    Too often I think people are looking for someone or something to be their scapegoat. You are ultimately responsible for the way you are, you can make a choice to change, improve, be healthier, or you can choose not to. It really is that simple. Obviously there are different things that happen in life that can contribute to weight gain (or loss) but for the most part, its the daily choices we make.

    No, it isn't as simple as "you're an adult now, so you should know better". Why do you think there are so many cases of child abuse, molestation, spousal abuse, etc? Because the adults learned that from their parents. Adults learn what they are taught as children. They are constantly bombarded with lessons through living. If a child is raised with poor eating habits, they will not know how to change those habits until they are retrained as an adult.

    Who we are and what we become are definitely influenced by how we were raised as children. There is absolutely no debating this issue.
  • jennibear22
    jennibear22 Posts: 95 Member
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    I am not sure she made me fat - I think I did that all by myself!

    But what she did do was give me a very poor relationship with food and give me a very limited food range. My mother is a very fussy eater and there are lots of things she would never eat. Therefore she did not give us any of these foods because she didn't like to be around them. Because of that there are lots of foods I was never introduced to as a child and grew up to think they were horrible or disgusting because she said they were. For example I have never ever eaten fish. I have never tasted tuna or lamb or sea food or lots of others things. I would love to try fish and be able to eat it because of the health benefits but I do believe that we are conditioned as children to eat certain things and when something has always been gross in your mind it is very difficult to overcome. I have successfully managed to eat mushrooms and eggs this year - so hoping I can keep going and try more foods.
  • hookilau
    hookilau Posts: 3,134 Member
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    Parents may dictate what you eat as a child, but it doesn't influence the choices you make as an adult. It may have put you in a bad position, not taught you about balancing out your diet, etc. but ultimately the choices you make on a daily basis are your own, not your mother's, father's, society's, etc.

    Too often I think people are looking for someone or something to be their scapegoat. You are ultimately responsible for the way you are, you can make a choice to change, improve, be healthier, or you can choose not to. It really is that simple. Obviously there are different things that happen in life that can contribute to weight gain (or loss) but for the most part, its the daily choices we make.

    No, it isn't as simple as "you're an adult now, so you should know better". Why do you think there are so many cases of child abuse, molestation, spousal abuse, etc? Because the adults learned that from their parents. Adults learn what they are taught as children. They are constantly bombarded with lessons through living. If a child is raised with poor eating habits, they will not know how to change those habits until they are retrained as an adult.

    Who we are and what we become are definitely influenced by how we were raised as children. There is absolutely no debating this issue.

    I'll agree with you on that as well.
    It takes a great deal of courage to reject one's upbringing, to question and challenge what one has been taught.

    Consider the concept of prejudice being taught and along with that, consider that the era the OP speaks of as being most influential in this context, that children were taught 'to be seen, not heard'.

    Mom & dad's version of the world was often absolute. Many people didn't question LOTS of things in those days.
  • MizTerry
    MizTerry Posts: 3,763 Member
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    OP, I know you mean well in your post, but when are we as a society going to quit blaming our mothers (or other people for that matter) and take responsibility for the fact that we made ourselves fat?

    I had all that myself, but it was ME who in my later years sat on the couch and fed myself fistfulls of doritos, and finished up my kids meals for them. Me me me.
  • Flab2fitfi
    Flab2fitfi Posts: 1,349 Member
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    Parents may dictate what you eat as a child, but it doesn't influence the choices you make as an adult. It may have put you in a bad position, not taught you about balancing out your diet, etc. but ultimately the choices you make on a daily basis are your own, not your mother's, father's, society's, etc.

    Too often I think people are looking for someone or something to be their scapegoat. You are ultimately responsible for the way you are, you can make a choice to change, improve, be healthier, or you can choose not to. It really is that simple. Obviously there are different things that happen in life that can contribute to weight gain (or loss) but for the most part, its the daily choices we make.

    As I posted earlier I do have a bad relationship with food due to parental abuse but I have also had lots of counselling and this has allowed me to see why I have these issues. I know that I will always have issues but instead of using them as excuse I plan around them - but there will always be part of me that will overeat as I' spent 11 years wondering when the next meal would come from ( or if it was edible).

    I know that if there are treats in the house or spare food going I''ll eat it so I just don't buy it. However it has taken over 20 years and lots of support to get there so it not as easy as the choices we make as an adult and many of us are still influenced by our childhoods.

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