All parents inflict their own ideologies onto their children. All parents let their own insecurities and their own beliefs influence how their children end up.

And while most parents do their best to create happy, healthy children - most also make mistakes that are harmful. Either because they can't avoid it, or because they don't realize their mistake.

Adults pass on their fears, biases, beliefs, and weaknesses onto their children. Or they create an equal, but opposite weakness by trying to counteract the way they were raised.

My grandparents were very poor, and during the Depression had trouble feeding their children. My mother was born in better times, but she was raised with the mentality that children should have abundant food available, and that a slightly fat baby was a healthy baby, and that a "good appetite" was a good thing in a child (until they became truly fat - but it's a lot harder to cure fat even in a child than it is to prevent it, so once the problem occurs, the solution isn't so easy to come by).

And while all parents tend to pass on their failings to their children, overweight parents are often unfaurly targetted because people "hate seeing fat kids" and when they see that the parents are also fat, they then (not necessarily accurately) ASSUME that the parents have "helped them become that way."

I was a fat child. My mother was a fat adult. She faced a lot of judgement and ridicule and rude comments for not succeeding at making me thinner. And she knew the difficulties I would face as a fat person. It made her obsessive and sometimes even cruel in her efforts to "fix me." It made my childhood a living ****.

I remember one incident so clearly because I remember the terror it caused. We were in a grocery store and a stranger came up to my mother and laid into her for depriving my brother of food in order to make me fat (My brother was underweight, despite the fact that he ate like a full-grown man).

The woman actually suggested that my mother take the food she fed me and feed it to my brother, and I started crying because I thought my parents were going to do that (I already felt like they did that, because he was always encouraged to eat and I was always discouraged from eating - and was put on very strict diets, while my brother was not just allowed - but encouraged to eat even if he wasn't hungry, while I was hungry all of the time).

My parents did everything they could to get the weight off of me, but they were stumped. We ate very healthy by the standards of the times (pasta was considered very healthy). We always had at least two, usually three or more veggies. We almost never had dessert. There were plenty of fresh fruits and veggies (and those usually weren't limited, until my parents discovered I could overeat fruit).

I still don't know what my parents could have done differently. They asked my pediatritian, they followed his advice. Of their four children, only I was ever overweight. (My brother who was the only child to be underweight and I were the oldest - both adopted, so I very much wonder whether I came from a bio-family of fatties, and he came from a bio-family of skinnies). My sisters (the parents' bio-lids) came along when my brother and I were teens, and they ate a lot less healthfully than we did - and they followed my parents examples when it came to weight. One is naturally slim (like Dad) and the other was naturally slim until her late 20's and early 30's (just like Mom).

My folks did the best they could, dealing with a problem they didn't understand (and not for lack of trying). I was put on my first diet in kindergarten, with my pediatritians endorsement (now doctors would advise parents to let a child "grow into" their weight, but at the time, weight loss for a five year old was considered appropriate).

I cried myself to sleep because I was hungry, so hungry that I'd sneak into the kitchen and eat foods that were least likely to be missed, so I wouldn't get into trouble.

Short of locking me in my room, I'm not sure what else my parents could have done.

They even considered putting locks on the refrigerator and cabinet doors.

I joined WW with my Mom at 8 years old, and at 13 was taking amphetemine diet pills, prescribed by my pediatritian (that's also shocking in today's world, but my parents weren't extremely well-educated, and they had no reason not to trust my pediatritian and his recommendations).


Not every "fat kid with a fat parent" has my story. There are fat families who don't try to get the whole family's weight under control. They may not know any better, or they may have give up, because they've failed so many times before.

The same can be said of poverty, ambition, generosity and virtually all physical and emotional characteristics that parents pass on to their children.

It's just a lot easier to see "fatness" than it is selfishness, laziness, anger, pessimism, fear, bigotry and all the other weaknesses parents pass on to their children....

So it's seen as a more harmful legacy than all the rest. I don't think it is, it's just a more visible one.

Well said :)

EDIT - and not all of us here came from "fat" families. My parents were both very slim, and came from very slim families. Not by healthy diet and exercise, but by erratic eating and smoking - so I guess it's good that I never started smoking and my damage is easier to reverse?

I just think "blaming the parents" is a horrible way to go. Don't blame anyone, just take accountability and fix the problem.

My parent are both thin also.. ha my mum was tiny in her hay day.. i think blaming the parents is a sweeping generalization.. most try there best, they are human after all.. :)

As we grow up accountability is key..:)

Exactly! I really think that the "blame game" has done far more damage than good, when it comes to many things - weight loss just one of them.

A lot of effort is wasted in trying to make weight issues about "blame." Blame the parent, blame the child, blame the culture, blame the processed food makers...

Even "taking accountability" is sometimes used to mean "blame yourself."

