Upbringing and weight

Notable elements of my upbringing:
- aside from a bit of tennis and squash when I was really young and Sunday walks, my parents really weren't into exercise at all. My mom still systematically calls my home gym my 'torture room', to illustrate her mindset As a kid I'd ride around my neighborbood on my bike and I played some tennis in high school. Nearly the only exercise I did was in school though and PE classes gave me an aversion more than anything: gymnastics which I was scared of, swimming which I hated, a PE teacher who insulted me after a dismal shuttle run test (as if it was lack of willpower on my part instead of lack of fitness) etc.
- both parents gained weight as I grew older, from a healthy weight to overweight to obese
- my mom was always 'trying' to lose weight, but never did and finally gave up entirely. Never ceased to say weight loss was impossible and hopeless etc. And her favorite mantra (which I cannot stand) is "a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips"

So basically: no good examples around me regarding a healthy weight and being active/doing sports, topped off with 'brainwashing' regarding the hopelessness of weight loss. It 'only' took me till I was 37 to break free of all of that and find enjoyment in exercise/being active and realise weight loss was indeed possible (and not even that hard).

(PS: on the plus side, we did always have home-cooked meals with lots of vegetables at home, so it could have been way worse regarding my food habits!)

I agree that upbringing definitely plays a big part in weight and eating habits. Being overweight definitely runs in my family and a large part of that is due to the eating habits that have been ingrained into us. Basically, it is eat whatever you want. As someone with a sweet tooth, those calories add up fast. My mom's definition of healthy foods tend to not be low calorie. She also plans everything around food. Every family get together, that is the main thing she talks about when planning the event. My mother is ok living in denial about what it takes to actually lose weight and keep it off (she always wants to lose weight, but doesn't want to listen to me when I tell her what it would take), but I am not. I hope to be able to teach my kids to have a much healthier relationship with food than I have.

I was always a bit bigger than my friends and definitely felt that way, but was active outdoors a lot until my pre-teens, maybe? My mom was a stay-at-home mom of 4 kids, and cooked every night of the week. Going out to eat was a rare occasion, a treat. We did definitely have a lot of snack at home, but we also ate a fresh salad with lots of fresh veggies at every meal. I was allowed to drink soda once a day, and got a candy bar once per week. However, I definitely remember eating Little Debbie's after school. I was the only one one in my family (3 brothers) who ever seemed to be "chubby," though. My 2 brothers were "skinny," and one was probably underweight. My mom didn't seem to be like most moms in that she never seemed to be on a diet or unhappy with herself....if she was, she never said it out loud. Overall, though, I think for my mom growing up in the south and us living in Indiana, our diet was probably healthier than most in the area. There were definitely comments from my parents about my weight, but they were few and far between and I know were coming out of a place of trying to help. My mom actually said something along the lines of the dreaded "You'd be so pretty if you lost some weight".

I went on an extreme diet at age 14 and lost a lot of weight (putting it back on and then some), but it set up the path of disordered eating and thinking about food and years of restrict/binge cycles for years and years. It took a lot of my own self-awareness and changes in mindset to be able to lose in a healthy way and keep it off.

I have 2 kids now, ages 10 and 12 (in a few weeks). They are both on the bigger side, chubby (and it is more noticeable in my daughter). I wonder if them seeing me exercise frequently, track my food, etc., will seem obsessive to them when they are older, or healthy habits. I tell my kids that I was chubby and didn't feel good about myself, and that's why I'm passionate now about making healthier choices and exercising. They also know I have a lot of digestive issues and muscle/joint issues that can be exacerbated by what I'm eating. I have really tried to instill in them making food/movement choices that make us FEEL better, not to lose weight. It's funny, we talk about added sugar and I don't buy regular soda or juice, and they don't even drink diet soda all that much. They bought some drinks at Six Flags the other day, and they were SHOCKED at how much sugar was in the drinks. My nearly 12-year old son said he didn't want to drink it all at once, and didn't want to have any other sugary treats the rest of the day...which he forgot, because he then ate an ice cream cone at his friend's house

Mixed bag. My mom was never particularly active until much later in life. When I was a child my dad played tennis regularly on the weekends and we had friends with a boat and lake house so we would often spend Sundays up at the lake water skiing. That said, the higher up the corporate ladder my dad climbed, the busier he got and started putting on weight in his mid to late 30s.

I think the bigger thing for myself and my sister is that our parents realized early on that we were both naturally athletic so they started us out in youth sports pretty early. I started running club track in 3rd grade with Hershey's Track and Field. I ran track in the spring, swim lessons and then swim team in the summers, football in the fall, and gymnastics in the winter for most of my early life. I dropped gymnastics after 7th grade when I hit a growth spurt and couldn't tumble all that well anymore. In high school I played one season of football in 9th grade but was starting to specialize much more with track and field. I ran track all through high school in the spring and continued with club swim team in the summers. Fall and winter became kinda my off season though I would start working on track stuff in the winter to prepare for spring.

I remained pretty active into my adulthood joining the military and then in college I did warehouse work and landscape construction and didn't own a car for most of that time and walked and biked everywhere. My friends and I were really into Ultimate Frisbee and did lots of hiking and backpacking. I graduated when I was 30 and took a desk job working 12+ hours per day and traveling about 25 weeks out of the year for business. I became much less active and put on about 40 Lbs from 30-38 years old when I decided I needed to turn things around. I enjoy road cycling, mountain biking, family walks and walking my dog most mornings, hiking when I can, playing around with my kids in the pool, and archery...which isn't much of a workout, but it's dang fun and still active.

My kids are both active. Both play soccer but my oldest is moving from club to play for his school. My youngest (9) has a fall and spring season. My oldest (11) will have a fall season of soccer at school and wants to try track and field in the spring. My oldest has also been doing archery for about 3 years which is what got me into it.

wunderkindking wrote: »

ReenieHJ wrote: »

My childhood involved very little activity and using food as a reward. Not a good combo at all. Plus I seem to have inherited a gigantic sweet tooth. In our house, there was *always* dessert to follow the meal, IF we ate everything on our plates. And if we didn't clean our plates, we were given the guilt trip of starving children in Ethiopia. I remember any kind of Drakes snack foods and Kool-Aid always being available in the house. So, yeh, it was a rough start but have learned a bit along that way. Better late than never, right?

Oh, oh god this 'clean your plate/starving kids' thing. This one is absolutely a thing that went on - and I think it's largely generational because I know my mom grew up with it from my grandparents and it's likely directly related to not dying in the Depression but being able to throw food away/not eat everything given to me and clear my plate was a THING.

I have MEMORIES of you're not leaving the table until you've eaten it all stuff, and just.

That one probably helped absolutely no one and created a lot of weird food issues for a lot of people in one form or another.

I grew up with this, but the portions were appropriate. It became a problem when I started eating in American restaurants where the portions are just way too big. These days I'm pretty good about planning to just eat half. (Of course, I haven't been to a restaurant in ages and prior to the pandemic we had slowed down on eating out after redoing our backyard in 2016.)

Now that I have been logging food for so long, when I serve myself something familiar I'm pretty good at not putting a gram more on my plate than I want. With new recipes, it behooves me to get the calories before I start eating

But other than "The Clean Plate Club," Mom modeled very good eating and exercise habits, which unfortunately did not stick when I left home.

wunderkindking wrote: »

ReenieHJ wrote: »

My childhood involved very little activity and using food as a reward. Not a good combo at all. Plus I seem to have inherited a gigantic sweet tooth. In our house, there was *always* dessert to follow the meal, IF we ate everything on our plates. And if we didn't clean our plates, we were given the guilt trip of starving children in Ethiopia. I remember any kind of Drakes snack foods and Kool-Aid always being available in the house. So, yeh, it was a rough start but have learned a bit along that way. Better late than never, right?

Oh, oh god this 'clean your plate/starving kids' thing. This one is absolutely a thing that went on - and I think it's largely generational because I know my mom grew up with it from my grandparents and it's likely directly related to not dying in the Depression but being able to throw food away/not eat everything given to me and clear my plate was a THING.

I have MEMORIES of you're not leaving the table until you've eaten it all stuff, and just.

That one probably helped absolutelye no one and created a lot of weird food issues for a lot of people in one form or another.

I grew up with that as well, but my parents never put massive amounts of food on my plate. For the most part, "clean your plate" was largely attributable to me not wanting to eat my peas or something...it was almost always the veg.

My mom was also very sugar conscious, so we didn't really have sweets and such in the house. No fun cereals...usually just cheerios or oatmeal and candy was nonexistent in the house. My sister and I were allowed one glass of orange juice, apple juice, or grape juice per day...usually breakfast. After that it was water or milk. Desert was typically served on Saturday evenings only.

I did develop an affinity for soda...I was 10 years old and had a walking paper route and part of my route was a retirement home that had an old fashioned soda machine with glass bottles. I had my own money with having the paper route, so I'd pretty regularly buy myself one and drink it on my walk home at the end of my route and toss it before I got home so my parents would be none the wiser...shhhh, don't tell.

