Does your childhood diet affect your eating habits?
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Yeah, I think it does.
We never, ever had take-away as kids, my first ever take-away meal was in my 2nd year of university with my housemates! My parents also never took us to McDonald's or places like that. As a result I never eat at fast food places, and although we do get the occasional take-away, I actually prefer not to. Not just for calories, but for taste. I'd actually rather eat a jacket potato and tuna than a Dominos.
My mum cooked all our meals herself, no packets, microwave meals etc, and I am the same.
I guess I'm a bit more adventurous food-wise than my mum though as she doesn't like spicy things, so we never had curries, chilli etc, and I like making things like that. My husband has an aunt from Thailand and an uncle from Iran, so they grew up with more exotic food influences, so being with him has meant that I've tried new things.
I think I'm bringing my kids up in a similar way as we don't do fast food, and we make meals from scratch. I like to bake the kids fairy cakes as treats rather than buy chocolate or whatever, and they're not allowed sweets.0 -
I think it definitely has an impact - and we can chose to stick with it or change it.
My Dad was a steel worker so my family was very blue collar working class. Comfort food was the idea - meat and potatoes, sometimes rice, usually frozen vegetables, sometimes in the summer we had fresh corn and tomatoes. My Mother wasn't a terrible cook, just not very imaginative. And I still find myself wanting to go back to the comfort food when I'm stressed.0 -
I think it does. There were food issues in my family. We ate some things that were good for us, some things that just tasted good, but it was always to excess. I have battled my weight since I was a kid. I have tried to lose weight, yo-yoed, but I think that now after 40 years....I get it. I now understand and I'm fixing me!0
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Yup, my mom always forced my skinny sister to eat all her food. She would be in big trouble if she didn't. Soooo I always ate a lot so I wouldn't get in trouble. Mom always made us eat everything even if we weren't hungry any more so that we didn't waste anything. I still struggle to quit eating this way. I catch myself sometimes, I wish I realized this earlier in life!! I love my mom to death but she still tries to stuff me when I'm already full!!
I understand that one, and not just wasting, but my grandparents would think it was disgraceful not to eat the food. Like you thought it was bad or something..
But it's a habit that is hard to realize at first, and then hard to break.0 -
When I was a child, I used to eat french fries twice a day, since my 18's !! There was never any fruits/veggies at home, we drank Coke, ate crisps, and stuff like that. Today I try to eat healthy and I'm so much happier, I like cooking and I enjoy real food!0
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Interesting question. Growing up we had the standard junk food in the house, but we weren't aloud to have it all the time. Dinner was always some kind of meat, rice, and veggies. I've always loved them. My parents also kept fruit stocked in the house. Things like McDonald's breakfast were a rare treat as my father loved to cook us breakfast on the weekends.
Now as I got older, my parents got lazier in cooking dinner since I was involved in so many sports and activities. I wouldn't be home around dinner time so I would grab food from McDonald's, Subway, etc and that continued into college. Around my 2nd year in college I started cooking again, but it wasn't until my Senior year that I really made better choices. The year after college is when I gave up fast food and processed junk. I attempted to take my new found passion for eating better to my family, but that wasn't easy. They loved the food I was making but the laziness of making out of the box, quick meals was hard to get rid of. It took some time and my sister seeing how easy it was to actually cook before she stopped feeding my niece and nephews garbage. Mom is still a work in progress.0 -
I eat a lot differently now than I did as a kid. I hated onions! ONIONS! My #1 favorite food now. Lol.0
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Mom: Here Sweetie want a snack.
(Hands me a piece of Weber's white bread slathered with butter and 2 tsp of white sugar)
Me (age 5): Mmmmm, may I please have another.
Me (age 5 - 51): Sugar = Love.0 -
Only in the sense of cultural food. I love my cultures food, but know that too much of it will pile on the weight, so I'm aware of how much I'm eating.
Roughly this. Garlic, seafood, olive oil, etc. is very constant in my diet from growing up in a household where I was one of the few born in America instead of Italy, but primarily because my Nonna was very present in our lives.
Otherwise, I eat virtually nothing I was raised eating, but still fight lots of the food issues I got growing up. I plan to be incredibly different with my kids so I don't shoot eating disorders into them.0 -
I think so, although I am trying to be more conscience of what and how I eat.
Growing up, my mom used to make everything with rice. I am Asian. I ate a a ton of rice. I still eat more than I probably should, but I have scaled back. The meals would usually be a 2:1:1 ratio, with rice in the lead and meat and a vegetable.
Also, we were taught to eat everything in our bowl. I mean everything. Even the scattered grains of rice. Bones picked clean. I think this is why I overeat sometimes.0 -
Absolutely. We ate homecooked food every day. Our meals were well balanced with veggies, meat and carbs (rice or bread). We always had lots of fruit at home and my mom always served uncooked greens, and yogurt as a side to our meals.
