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Upbringing and weight
Replies
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very early childhood i am told we didn't have much food. we lived in poverty and my parents weren't around much. sometimes my older brother would make us ketchup sandwiches.
my dad remarried and my step mom cooked throughout my childhood but was very strict on portions. i remember one time i got seconds at dinner and my mother was so mad and cried bc that meant my dad couldn't eat. our church would sometimes donate food to us around the holidays. there was a lot of body shaming in my family. ive never been overweight but my stepmother would tell me i was fat and should eat less.
currently i struggle with portion control/binging behavior and disordered eating. i eat too fast and im not picky at all very few things i won't eat. i will literally pull food back out of the trash and eat it im a mess.
still struggle with body image issues bc of my upbringing.
That sounds pretty rough and I can imagine could create a whole host of issues. I hope you can come to more peaceful terms with foods.
Why does food create such complications for some of us? And it's so different for all of us.4 -
I have two tales.
First: My husband. He is a decade older than me, and has a family of origin that put the fun in dysfunctional.
By which I mean horrific neglect. Bare cupboards were the norm, and parental supervision was nearly nonexistent.
My husband was the oldest of four (who were still in mom’s custody. There were others) and frequently had to beg neighbors for food. Or just straight up shoplift.
Please don’t judge. He had to start doing this kind of thing even before he began grade school. And if he didn’t? His younger brothers wouldn’t eat.
Now he has dementia. And a big part of my job is making sure he can physically see that we have food. Milk in the fridge. Bread. Some cheese. Cans and cans and cans in a full pantry. A stuffed chest freezer.
And meat for dinner every night.
If he begins to think we don’t have enough? He gets very agitated. It’s no joke.
Eating out? It doesn’t matter where. It might as well be the Ritz. Restaurant food is his Big Safe Emotional Spot.
So yes. His relationship with food in childhood has had a lasting effect.
Me? We were really poor after my dad’s heart attacks. And after he died when I was 13? We went from poor to “will the electricity be on when we get home from school? Who knows?”
But somehow my mom managed to always have something for us to eat.
No Little Debbies of course. Those were for rich kids. But we had fresh veggies from friends. Actual government cheese in the 10 lb loaf with the block printed cardboard box. Hamburger helper with no hamburger.
And free lunch at school.
The best, though, was every year at the end of the school year, the lunch ladies at the school where my mom taught always “accidentally” made too many ham salad sandwiches on the last day. And they’d give my mom a massive box of them to take home at the end of the day. I mean a massive box. And their ham salad sandwichs were chef’s kiss perfect
So, my only food related emotional issue from my childhood is the feeling that the sword of Damocles is somewhere above. But also that literally anything that’s actually edible has a place at the table somehow. Which makes me like big batch cooking, and buying in bulk. I’ve even developed a very good recipe for a nutritionally complete dehydrated soup that we now have packed in big boxes of seal a meal bags.
The restaurant supply house is one of my favorite places to shop because of this. And also because it means I can give food to anyone who is going through a hard patch.
Giving back, and paying it forward.
Exercise wise? I was a reader. All day if I could get away with it. And painting, model building, etc were top activities. When I was old enough I got a paper route, which burned calories daily. I rode my bike everywhere when I was a kid. And my unicycle that I got when I was 11 was my favorite thing until I had to sell it when I was poor and 19.
But I was utterly useless in team sports. Or on a group hike. I was the kid picking daisies in the outfield. Always picked last for the team. Hated gym because literally everyone was better than me, and usually my gym teacher just gave up on me.
Dodgeball in third grade I was nothing but a target. More than once I would just sneak away from the field and no one cared at all that I was gone. It didn’t help that I needed glasses and couldn’t see ten feet in front of my face. That wasn’t discovered for a couple more years.
High school though…. I talked my gym teacher into letting me ride my unicycle around the gym while everyone else did whatever it was they did and that was fantastic. I think that gave me a sense that I might be an autistic clumsy useless to any sports team kind of athlete - but it didn’t matter because I could do my own thing and that was good.
