Were you the overweight/obese kid? What were dietary mistakes adults made for your upbringing?

We were a poor family. We could only afford cheap, processed foods that we got from food pantrys or on sale. When my dad had time to spend with us between working 3 jobs, he spoiled us with junk food. He regrets it now, but he just wanted to see us happy.

That pattern of eating put my body on a bad path. I was addicted to bad food before I was old enough to know better. I know better now, but I still struggle to get my weight under control.

I'm Italian...

enough said, you never say no to food, basically a sin.

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i was never overweight until 2014 i was deprived as a child of many "sweets" especially cake, thats probably why now i just freaking love cake, Juice i never drank and i still dont like it. Only thing i was allowed to have as a child was pretty much Pop, and Halloween Candy.

_A_Real_Mouthful wrote: »

i was always a chubby kid.
one little thing i look back on and laugh at now though...when i was a kid, I hated lettuce on anything. on burgers, salad, tacos, whatever- I hated it.

i'm talking about the typical iceberg lettuce. something about the consistency always bugged me...the crunchiness and to me at least, plastic taste that it has.

anyhow I hated it with a passion. my ma, grandma, everybody used to give me such a hard time about it...like oh you're gonna be fat because you won't eat healthy stuff instead. legit made me feel bad all the time when it came up but i don't care i hated lettuce.

got older and discovered fresh spinach and how i love it more than anything. i always try to keep some in the fridge at home. makes me laugh now though thinking how they kept trying to force something on me i hated and still do when there was something else i could eat a ton of and still want more.

And it actually has more nutrients and healthier for you.

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I had horrible body image issues my whole life, still battling them! I was tiny growing up, until I hit 30 and had an injury that pretty much kept me down for over a year...But thinking back, my mother always said I was chubby, and she was constantly on some diet or another. Every day, I heard her complaining about her body, about her fat, about her wrinkles....She did needles, diets, surgery, you name it.....I don't want to blame her for my issues, but I do believe she had a lot to do with the hard time I've given myself, daily, for the last 40ish years. When I see her now, weight and fat is still the #1 conversation topic

I was an overweight kid. I was picked on and teased relentlessly (the other kids called me "fat and ugly"). My mom was always putting me on diets...my lunch would consist of plain tuna , 1/2 piece of white bread and water. I would get home from school and binge on whatever I could get into my mouth until my mom got home from work. The binging eventually led to purging, which led to anorexia by the time I was 15 and dealt with it on and off until I was 30.

My mom was really just doing what my pediatrician wanted her to do, so I no longer blame her. I think I was just overly-sensitive, but I definitely still have self-image issues.

I was not; however, my cousins, who grew up about a mile away from me (similar socioeconomic, same schools, some level of shared DNA) were...

Looking back on it, the biggest differences that I can see? They drank whole milk--always, and well beyond toddlerhood. Soda freely available at their house--and not just a small glass--usually the whole 16 oz bottle. Donuts--every Sunday morning.

I used to be jealous, but now I'm not...

I was a fat kid compared to others and I got teased often and picked last in PE team games. For some reason it never even occurred to me that I could get skinny back then. It wasn't so much the junk food (though my dad and I had ice cream every night... HE was skinny!) What I remember is that my mom used to make my plate for dinner and then insist that I eat it all. There were all those starving children in <third-world-country> you know. My mom herself was always trying to lose weight and I'm sure she could see *I* was fat, so I don't know why she contributed further to my fatness. To this day, I hate seeing parents making their kids clean their plates. Also, the only nutritional guidance I really got was "eat it; it's good for you."

I've done well at losing and maintaining now, but it's a constant struggle. I can't mention dieting to people because they say "you're so tiny already!" But of course being fat is in my head forever!

I've always been overweight, felt bad about it, but not all too concerned to do anything about it...just accepted I'm a big girl. We didn't have much junk in the house (at first), but portions weren't discussed (I think it was to not make me feel bad because my brother ate A LOT as a competitive swimmer) and we were to finish what was on our plate. The concept of nightly dessert blew my mind - I was at a friend's house for a typical dinner, before the dishes were cleared from the table, the cookies and cakes came out. For us, dessert was often eating the peel from an apple my dad was snacking on (I love that memory). Things changed when my parents divorced - mom turned to food for comfort and suddenly there was junk (usually salty) in the house.

My weight became an issue when I got to college - I regularly made poor meal choices (cheesesteak and fries almost daily and could buy candy with my meal card). So I'd say the mistake my parents made was simply not teaching me how to eat properly when faced with options. In my early 20's, my dad would lovingly talk to me about losing weight naming health issues I'd face later on as well as emphasizing that "it's more difficult to lose the weight as you get older" (so true!). My mom said nothing as she had her own issues with her weight after their divorce. Today, I'm more fit than I ever imagined through determination and family support. Some days I feel like a damn superhero!

Growing up we only ate low fat, nutritious foods at our meals. Baked skinless chicken, boiled vegetables, plain rice, always a salad with dinner. Only Bran cereal for breakfast. Fruit was available for snacks. No junk food or eating out (at least for us kids). We had to ask permission for anything we put in our mouths. I used to chalk up the strict control on our food consumption to growing up fairly poor, and our parents needing to ration food, but underneath there was a whole lot of food dysfunction going on in our house. My mom was always dieting, my Dad regularly berated my Mom for being fat and for the food she ate, in turn Mom would "spite eat" in front of my Dad, both parents hid food and binged, when we had treats they were given to us like sneaky naughty secrets.

My best friend growing up was the exact opposite: all junk food, all the time, so I liked to sleep over her house A LOT! I became a binge eater at a very young age: first at my friends house (usually in the middle of the night so no one would see my decimating their cupboard) and then when I made money baby sitting, I'd spend all my earnings on candy and chips and binge while my parents were at work. Then eat the nutritious dinner when they got home. Junk food became very special to me and I was special when I ate it. I definitely became one of the biggest girls in my class.

It wasn't until I was older that I realized that my family's relationship with food wasn't the healthiest! Nutrition was understood, but the twisted values we put on food and the emotional connection we had to it was what we needed help understanding. Of course, I can't blame my parents for it. They were the product of their childhood: being born during the depression. My grandparent were the product of their childhoods: being born into extreme poverty in Ireland, and so on and so on. So I can easily imagine how on an emotional level, food became so much more than just sustenance. At least I can change my own relationship toward food.