However what I always struggled with from childhood was portion control. I always wanted to eat as much as I could and that's why I'm here. I would say another reason that I was fat since childhood was lack of activity.0 -
It did.
Growing up my mom was a busy successful Realtor. We ate is ful service restaurants probably 4 nights a week. My dad and step mom were on a tight budget and dinner most of the time was some kind of pasta loaded, cheesy casserole or hamburger helper with canned veggies. The family would have a heaping bowl of ice cream EVERY NIGHT for dessert. My stepmom bought bread at the hostess outlet store so we always had a ton of hostess snacks too.
It's a miracle I wasn't huge until I hit 8th grade.. then through my senior year in high school my weight went up to about 230ish.
I eat much differently now. Meals at home are mostly clean and we eat out and have snacks in moderation..My son eats very well balanced meals. My parents are seriously stuggling with weight. They try to eat healthy with frilled meat and veggies but to them, potatoes with peppers and onions in a cup of EVOO , smothered in cheese, is a healthy side...0 -
Yes, it most definitely does! I grew up in a low income home, single parent, three kids. A large can of Chef Boyardee ravioli was a regular at our house for supper, because it was cheaper than buying the stuff to make a salad. Crazy, but true. A jug of milk was $3. An evelope of Koolaid which made just as much, was 12 cents. We had to make the money stretch.
When I grew up and had kids of my own, I swore that there would always be healthy choices for them. Salad every night, fruit and veggies loaded in the fridge, no pop and sugary drinks. My kids are now almost moved out and they make smart choices for themselves.0 -
Yes, I hear my parents' voice any time I pick up junk food or pre-made pre-packaged food. My parents raised us on home made, fresh, and simple food. They were very much against popular processed products. They also stressed the importance of eating a plant-centered diet. We grew up really poor - but our diets are something they NEVER sacrificed. This is why I feel a lot of responsibility to keep up what they started.0
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Maybe a little, to some degree. I am a different person from my mother. I cook and eat differently.0
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Before my weight loss, absolutely. But at the same time, once I started living on my own I started branching out from what I would eat when I was a child. I started trying new foods, and new cuisines. I've been on my weight loss journey successfully for the past year and a half and now much of what I eat doesn't reflect at all my childhood. The saving grace for me is that my parents never allowed soda in the home. But it was only until my weight loss journey did I stop having it completely (I used to have it when I went out to eat now it's just water, ice tea or lemonade). My DD is starting off with much healthier eating habits because of my lifestyle changes and I'm so proud of her. Does she eat everything I do right now? Nope, but then she will ask for us to go out to get a bean burrito rather than McDonalds.
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Definitely.
I grew up with parents who didn't buy soda (or pop if you're in the part of the country that calls it pop). Consequently, today I don't find soda delicious at all.
We also hardly used mayo. To this day, I can only tolerate mayo on certain foods and not others.
My parents were very healthy, make from scratch, kind of people. It was rare we had Kraft ma-n-cheese or hamburger helper type of food.
My issue with food wasn't pre-made or processed foods for I already wasn't eating those as an adult. My issue was with portion size for the good foods I was eating.0 -
Yes. As a kid we ate very 'midwestern' - lots of casseroles, veggies from a can, etc. I later learned this was because my grandma cooked this way so it is what my mom learned. Both my mom and I now eat a lot differently - more flavors, variety, and freshness - but we still both gravitate towards 1-pan "stir fry" type dishes.
I've also noticed how differences crop up between me and my husband, or between us and our friends, when one of us is cooking dinner. I almost always substitute in recipes to make them healthier so I can eat more, but I have friends who always stick to the book and just eat less. My husband's family doesn't see anything wrong with having a meal of only carbs - making rice be a side for mac and cheese, or putting ungodly amounts of mayo in everything. I've pulled him over to the healthy side somewhat - he at least puts vegetables with the mac and cheese now 0 -
"There are people in _______ who are starving, so clean your plate!" When I was growing up it was China.
I still have to fight the urge to feel like I need to eat everything on my plate even if I'm full.0 -
growing up in the uk in the 70s on a low budget we did not have much in the way of treats, take aways, puddings, sweets or meals out so that helped and veg was a part of main mains but it was really boring food and very low standard! all veg and potatoes were pressure cooked to death and meat was usually the cheapest cuts such as belly pork, high fat mince etc... We also got served things like *kitten* (don't ask if you don't know what these are as you really don't want to know) the cheapest possible frozen burgers and other lovely stuff lol. Vegetables were limited to core British ones e.g carrots and peas and fruit was seen as a treat to enter the house no more than once a week and be devoured within minutes and not replenished!