I was always skinny. The weight didn’t start piling on until my thyroid took a nosedive when I was in my early 30’s and my doctor back then absolutely refused to increase my thyroid medication until I’d gained 50 lbs.
I’d work off 30, the thyroid would give me a couple middle fingers, I’d gain 50…. Lather rinse repeat. It was a decade or more before I could get a doctor to listen to me about my thyroid issues. And a few more years even before one recognized I needed more than one thyroid med.
I finally worked almost all that weight off…. And here comes the balance disorder….
That’s been steadily getting worse for 12 years now. No doctor has seemed to care enough to figure it out. But here I am. Now diabetic with neuropathy because of a neurologist who I would sue for malpractice if I felt like going to that trouble. I’d probably win…. Off topic.
Anyhow. Ya.
Upbringing has some lasting echoes for everyone, I think. And I’m lucky mine aren’t darker than they are.15 -
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I don't think we had any starving kids to be threatened with because nobody was not eating in our house. 😀0
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springlering62 wrote: »
Yeah, I bet we could map age by that. We got Ethiopia too, or more generically Africa.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1231240172 -
springlering62 wrote: »
Yeah, I bet we could map age by that. We got Ethiopia too, or more generically Africa.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123124017
I think we got Africa as well... and don't ever offer to let the poor starving kids have your plate of food...
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springlering62 wrote: »
Yeah, I bet we could map age by that. We got Ethiopia too, or more generically Africa.
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123124017
I think we got Africa as well... and don't ever offer to let the poor starving kids have your plate of food...
When I was in elementary school, there was a lunch room monitor (one of the teachers) that made sure you ate everything in your lunch. She would check to make sure you were not throwing out any food.
One day, I got caught trying to throw out part of my sandwich. The teacher made me go to her classroom and look at photos of starving children in Africa and said I was the reason they are dying. Nice, huh?6 -
I'll say yes and no. You learn a lot of behavioral habits as a kid and some of them you keep. For me it has been keeping things organized. I did that as a kid and still do it today (OCD issue) especially at the gym.
But then you learn things behaviorally as an adult too. It's NOT uncommon to see so many people who may have been active all their teens and early 20's, to become couch potatoes once they get out of college and join the REAL WORLD. I've seen lots of instances where parents were normal in weight and their kids who are grown adults now all overweight and obese in some cases.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
3 -
springlering62 wrote: »
No starving children for me. I grew up with Scottish parents and it was waste of food that was the real horror.
My petite ladylike mother ate like a bird. My tall lanky father and I would finish her meal. No food was allowed to go to waste. I still feel that need to clean my plate, and I've been known to finish other people's meals.
Other than that, the influence was more about dietary choices, and it wasn't bad at all. I was taught that vegetables could form an entire meal, meat was not necessary. My dad had hypertension from a young age so we ate low sodium and never added salt. I find most prepared food tastes overly salty to me because I'm used to food without it. We ate whole grain/whole wheat before it was cool and that remains my taste preference. Of course, we also ate all kinds of organ meats, which may be part of the reason I no longer eat any meat.3 -
springlering62 wrote: »
No starving children for me. I grew up with Scottish parents and it was waste of food that was the real horror.
My petite ladylike mother ate like a bird. My tall lanky father and I would finish her meal. No food was allowed to go to waste. I still feel that need to clean my plate, and I've been known to finish other people's meals.
Other than that, the influence was more about dietary choices, and it wasn't bad at all. I was taught that vegetables could form an entire meal, meat was not necessary. My dad had hypertension from a young age so we ate low sodium and never added salt. I find most prepared food tastes overly salty to me because I'm used to food without it. We ate whole grain/whole wheat before it was cool and that remains my taste preference. Of course, we also ate all kinds of organ meats, which may be part of the reason I no longer eat any meat.
Yeah, no starving children for me, either, but I was never a problem child when it comes to food. I always finished everything on my plate. The only thing I refused to eat was chicken and meat, so my mom basically didn't put any on my plate and that was that.