I've had people tell me that because I believe that I may have a genetic predisposition towards obesity - that I am "not taking accountability" - and by that they mean I'm not blaming myself enough for being fat, implying or outright stating that if I don't blame myself for being fat, I will never lose the weight.

For me, realizing there might be a genetic component drastically changed my outlook. I knew I was a "freak" in my family and in general (In the 70's, I was very often the only obese child in my class), but I assume I had "only myself to blame." Even as young as 6 or 7 year old, I blamed myself - because I had already internalized the social expectations of women's weight loss (blame yourself for being fat, and blame yourself for not being able to adhere to strict "diets" perfectly, feel discouraged and binge, and blame yourself for that too).

Realizing that the weight gain wasn't "all my fault" helped me put even more effort into weight loss. When I thought I was lazy, crazy, or stupid for failing, the discouragement was much greater than when I realized that there could be factors beyond my control that made it more difficult to acheiving and maintain a normal weight.

Some people could use "genetic factors" as an excuse to give up - and others (like me) can use it as motivation to work harder.

I think "blame" is counterproductive. Understanding and addressing contributing factors is productive.

Judging parents and fat individuals isn't going to do nearly as much good as fostering understanding and addressing the factors that contribute to the obesity without casting blame or derision on people - most of whom are doing the best that they can, often with very little guidance or support.

I've really had a mental struggle when I think about this same question. I wasn't an obese kid, but I was overweight. And I was being fed mac and cheese, fast food, candy, and ice cream everyday. My mother eats like a bird and never had a weight problem. My dad loves food (he's a gourmet chef by hobby), and he's overweight, but not obese. And it's kind of that socially acceptable man fat, so he doesn't seem to have any insecurities about his weight.

I truly don't know what I would have wanted them to have done. And I'm sure they simply didn't know either. I would have loved to have gotten healthier at a younger age so I didn't have to be unhappy and uncomfortable for so long. But at the same time, if I was confronted in any way about my weight problem, even the gentlest way, I think I would have been devastated. I'm sure I would have rebelled against a "diet." I imagine it would have given me a whole different set of complexes. Maybe an eating disorder or two.

Furthermore, I really want to have a good game plan about this stuff because I REALLY don't want to impose my own weight and eating issues onto my future children.

Maybe it wasn't a problem for them. Normalcy means different things in different situations. Since everyone was basically overweight, it became the norm in the family environment.

I'm sorry you feel that way. I had a much different experience growing up than you did. My family is mostly on the thin side, except for my paternal grandmother who i am a spitting image of. My weight started to get higher than my parents liked around 12 yrs old-I remember weighing 117 at 5'2. They used to make me get on a scale in front of them and critized my weight. It was horrible. I was self-conscious as it was. My mother would tell me "no boys like a fat girl" and things like that. Instead of helping me, she would make fatty meals and keep junk food in the house and forbid me to eat it. I developed depression and became a compulsive, closet eater while my weight ballooned to 170 by 14. By then, my parents had me on diet pills as if that were the answer. We did a lot of crash dieting, which is really unhealthy for a teen.

I have struggled with my weight issues. I have yoyoed from being in the 130's and everything to inbetween to where I was in June. My family made it okay to do whatever it takes to be thin. My mom had an eating disorder. My dad just wanted a thin daughter. I abused my body with pills of all sorts-both legal and no so much-, extreme calorie restriction, over-exercise. Because of how I grew up, it took a lot to get a healthy perspective.

I have two children: my daughter will be 8 next wk and my son is 5. I stress health. I want everyone to be healthy. We can have treats, but we need to be active and eat better. Both of them are athletic, but thin. We talk about weight and eating in regards to letting our bodies be their best. I learned from my parents mistakes. I have talked to them about what they say to my kids and what they give them to eat. That is important to me.

You had to learn about health all on your own. You did an amazing job. You look great and you are well on your way to changing you life for the long run. Take your parents' mistakes and make them into your sucess. Ignorance is only bliss for so long. You conquered that. Congrats.

I completely understand there are always the exceptions - but believe me I have seen some awful parenting in my time. Mothers who feed up their children so they don't feel like the only fat ones in the family, Mothers who feed their children McDonalds every day because they're too lazy to cook, Mothers who buy nothing but junk food at the supermarket. So blaming the parents is completely necessary in these cases, no matter what exceptions there may be out there, which should then lead to them being thoroughly educated. I don't point and sneer at these people, I don't make rude comments, I think they need some serious help to turn themselves around. They need knowledge about food and what their food is doing to their children.

My parents are fat too, I don't blame them for me getting overweight, but when you see clear signs of it in the world around you that a vast majority of these families are not looking after their children properly you can't help but feel disgusted that some parents choose to be lazy and harm their children in the process.