I'm not too keen on blaming anyone but myself. Once I was in my teens (when I started to pack on weight) I knew it wasn't healthy I just didn't want to do it/didn't give a damn.
Growing up we had very little money and a very strict budget ($150/month for my mom, my sister and me) so what we had is what we got. There wasn't any junk food because we couldn't afford it.
What began my weight gain was depression caused by a bunch of emotional BS with my father. But to sit and blame him for everything is letting him control my life still and I have moved on from all of that.
Therefore I look at my past to see where I made mistakes and where I could have done better soley for the purpose of improving my future. I have found when I hold on to emotional baggage, it just exacerbates weight gain and gives me excuses to add baggage to my rump.
Last edited by TXJess; 09-04-2009 at 12:36 PM.
Reason: Edited for typos. :)
My mother was obese until I was about 18. That was the first time she lost a drastic amount of weight -- and she did it on her own. I was always built like my father, more slender and wiry, taller, but, if anything, she was my inspiration to eat healthier. Just like her smoking inspired me to never want to touch a cigarette. After that first big weight loss she slowly gained back all the weight eventually hitting 350 pounds. We had a lot happen in that six years. My mom was attacked by a cow that was trying to protect it's calf, my father was diagnosed with throat cancer pretty late in the game because he was scared to go to the doctor, and then he died pretty unexpectedly on the operating table (we thought we were going to have more time with him, but there was a "mistake").
I would never blame my mom for any of my downfalls. She just gave me whatever I wanted. I think things would have been worse had she ever denied me food. In fact, she was horribly abused by her stepmother (her real mom died when she was five from ovarian cancer when she was 5), and she became malnutritioned. So she can, in fact, blame her stepmother. Totally.
My mother screwed me up in many many ways, not just including food. I didn't even know what a healthy family was until I started dating my hubby. Once I began seeing what families are supposed to be like, I decided that I deserved so much better and once I turned 18 I moved out of my mom's place and started trying to fix myself. I'm not placing blame anymore, just trying to move forward and be the best person I can be. But I certainly picked up many unhealthy habits with food from what I saw my mother doing. There are many habits I didn't pick up from her (thank god!) like smoking, drugs, alcoholism, bingeing and purging etc. I saw what all those things did and was disgusted by them, and told myself I would never be like that. I don't know why the food one stuck with me though, probably because when you are younger you don't get to decide what you eat?
Do I blame my mother--no. Do I blame my father--no. But I can see the influence they had on me.
My mother grew up in a very poor and abusive situation so she has always eaten only one meal a day--that's all she was ever fed (unless she was farmed out to kind relatives). Now, take a woman who was never fed breakfast nor given a lunch for school and just imagine the lunches that she would make for us. It was enough to feed a truck driver! I remember feeding my sandwiches to stray dogs and eating the cupcakes!
Now, take my dad. Again raised poor. Large family and he was one of the older kids. He and the other older kids would take less (and there was never enough to begin with) so that the younger kids would not go to bed hungry.
Breaks my heart to think of how rough they had it and there is no way I'm going to blame them.
Fast forward to a young couple with children. Their kids are NEVER going to know hunger. Dessert every night. A table laden with all kinds of goodies. Fresh veggies from the garden. Good midwestern cooking--mashed potatoes, gravy, white bread & butter, friend chicken, pork chops, meatloaf, etc. And my dad loved his sweets, pie was his favorite. We had a homemade dessert every night of the week. It was heaven. And the approval that you'd get for finishing your plate--especially from dad. Well, it's our love language in our family.
I still struggle with not having something sweet after dinner every night. But, I do have a deep love affair with fresh fruits and veggies too. So they also instilled in me a love of good fresh healthy foods. My dad loved to garden--we had fruit trees, berry bushes and every kind of vegetable imaginable. Mom canned or froze the excess to tide us over through the winter.
In the end, they did the best they knew and we're all learning that sweets every day are not the best idea. They eat healthier too since they've aged and have some health issues. We're all learning to do better.