My family hated wasting food (without starving children). I just remember mom saying she needs to cook/use this or that before it spoils so it doesn't go to waste.3 -
My mom was morbidly obese for my entire life. She passed away from obesity-related cancer in 2015. I was fairly overweight as a child. Once I left for college (in 1998), I lost nearly 60lbs (I'm 5'3). I changed my lifestyle drastically once I was out of my childhood environment.
I've managed to keep my weight under control for nearly 25 years. People I know now (who don't know my situation as a child) don't really understand WHY I eat the way I do and go to the gym frequently. People who know the situation are still surprised by the 180 turn in my life...but they totally understand my current mentality.7 -
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?
My childhood was similar. Dessert of some type at every lunch and dinner was considered normal. We ate out a LOT compared to my friends/family back then (80s and 90s). It was a form of entertainment for my family. My parents both grew up eating a lot of processed food and not much variety when it came to vegetables. While most of it was diet cola, I grew up finding it odd when friends drank water or milk with meals..."pop" was our go to!
As for activity they did a good job getting me outside to play, ride bikes, etc. We went fishing and on vacations that were fairly active. But as an individual I have always been more bookish and prefer to stay indoors and color, read, draw, etc. So that was a battle (and still is at times).2 -
amusedmonkey wrote: »springlering62 wrote: »
No starving children for me. I grew up with Scottish parents and it was waste of food that was the real horror.
My petite ladylike mother ate like a bird. My tall lanky father and I would finish her meal. No food was allowed to go to waste. I still feel that need to clean my plate, and I've been known to finish other people's meals.
Other than that, the influence was more about dietary choices, and it wasn't bad at all. I was taught that vegetables could form an entire meal, meat was not necessary. My dad had hypertension from a young age so we ate low sodium and never added salt. I find most prepared food tastes overly salty to me because I'm used to food without it. We ate whole grain/whole wheat before it was cool and that remains my taste preference. Of course, we also ate all kinds of organ meats, which may be part of the reason I no longer eat any meat.
Yeah, no starving children for me, either, but I was never a problem child when it comes to food. I always finished everything on my plate. The only thing I refused to eat was chicken and meat, so my mom basically didn't put any on my plate and that was that.
My family hated wasting food (without starving children). I just remember mom saying she needs to cook/use this or that before it spoils so it doesn't go to waste.
We would occasionally have "leftover" meals, specifically aimed at using up leftovers before they could go bad -- especially things that there weren't enough left of for everybody to have a serving. Just enough leftover green beans or sweet potatoes for one? Put it on the table, and whoever wants it, gets it. It ended up with everybody eating a different meal "curated" from the leftovers.
I'd say that happened roughly once a week, maybe more often after a big holiday meal that generated tons of leftovers, maybe less often if she made a lot of meals where everybody got their own hamburger or pork chop or whatever (as opposed to meals with a pot of something like stew or soup or spaghetti).3 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »amusedmonkey wrote: »springlering62 wrote: »
No starving children for me. I grew up with Scottish parents and it was waste of food that was the real horror.
My petite ladylike mother ate like a bird. My tall lanky father and I would finish her meal. No food was allowed to go to waste. I still feel that need to clean my plate, and I've been known to finish other people's meals.
Other than that, the influence was more about dietary choices, and it wasn't bad at all. I was taught that vegetables could form an entire meal, meat was not necessary. My dad had hypertension from a young age so we ate low sodium and never added salt. I find most prepared food tastes overly salty to me because I'm used to food without it. We ate whole grain/whole wheat before it was cool and that remains my taste preference. Of course, we also ate all kinds of organ meats, which may be part of the reason I no longer eat any meat.
Yeah, no starving children for me, either, but I was never a problem child when it comes to food. I always finished everything on my plate. The only thing I refused to eat was chicken and meat, so my mom basically didn't put any on my plate and that was that.
My family hated wasting food (without starving children). I just remember mom saying she needs to cook/use this or that before it spoils so it doesn't go to waste.
We would occasionally have "leftover" meals, specifically aimed at using up leftovers before they could go bad -- especially things that there weren't enough left of for everybody to have a serving. Just enough leftover green beans or sweet potatoes for one? Put it on the table, and whoever wants it, gets it. It ended up with everybody eating a different meal "curated" from the leftovers.
