Parents Please Wake Up

Did you just start therapy? Your posts have the tone of someone who just started therapy/working through their stuff. That makes it a little less annoying.

Young or old we eat what we want. Filling the refrig with fruits, vegs, low fat whatever, Isn't going to stop school trading and just plain not eating. How healthy is not eating at all? Children are influenced more out of the house then in. It's called fitting in or finding persons like themselves. At any age we can decide when we want to control how much we eat 14 or 40. Blaming other people for our own choices is like saying we are not in control of ourselves. "Only I can hurt me, should I choice". Power, will and choice are ours to control.

LOL I guess we'll have to agree to disagree then. I think parents play a HUGE role in how there children eat. Yes, they may not eat the most nutritiousness stuff when they are around, but parents still control what goes on the dinner table and what they serve them for breakfast, snacks, etc. And when a parent teaches a child about good nutrition and teaches a kid to make healthy food choices it has lasting effects.

That's all true as far as it goes. But it's far from that simple. My mom was a stay-at-home mom who cooked a nutritious meal for us every night and we ate together. Fast food was a treat my grandmother took us out for, mostly on Christmas eve. We had soda only in the car on vacation. (I KNOW! What kind of masochist gives kids beverages on a long car trip so you have to stop every 50 miles for them to pee!?! But that's another story! LOL) Of the three of us kids, I had the healthiest diet because I like virtually everything, so I usually ate all my vegetables and such, something my siblings often passed up. We were not required to eat things we didn't like, though we were required to try things. My two siblings were stick-skinny, as were my two cousins who my mom raised for a while. I was not a "fat" kid, nor even overweight I see now from pictures of all of us at the time. I was a bit more filled out than my sibs. This alarmed my mom and grandmother and as a result I grew up believing I was HUGE. I still have that mental picture of myself as this gigantic child, so a few years ago when my mom died and we went through old pics I was amazed to see the perfectly normal-sized child I was. I'd never really looked before--until the people who had told me I was fat had died. My mom and grandmother placed my on every weight-loss diet available at the time, including "The Drinking Man's Diet," (at age 10!!!) an early low-carb diet that encouraged all kinds of unhealthy eating habits! Never was it mentioned that I should eat healthy--in fact I did that without encouragement--but I was told that no one would want me when I got older unless I was pretty, and pretty always meant very thin. (This was the 60s and early seventies when beauty was looking like "Twiggy.") As a result, this perfectly normal sized child began yo-yo dieting before she was ten. I'd do these diets they put me on, lose a few pounds I couldn't keep off because I wasn't actually overweight in the first place, then put them back on, only to be placed on another diet to repeat this. Looking over the years, I wasn't actually overweight until my thirties, where the yo-yo dieting and disability caused me to gain weight and actually become the fat girl I'd always believed I was. I quit smoking in my forties and became actually obese--for the first time--though I had believed I was profoundly obese for as long as I can remember.

Now I'm disabled and exercise like I used to enjoy isn't an option for me, and cooking isn't really an option most days either. So I eat the healthiest prepared-food I can and set my UP to get me up and away from my desk and moving a couple times an hour. I lost 80 pounds before I found MFP. In fact I found it looking for a way to restart the weight loss when after 80 pounds lost I just...stalled out. So far, I'm still stalled, but slowly I'm realizing that it's not about weight loss, it's about eating as healthy as I can manage and liking me right now--as I am. I see so many profile pics here that are shots of just a torso without head and face and I think, "Is a skinny waist what's REALLY important? BTW, I love your profile pic, Stacy, because you're looking at the camera, looking at us, and that facilitates me knowing you as a person and not as a size.

So parents are certainly the most important factor in a child's health, but it's not as simple as "eat this, don't eat that." If a child doesn't believe s/he is valuable and beautiful no matter what, all the healthy food in the world won't help.

I also would like to add that I ate healthy as my Mom and Nana cooked every day. My Nana made everything from scratch. I , however, due to time restraints did eat fast food, and rarely if ever, cooked. My sons, do eat fast food on occasion. They have never had a weight issue. They are 35 and 37. Perhaps it is in the genes.

Just posting that parents should be healthier doesn't help the problem. You've posed no solution to the problem other than 'parents should do better'. The problem is far more complex than that and acting like it's a simple matter is, in my opinion, a disservice.

Don't be so myopic. One doesn't have to have a mapped out strategy plan to call attention to a problem. Sometimes just starting a dialog about an issue can be helpful and plant some seeds.