In the end, you've just got to 'own' your issues. Understanding where it comes from and making a plan to deal with it is the way to go.
Education of Health and Nutrition is more prevalent now:
...than when I was a kid. I can say that my parents way of eating did influence the way I ate, OF COURSE it did, but they really didn't know better. When my dad had his first heart attack, the hospital explained what and how he needed to be eating. When he got diabetes she again was educated, but I remember her saying, "Dad is on a special diet because he has a problem, but it didn't occur to use "preventive" measures for all of us, just dad was on a "special diet". Now, with nutritional information so readily available and we know more about preventive medicine and maintenance and we are proactive with our own health, it makes things a lot easier. But we CANNOT fault our parents for teaching us THEIR learned behavior. We just have to use the knowledge we have and teach ourselves and our children. We can't "BLAME" anyone, we just have to do what we can now and in our own futures and educate our children.
A dad who put me on a strict diet at 3 because I hadn't lost my babyfat and locked the fridge?
...yeah, I would say it influenced my issues with food.
I've grown up, made peace. My dad has grown up, made peace. He raises my brother differently, which shows me that he's learned, as have I. We've moved on
i do blame my mom, but I'm working through it. Her issues come from her mom, so i do know that she did the best she could.
growing up we went through cycles of abundance and restriction. I now know this must have been based on her own food issues, but as a kid, sometimes it was okay to have 'junk' other times it wasn't and there was never any explanation. There was also cycles of nice complements and nasty commentary on my appearance. Looking back, i was perfectly normal, if not thin. But i remember it being a concern since I was younger then 10.
My mother has always been normal weight +/- 20lbs or so. My grandmother prides herself on always being under 115lbs.
I have been diligently working on breaking this cycle over the last year. I don't want food to own me like it does them. I don't want food to control whether i am good, bad, worthy, etc.
While my anger over the issue is subsiding, i still can't have weight related conversations with my mother. I can't let myself get swooped up into her good/bad food issues. On the other hand, I do wish I could help her, because I know how painful it all is, and she is only doing the best she can with the tools (or lack of) that my grandmother provided her with.
...than when I was a kid. I can say that my parents way of eating did influence the way I ate, OF COURSE it did, but they really didn't know better. When my dad had his first heart attack, the hospital explained what and how he needed to be eating. When he got diabetes she again was educated, but I remember her saying, "Dad is on a special diet because he has a problem, but it didn't occur to use "preventive" measures for all of us, just dad was on a "special diet". Now, with nutritional information so readily available and we know more about preventive medicine and maintenance and we are proactive with our own health, it makes things a lot easier. But we CANNOT fault our parents for teaching us THEIR learned behavior. We just have to use the knowledge we have and teach ourselves and our children. We can't "BLAME" anyone, we just have to do what we can now and in our own futures and educate our children.
You wanna BET I can't blame anyone? Try having parents that preferred drugs to food... that starved us just because they could. That would cook a platter of chicken FOR MY DAD who had the MUNCHIES and my sister and I would eat cold cereal without milk or noname ramen noodles.
You bet I can blame my parents for having a hand in my gaining weight.
Wow I had such a different experience growing up. My mom put a healthy dinner on the table every night (meals reflective of the 70s, 80s for exmaple- a meat (like a pork chop), a starch (one of those potato casserole mixes), a veggie (nuked frozen thing). My brother and I were allowed milk or water, period. Fruits for snacks. Packed lunches with little sandwich bags of Fritos.
Portion control - we were allowed to serve ourselves every day and take as much as we wanted of whatever we wanted. We weren't really guided as to how much protein versus vegetables to have.
Hmmm, my mom served our plates and I guess we were allowed to have seconds if we wanted, I really don't remember it being a big deal or a frequent occurrence. We were expected to eat the vegetable.
Indulgences were ok - we were allowed to order as many appetizers as we wanted at restaurants, whatever entrees we felt like, and dessert was a must.
We rarely rarely went to restaurants, I don't remember appetizers. I do remember getting fried ice cream at Chi-Chi's so I guess we got dessert. I don't remember it being a big deal.