Despite all this myself and 3 brothers were all skinny throughout childhood and even today none of us are obese, though all of us are past being described as thin! I cook nothing like my parents at all, thankfully I learned to try new things many years ago from a good friend and slowly but surely expanded what I could make.
Strangely both parents are now very over weight with my dad being very obese. Their diet still consists of cooking things to death and they go for quantity rather than quality as they always did.0 -
Absolutely affects the way I eat, and it's something I still struggle with to this day. My family came over from Cuba after it became communist, leaving a lot of extended family behind. When I was little, I would say I'm full, and my parents would always make me clean up my plate, telling me I had cousins in Cuba that didn't have any food and I couldn't waste it. It became so ingrained in the way I approached meals and food, never wanting to waste anything. I usually take leftovers home when I go out to eat, but if I'm not going straight home or can't take them with me, you can bet that I'll be trying to finish it off or talk myself out of it. Obviously I know better, but it still creates this huge congnitive dissonance that's hard to shake off.0
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When I think about my childhood I become nauseated and don't want to eat, but that's about it.0
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I think if affects my eating habits, but not in the way most have said. I wasn't really allowed junk food at all as a kid, so when I was able to make my own decisions, all I ate was junk. That obviously caused a problem. I've had to readjust to eating healthy foods any knowing that junk is ok in moderation.0
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I eat much differently now. Meals at home are mostly clean and we eat out and have snacks in moderation..My son eats very well balanced meals. My parents are seriously stuggling with weight. They try to eat healthy with frilled meat and veggies but to them, potatoes with peppers and onions in a cup of EVOO , smothered in cheese, is a healthy side...
It's not an unhealthy side. Maybe unbalanced a bit in terms of more fat than protein, but not necessarily bad at all.
The sort of "bad food" vs. "good food" mindset is exactly what I try to avoid with kids I've taught, watched, and hope to raise. Emphasis on nutrition and moderation is what I wish happened more often.0 -
Never really thought about this before and its led to some insight about my own life...
My mum always cooked healthy foods and that's how I was raised, but my dad died when I was 9, she became depressed and started buying processed food because she was having trouble coping. I tend to reach for the crappy food when I'm down and it only makes me feel worse, but I definitely feel like its because of what I ate during the first real troubling time of my life.0 -
For the good, I was given an appreciation for flavor and vegetables.
For the bad, I was taught how to entertain and comfort myself with food.0 -
Yes, absolutely.
I was raised in a household that was basically a food free-for-all. Eat as much as you want of whatever you want. We ate fast food almost every day and home-cooked meals were typically fried and high-calorie. Cookies and candy bars were available in abundance and if you wanted fruit or veggies that didn't come out of a can, you had to ask for them specifically.
Fast forward 30 years and I turned out to be a 300+lb adult who was still eating this way. The hardest thing for me was that, when I started trying to get healthy in my early 30's, I had to admit that I literally didn't even know HOW to eat right. I had to do a lot of research to learn how to eat healthy. To this very day, my weaknesses are a love of sweets and deep-fried greasiness. I have worked very hard to change my lifestyle and I think I've mostly been successful. But I have to keep an eye on what I'm doing or I can start slipping back into old habits without even realizing it.0 -
Yep. As an adult, my mom's casseroles are still my favorite foods.
I also crave the same treats as I did back then. But I do think a distaste or a like for certain foods is more up to the taste buds than if you grew up eating it. I love curry as an adult, but never had it as a child or even as a teenager. 0 -
To some degree yes. We grew up poor in a family of 4, 3 boys and a girl. The general, unspoken rule seemed to be, "He who finishes first, gets seconds!" To this day, when I watch my brothers "chow down" it is almost comical because we all tend to eat fast. Once I had a child of my own, the old "chew each bite 15 times before swallowing and you will feel more full after you're done eating" rule came into play. My "baby boy" is 15 now, 6'3", 180 lbs. and eats like a horse, so I am constantly reminding him to do this, because he eats a full meal, and 10 minutes later wants to eat something else! My wife used to tell me, "Slow down! No one is going to steal your food!"
On the other hand, no, I don't think so. I wrestled from the age of 5 to the age of 19. In high school, it was constantly "Bulk Up For Football" and then "Cut weight for wrestling." Twice a week I was always trying to lose 2 or 3 lbs right before a match. And of course, right after the match I would eat like I described my son eating, above!
In summary, I don't eat fast, and I no longer lose and gain, gain and lose in the seasonal cycles as I did back then.0 -
Not at all. I grew up in a Mexican household with women that actually LOVE to cook a lot of unhealthy food. It's always your choice. If you make excuses, the most frequent one I hear from over weight women is, "It's in my 'genes' I can't help it". That's a load of BS. I studied to be a nurse, it's not in your genes, it just takes some people more effort than others.0
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