I'd say that happened roughly once a week, maybe more often after a big holiday meal that generated tons of leftovers, maybe less often if she made a lot of meals where everybody got their own hamburger or pork chop or whatever (as opposed to meals with a pot of something like stew or soup or spaghetti).
What a neat idea! We usually only cooked when leftovers were almost gone and there wasn't enough for everyone, and I ate the rest for other meals. To this day, I'm still the "leftover depository". If we cook too much of something, I would have it for lunch and dinner (sometimes even breakfast if I'm hungry).2 -
Love=food=love, why is that such a hard notion to break free from??? People always think of food as a way to show love.
So, I don't actually think this is a bad thing. The problem is when people think of love as something other than a freely given gift and put expectations on the recipient. Love does not come with strings attached. Love should also be thoughtful. I make veggies for my kids because I love them as much as I make cake for them on their birthdays because I love them. Does it sting a little bit when they say "I hate this" or "it's yucky!"? Yes, which is part of the reason why we also have etiquette lessons like "No thank you" or simply not being obvious about not eating something on one's plate.
I also don't think, necessarily, that "don't waste food" is a bad thing. I do remind my kids that there are people who are starving and they should feel blessed to have bountiful, healthy food available. I don't do the "clean plate club," but I don't let my kids leave food on their plate and then get something else. They have to eat what's been served to them first, and I do small portions especially with new things or things they don't like. I view part of my job as teaching them to like a wide variety of foods and sometimes that takes a LOT of exposures.
I grew up in a house with extremely limited food selection. My mother tried, but she was and is an incredibly picky person and was not very imaginative about making healthy foods palatable. So we mostly didn't eat them. I joke that I didn't willingly eat anything that wasn't brown until I was in my twenties. We had fast food at least once per week and often pizza delivery too. We were remarkably not social and I didn't participate in many outside activities beyond school, though I remember doing gymnastics and swim lessons as a preschooler at the local Y. We also had the television on constantly. Looking back it was a very hard situation for my mom especially - we moved a lot, my dad worked all the time, and we didn't have a strong support system. I'm sure my mother was absolutely exhausted and once I had several small children I realized how easy it would be to fall back on those things too. But my husband and I were committed to a healthier, happier system for family life and so we've made a lot of adjustments - some of them putting us solidly outside the mainstream - to do what's best for our kids and for our own health, and there have been some really great fruits from that.
It can be frustrating sometimes to realize that my kids really don't understand how good they have it and how hard my husband and I work for them to lay these foundations down now. But they're also kids and thus have limited perspectives right now. I do have high standards - by most metrics I'm a fairly strict parent - but I also make sure to spend a lot of quality time just doing fun things with my kids because that's a method of showing love they can understand now. And because they're just fun to be around a lot of the time!
Not all of this is directly tied to weight and food, but I do think they kind of all tie together. So please excuse my mind wandering around to all of these topics!
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I grew up in a rural community basically and my first fast food hamburger was when I was 16. I don't eat franchise foods 99% of the time and when I do I generally regret doing it because of the way it makes me feel and the taste is always a let down when compared to a similar home made version. I was always an active and athletic slim person and gained weight in my 30's and 40's from less athletic endeavors and eating as I normally did. Pretty much have a handle on what I thrive on now in the food dept. and have maintained my weight easily for the last 25 yrs and I go to the gym 2 to 3 times a week, less in the summer. I do have to be mindful of what I eat, but it's pretty easy to fix when I start to eat too much.1
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My mother was obese, but my father despised anyone who was overweight. She was active when she was young, but living in the heat of Arizona she mostly stopped outdoor activity except for dipping in the pool. He played tennis and golf and though he got heavier as he got older, he stayed active enough to keep from being seriously overweight. Both my parents had a huge sweet tooth, so we had dessert every day, usually twice a day. Both were borderline alcoholics who let us start drinking at 18. Mom learned to hide her eating, but couldn't hide her weight so Dad left when I was 11. None of his other wives (he had 5 in all) was overweight. His attitude affected my attitude toward weight as well, though I hid it a lot better than he did. I had 3 older siblings who were active so my mother always fixed huge meals. Even when they were out of the house, she still fixed enough for 6. As a child of the depression, she taught us that food was not to be wasted. (Our starving children were usually in India, though sometimes China.) It was a compliment to the cook to ask for seconds and an even greater compliment to ask for thirds. We did. So basically I was taught to eat like my 6'2" brothers and to always eat dessert. I could eat a lot. I still can, though over the years I have taught myself not to have seconds. I still eat dessert every day. I was a reader and somewhat active as a kid, running around the neighborhood with my friends, but was never involved in team sports. I didn't become really active until I was in my late 20s when I started hiking and biking. My mother was frequently on a diet, and so was I, starting in junior high. I wasn't fat, but I felt like I was and I was determined not to turn out like my mother, fighting weight all my life and getting rejected for being too fat. I never became obese, but I did fight my weight and the habits I learned as a child most of my life. In some ways, I still eat the way I was raised, just not as much. Fortunately, I really enjoy exercise, so can usually burn it off. Also, I married someone who won't reject me when I gain or lose weight. That was one lesson I didn't want to repeat.10
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I was very skinny as a young child. I didn't like food. It was boring and I had a busy social life. Playing with my building kids, running with them everywhere, talking till our mouths hurt was my idea of fun and my parents especially my dad kept me away from junk food. I used to cry for a bag of chips and my tears never moved him coz my dad was and is a health nut+ diabetic. I always wanted to play sports as a kid but my parents neglected me and so to rebel I started moving with bad company- they introduced me to candy and ice cream. I was 11 then. Lots of bullying when I was 12 and to cope with it I turned to food but luckily I remained slim, a bit of puppy fat here and there but nothing alarming about it. Because I think my athletic tendencies were neglected as a child, I turned to hardcore gymming by 18 and starvation or eating empty calories. Really *kitten* up my body. I am fat now but coz of my love of exercise I am able to maintain some balance.4
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I grew up in the 70s and 80s. My younger brother and I were always very active, either playing or doing organized sports and activities. We maintained that as we grew up, and we’re both still runners today. My dad always took his fitness seriously (career military) - in fact he's 78 years old and only stopped running a few years ago. He's still active and moves like a much younger man. He's also maintained his weight and isn't on a single medication. My mom's weight has fluctuated over the years, but she’s maintained a healthy weight for the last several. We ate fairly healthy - dinner was generally meat, vegetables, some other side, and milk; although my mom doesn't really like cooking so we ate a lot of food out of boxes and when my dad was out in the field, we had TV dinners. Candy and soda were treats, and we only had dessert on special occasions.
Despite mostly subsisting on Pop Tarts, soda, and candy throughout HS (with a decent dinner thanks to my mom) I was a lean teenager; and when I was in charge of feeding myself in college I actually lost weight; not on purpose but because I was always going: school, work, party, party, party, and I would forget to eat. I was in my mid 20s the first time I put on a few extra pounds.
I’ve never been overweight by health standards but I’ve definitely had times when I haven’t liked the way I looked, or where I’ve felt it has affected my running. I’m lucky in that I’m tall, so I have a wider range of weight that I can bounce around in without it being too noticeable, but I’m currently at the highest weight I’ve ever been. I’m still active – and still outside as much as possible – but I’ve got my mom’s sweet tooth and her aversion to cooking so my diet sometimes goes off the rails. My brother is as disciplined as a monk and as lean as ever. It’s kind of obnoxious. 4 -
I'll say yes and no. You learn a lot of behavioral habits as a kid and some of them you keep. For me it has been keeping things organized. I did that as a kid and still do it today (OCD issue) especially at the gym.
But then you learn things behaviorally as an adult too. It's NOT uncommon to see so many people who may have been active all their teens and early 20's, to become couch potatoes once they get out of college and join the REAL WORLD. I've seen lots of instances where parents were normal in weight and their kids who are grown adults now all overweight and obese in some cases.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 30 years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition
Yup, that was me for about 8 years after I graduated college.1
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