Shopping- When we went to the grocery store we were allowed to put whatever we wanted into the grocery cart, no questions asked.
This is just hilarious - my mom wouldn't have put up with this for one second. We weren't even allowed to get sugary cereals!
Movies - we would always get buttered popcorn... always!!
No movie snacks, too expensive (and I'm still the same way)
My mom is a naturally slender person with 0 food issues, she set a good example. If I blame my weight issues on my parents - its because I was a latchkey kid after 6th grade, not allowed to leave the house after school/during the summer. Soooo boring, nothing to do but watch TV, read and eat. I used to do stuff like sprinkle sugar on bread and eat it - just anything to have something to do! One of my biggest challenges is boredom eating, if I'm bored, I get snacky. I'm still a big time afternoon snacker (unlike a lot of people who seem to struggle after dinner, when I don't crave food at all) and have to come up with management techniques to fight those afternoon snack attacks.
I don't. I blame myself for my weight. I knew what the right choices were. I chose the wrong ones. I blame myself. But, I know I can change. I don't want to make all those wrong decisions anymore. I want to be healthy and happy.
I've been overweight since kindergarten. My younger brother and I were adioted (he's 18 months younger, and we have different sets of bioparents). We also have two younger sisters (my parents, thought to be infetrile had two bio-kids when we were teenagers).
My grandmother and mother were overweight as adults, varying from 50 to 100 lbs overweight. None of them were overweight as children, and none of my siblings had weight issues as children, only me. Only one of my siblings have had serious weight issues as adults, and that's my "middle" sister who started gaining weight in her butt in her late 20's (just like mom). The other sister takes after our dad and has very little trouble maintaining a healthy, attractive weight.
As such, I suspect a strong biological component - and would guess (even bet) that obesity runs in my biological family.
My parents did the best they could. Meals were typical of the times, except my parents served more veggies than I noticed on my friends' family's tables when I ate over. We rarely had dessert, except for special occasions.
I received a lot of mixed messages about food from my parents, and I think it just reflected their own confusion in dealing with an overweight child. My brother was allowed to eat anything he wanted, and was even encouraged to eat huge, multiple portions (because he was very thin, sometimes underweight), and I had to "diet." I was a Weight Watcher member with my mother at 8 years old. I remember Weight Watcher's being a relief to me, because it allowed more food than I was allowed on the "earlier" diets I was put on, and I was allowed more control over my food.
Giving a 5 to 7 year old "just a salad" for dinner wouldn't be advocated today, but my parents were just following our pediatritian's suggestions - and in the early 70's, the prevailing wisdom was that losing weight quickly, by whatever means necessary, both for adults and children was best. The risks of being overweight were seen as outweighing the risks of fast weight loss (if the risks were even considered at all).
There were a lot of factors that contributed to my being obese. I don't blame anyone, not my parents, my grandparents, my doctors, or even myself, because we all did the best we could, given what we knew. I'm still learning, and blame gets in the way of that. When I blame myself or anyone else in my life, I feel sorry for myself, and when I feel sorry for myself I seek food for comfort - so I cut that cycle in the bud by choosing compassion over blame.
Well, I'm 70 and blaming my parents won't work. I made my choices and food was never withheld or pushed on me. I do remember having to finish my plate so I could have dessert but I usually did.
My problem really began in my teens when I loved spending my baby-sitting money on things like fries and butterscotch sundaes plus vanilla cokes. (Remember - this was the fifties!) I'd eat those on the way home from school and still have my usual dinner. I think that was the beginning although I was 121 when I got married in 1960. Overweight for 5'. After that it just kept climbing and climbing with a bit of a halt when I was in my mid-30's and on Atkins or some other low cal plan plus Ionamin.
Second marriage happened in the eighties and my man was a true gourmet cook so I porked it on. When I was working in Ottawa and commuting to here for weekends, it was mostly take-out or bar foods during the week plus beer with the guys who worked for me. Then wine and Harry's gourmet five course meals on the weekends! It's a wonder I lived.