I grew up on a farm, doing school by Distance Education (not homeschooling as such, we had teachers & a curriculum but lessons were delivered by our parents and/or via radio - nowadays via video online but my time was before that). So school was a bit less traditional, in the sense that we didn't have PE classes with other kids etc. and a lot of our PE was more theory-based. Now, you'd think growing up on a farm would mean lots of outdoor time and lots of activity - and you'd be right, we were outside more often than not as kids. We'd play our own version of sports adapted for two or three kids to play, or ride motorbikes, we had pushbikes to ride as well, and horses, and just generally outdoor play.
And yet, the three of us were (are) obese.
I hadn't really thought about why that is, but looking back I remember the size of the meals we were served, and I remember unhealthy snacks being always available and eaten every day. We were definitely pushed into finishing everything on our plates (there's a photo somewhere of me asleep at the table with my head on the plate and my arm in the gravy). But I really, honestly think that it's the size of the meals that was the issue, and eating three square meals a day plus two snacks and dessert.
My parents didn't really model healthy eating or activity. Dad was always busy on the farm and I realise now just how many calories he must burn on a daily basis. But Mum stayed home with us, taught us school, did the bookwork and the housework and didn't have (make?) time for exercise. As a teen, she was thin, and so was Dad, so it's not genetics at play, it's all environmental.
I don't blame my parents for my size, not at all. I knew from a young age that I was fat, and I was bullied for that at school get-togethers. My sister and I tried a few times to lose weight as teens, we used to do aerobics in front of the tv, make up dances to songs, play tennis etc. But we weren't really equipped with the knowledge that we needed about what and how much to eat.

Now, I do have that knowledge and I'm working to fix the damage to my body. Now, I'm a Mum myself and I want my son to have a healthy relationship with food, and activity, and his body. He's two, so he doesn't like to eat many vegetables but we always serve him some and sometimes he eats them. We don't force him to eat any more than he wants to - within reason, of course. We offer a couple more times after he says he's done, and then leave it at that. His dessert is typically greek yoghurt with fruit, so even if that's most of what he's eaten it's not terrible. We try to get him outside every day to play, I take him for walks with me, we kick a ball around or he rides his bike. And we celebrate what his body can do, how he's growing up big & strong.

This was a very long-winded way to say that yes, I believe that my upbringing contributed to my weight as an adult - though ultimately the blame is on me, not my parents. Armed with this knowledge, I am aiming to make sure my kid/s is given an upbringing that equips him for a long & healthy life!

Pretty sure my family broke all the molds.

Mom was and still is overweight - sometimes obese - and has never been (what I would call) fit so long as I can remember.

Father was and still is thin/trim, always had a physical hobby (running and then bicycling as his knees gave out).

Food was always a special thing in our house, and still is when we visit mom (they're divorced). Food is her way of showing she loves you, it's how she tries to make people and groups feel special and like she cares. Not sure how or why food was always a thing, but it was.

I grew up on a large hobby farm, tomboy, so always outside, doing chores, playing with the animals, riding the horses, climbing trees, dog sledding in the winter with my huskies - you get the idea. I was the oldest, and the only one that never was "overweight" as a child.

My brother and sister, who also had chores and stuff, have spent most of their lives a little chunkier - not obese, but they wouldn't be accused of being "skinny" either. I was thin until my mid-30's when I finally got a desk job LOL.

Even at my absolute heaviest, I had about 30 pounds to lose. Right now that's more like 15-20, and my version of "overweight" has been that 15-20 pound range. Pretty sure my sister's lowest weight ever (when she was in her undergrad and heavily involved in the bicycling and cross country teams in her small college) she probably still had a good 20 pounds she could have stood to lose. She was, however, the "girlier" girl, and clearly spends a lot more time primping than I think I ever have LOL.

Brother, like my sister, has never been thin/trim. Neither of them have gone into obese territory, but neither has ever been "thin."

I *feel* like activity levels between my sister and I are similar, but despite being 11 years older than her, I often still feel like the more fit one, and am still the more trim one.

The only thing I can really say is that I am also the one that took more after our father in terms of overall build and looks - my siblings both took more after mom. I do think I am prone to more easily gaining, and carrying, more muscle than my sister - not that she is weak, but just in our shoulders alone, mine are clearly more "muscled" than hers.

The food thing has been an issue - I still have problems throwing food out or not finishing a meal when eating out. Plus, for 30+ years, I could just about eat whatever I wanted (during a couple periods of intense activity, it was all I could do to consume enough food) - so when I've had multiple points in my life when I had to pack away 3-5K calories a day just to maintain my weight, and now need to eat more like 1600-ish to lose anything, my stomach hormones are in complete rebellion LOL.