Exactly!
And it's not like they don't know what to do already - we all did long before we took ownership of our health.
Eat less - move more!

There's the solution.:drinker:

Would that it really were that simple. Alas, it really isn't.

I think parents are the biggest influence in a child's diet, but in my household, it was more about body image. My mother was so afraid her 3 girls would be overweight like she was that she forbid sweets & grilled us about our weight. Not surprisingly, this led to secret binges, then guilt, then years of bulimia.

Love is key. Love your child, regardless of his/her weight. Educate your child on healthy choices & the reasons to choose them. Be a good role model in your own diet. Enjoy occasional treats with your children. Make some sweets available daily so they don't feel the need to be greedy or eat in secret. I have 2 boys & keep sweets available. They rarely choose to eat them.

My daughter will be 3 this Christmas Eve and is a picky eater. If it was up to her, she would survive on Chicken Nuggets and French Fries. I would never allow that. I make sure she gets her veggies and fruits, and fresh, home made meals daily. Does she get Mcdonald's as a SPECIAL treat once in a great while?? Sure! Because it is a special TREAT, not a means of feeding my child once a week. I dont agree with complete deprivation of junk foods, thats how binging starts. She gets candies and Mcdonald's but as a once in a while type thing. I am morbidly obese desperately trying to lose weight and be healthy to be a positive role model for my daughter. I also am very poor and if I can afford to cook at home, so can everyone else. Healthy eating habits are formed within the first 5 years of life. to those who say it is the children who form their choices, you have seriously got to be kidding me. A 1 year old has say in what they are fed? Probably freakin' not.Yes, kids can be picky eaters and thats fine, that is completely NORMAL. But just remember, you dont need to constantly CATER to their requests of Chicken strips for every single meal. A child will NEVER go hungry! If they are hungry enough, they will eat what is given!! We, as a nation, have to change the way we have been programmed into filling our bodies full of saturated fats and gorging on unbelievably large portions, and it starts by educating our children, RIGHT NOW.

Did you just start therapy? Your posts have the tone of someone who just started therapy/working through their stuff. That makes it a little less annoying.

No... still annoying.

:laugh:

I love how people blame so much on there child hood when they have been out of it for so long. If you are over 18 and you are on this site worry about yourself take responsiblity for your own actions and move on

Seconded.

Also, I love how people who are not parents can even think they have any clue what its like. MYOB, IMO.

What I don't understand is people saying that fast food is cheaper. I grew up the youngest of six kids, on just Dad's income as a mechanic. I never felt like we were "poor" (we were, but my folks were good at stretching dollars) but there's now way we could have afforded McDonalds or pizza at every meal. In fact, on those rare occasions we had McD's, my Dad would go to the drive thru and get burgers, while Mom stayed home with us and cooked her own fries. A couple potatoes, or even a big bag of Oreida, is a lot cheaper than eight small fries! Not to mention that a gallon of KoolAid is way way way cheaper than eight soft drinks. For that matter, homemade burgers are a lot less expensive than even dollar menu burgers, and way tastier now that I'm not a dumb kid. But it was a special treat for us to get McDonalds, and they gave in once in a while.

Just about all the meals I cook for my husband and myself cost around $5 for the two of us. You can get a lot of meals out of a Big Pack of chicken breast ($1.99/pound on sale), a bag of mixed frozen veggies ($1.79 for 16oz bag for store brand) and box of dry pasta or rice ($.99 for 16oz on sale or store brand). Add some kind of sauce/marinade for flavor, and you have a balanced tasty and FILLING meal. On the other hand, if we each got a burger, fry and drink from the dollar menu, we'd be talking $6 and I know damn well neither one of us would be satisfied.

yep have to agree with you! there is noway could be able to afford fast food most nites. you sound like me can make a good meal out of a few pounds i also love the task of trying to be inventive with my meals and getting it under a certain amount but that could be just me :laugh:

This is assuming you don't have to catch the bus to the grocery store, and pay a jitney to drive you home with said groceries. You also left out the price of "some kind of sauce". 5.00 at the market is fine for two people, but what about when there's a third, fourth or fifth someone?

Also, yes, when we were growing up McDonald's was much more expensive. No dollar menu!

Eating healthy isn't cheaper. Fresh veggies and fruits are VERY expensive. You also have to consider the time and energy to prepare this healthy food. It's to be encouraged, but it IS difficult, and expense reflects more than price.

Did you just start therapy? Your posts have the tone of someone who just started therapy/working through their stuff. That makes it a little less annoying.

No... still annoying.