Didn't mean to go on and on. I wish I could blame my parents but it was all me!
i do.. sort of. but kind of in an opposite way of most of you. my mom always put SO much emphasis on being thin (NO emphasis on being healthy, just starvation diets) that it sort of backfired. when i was in high school i weighed about 110 and i thought i was fat. whenever i talked about it she'd say "well just start eating 1000 calories a day and the weight will come off". i am 5'8!! 110 if anything was too thin. she ended up with 3 daughters who constantly struggle with their weight. i feel like she put too much pressure on us and eating became a control issue.
Last edited by juliastl27; 09-04-2009 at 05:22 PM.
My parents were 2 extremes when it came to food.
My Dad: my dad loves to eat, he still does. If we get cookies, chips ect. He downs it and pretends that he didn't eat it. He will eat it while you are not around or he thinks you are somewhere else. My mom has often walked in on him hiding food or chewing and trying to pretend he is not.
When I was a kid we lived in a different house. In the basement there was this big wooden box...it was locked. It was full of junk food! Candy bars, cookies, chips, everything. My dad would bring his lunch to work and he would put these snacks into it. Why they were downstairs and locked, I have no freaking idea!
According to my mom, he also takes ex lax, so I am guessing he has his own eating issues. The ex lax isn't shocking because he is as skinny as a rail yet eats all of this stuff.
My mom: So my mom is the other extreme. She didn't like it that dad had all of the junk food under lock down. So she went and bought her own and put them in her own box under the bed of our extra bedroom. So, while my dad was at work we ate junk food and he never knew.
I sometimes wonder if my parents are hoarding food and things for the war. I mean, a wooden box full of junk food? (yep it was full, I was allowed to look in it once, looked like a store!) Today my mom buys junk food by the tons. I no longer eat it, only my mom and dad, but she still buys it: ice cream, cakes, cookies, muffins, chips and now these things are allowed in the kitchen.
I think this screwed my eating up...yep.
No, my mom literally couldn't have been better, in my opinion -- fat is my fault with big contributing factors being economic circumstances and depression/loss about a year after college.
My dad was obese, my mom was normal weight. My brother and I were thin children/young adults (my brother is very fit as an adult). My sister, now deceased, was overweight as a child but I truly believe it was because of other health problems. From pictures and video it appears we were all very active as a young family (riding tandem bikes, etc). What I remember is later adolescence/teens -- they had health problems. However, they provided us with a very active life. Mom ushered us to sports for the multiple types/teams I was on. Dad took us tubing and waterskiing. I actually had my own boat, too. We were (are) big on boating/sailing/water sporting on my dad's side of the family in particular.
Meals in the 80s were roasts, Italian things or, most commonly, the plate of meat-potato-veggie doled out to us in appropriate serving sizes. No soda in the house. We had fast food once a year, on our annual road trip when we made the traditional stop to dunkin' donuts. I didn't try any other fast food until I was 17, no joke.
Lunches were either 1) a sandwich with a little debbie cake/twinkie type snack or 2) a salad with chopped veggies and a separate little container for transporting my dressing as well as a separate, plastic-wrapped portion of croutons to put on said salad.
Yes, my mom was actually sending me to elementary and middle school with a painstakingly packed salad for lunch. She takes no credit for this and says that she was as surprised as anyone when I apparently insisted that salad was my 'favorite food.'
In the 90s, my teen years, meals became deliberately healthy as mom got into the low-fat trend and Oprah type stuff -- dinners started becoming baked chicken or shrimp or lemon-y pasta with broccoli and lemon. The wonder bread turned to better grains.
In high school I was bulimic. I don't believe my parents had anything to do with this.
So yeah. I will say that having a solid foundation really is something to lean on. An advantage. Obviously I wish my husband and I had been more responsible circa 2004, but we were trying to pack lunches and eat dinner together at home every night on 17k/year as well as deal with some serious problems/health stuff. We ate a lot of rice, pasta and potatoes. I was over being obsessed with skinny and well, I went the other way.
Education of Health and Nutrition is more prevalent now:
