I've been wondering about this for awhile now. I'm curious to hear from anyone who grew up in an environment that included one (or more) parents with an eating disorder. I'm primarily interested in hearing about experiences with anorexic or bulemic parents, but other stories/experiences related to compulsive eating or binge disorders would be interesting, too.
I bring this up now because it seems like every time I post (lately), something "comes up" that is related to my Mom's anorexia or (less frequently) is related to my Dad's compulsive/binge-eating tendencies. And as a result, it's becoming increasingly clear to me that my issues with food are solidly tied to my parents' issues with food. Yeah, I know -- it only took me 33 YEARS to figure this out?!?! (Duh, Kate! )
I won't re-hash my whole Mom-related saga here -- I feel like I've saturated enough boards with that stuff already -- but essentially the woman was 90 - 105 lbs (at 5'8") for 15+ years and profoundly obsessed with food, exercise, and her weight. We had a piece of paper taped to our (mostly empty) fridge for a decade that said "1 orange = 30 calories = FAT, FAT, FAT!" And then there was Dad with a car full of donuts, Doritos, chips, pepperoni logs, etc.
I'd love to hear from anyone who grew up in this same kind of environment. How did it effect you in relation to food, exercise, and your self-image? Do you feel that you've "gotten past" the eating patterns you grew up with? Have you re-learned better behaviors as an adult? Does your parent realize the effect they've had on you? Do you care if they ever ackowledge it?
I was also wondering if anyone has an opinion about the effects of NOT being breast-fed in relation to life-long food "issues." My parents adopted me because my (adoptive) Mom couldn't conceive due to the anorexia. Therefore (obviously) I was not breast-fed -- and I've always wondered if my tendency toward "oral habits" like cigarettes, gum, biting my fingernails, and (of course) food is related to that in some way. I've heard vague connections between the two, but maybe it's just some kind of urban legend or old wives' tale (?).
Just curious. It would be nice to hear your thoughts on this.
Thanks.
Last edited by LovesBassets; 09-24-2005 at 04:57 PM.
My aunt (father's sister) has suffered from anorexia and bulemia since I was a child.
My mother was very "high maintenance" but was not anorexic. She was an extreme perfectionist though, and was always extremely concerned with her appearance-makeup, clothes, what other people thought, making the right impression on everyone-and everything had to be PERFECT, and a lot of that as well has been passed down to me, so I fully understand. If you need to talk, I am here.
Kate,
My mother is not anorexic, but naturally skinny. She doesn't give a hoot what she looks like (she was planning on wearing a garage sale sun dress to my brother's very formal wedding until I dragged her to Macy's and then to get her hair done), but at 5'4", she has rarely weighed over 105 pounds. And it's not for lack of eating. She used to have to eat a bowl of ice cream every night to keep her weight over 100 pounds. If I hadn't seen pictures of her pregnant, I'd swear I was adopted. My step-father is 6' and has never weighed more than 145- again, not for lack of eating. They have always been very active and just natural calorie furnaces. I'm not, they are freaks! But when I was 11 and passed my mother's weight, she panicked and packed me off to an equally freakily skinny pediatrician who put me on legal speed and told me to go for a run every night. I already had food issues and was a secret eater, but that really drove home the "you're fat and unacceptable" message. Looking at pictures of myself from those years, I look perfectly normal. But I'd already gotten the message that I wasn't and I shouldn't be seen eating. 40 years later, I'm still struggling with it.
I really doubt the breastfeeding link. I think it's certainly the most healthy way to feed a baby, but there are too many healthy, normal people out there who were bottlefed to blame bottle feeding.
My parents had strange issues with food. My mother is an emotional eater, she'll sit in the kitchen and eat all day long because she's bored or sad or depressed, the sadder she is the more she'll eat.
She told me I was fat when I wasn't because she didn't want me to wind up looking like her when I was older. I wasn't fat when I was in high school, I was big because I was very athletic, but I wasn't fat.
My father always has some food allergy-usually wheat and potatoes he said triggered his migraines. But he'd eat those things if no one was looking and not have a headache, but if he noticed you saw him eating it, he'd start talking about his "sick" headache-which was bacically migraines because I have them too. But yet he could eat things full of nitrates which are a big trigger for me-bacon, pepperoni, sausage.
Between him and his sister, my aunt-she was allergic to everything but peanut butter and bananas. That's all she ate when people were watching, when she didn't think anyone was watching, she'd eat the cookies and junk she had hidden.
I have nursed two children in the past 7 years, and have done a lot of reading on breastfeeding and have attended support groups for nursing mothers, and am very familiar with the claim that you speak of regarding the breastfeeding.
The reasoning behind breastfeeding thing, and it supposedly being better at producing more normal weight children, is that the baby stops automatically when they are satisfied, and there is no pressure by the mother usually to "keep eating".
In bottle fed babies, sometimes there is the tendency by some mothers to "get the baby to finish" the 1 or 2 ounces of formula left in the bottle, when the baby would have stopped earlier on its own.
It is the same thing as children who are brought up to "clean their plate" and to "not waste food". Some bottle fed babies are taught early on to ignore their natural hunger cues, and to "finish" their food.
It is all about emotional eating, stress eating, boredom eating, eating when we aren't really hungry because already paid for it at a restaurant, habitually cleaning your plate, or eating because Aunt Linda is pressuring you to try her bundt cake at Thanksgiving.
It is all about eating for reasons other than hunger, and not listening to the body's natural cues, and listening to the body when we are physically satisfied.
In this case, it isn't anything actually to do with the nutritional benefits of nursing instead of formula, it is instead about learning bad eating habits from infancy.
Both my parents and sister have always been "normal" eaters. I'm not sure where it came from (I do know it was self-imposed) but I felt fat years before I ever actually was. Gaining weight to the point of obesity was gradual for me. I don't believe that there is any specific reason for it though. A combination of things, maybe, but nothing that I could pin point and say, "THAT'S why I struggle with my weight."
There is a history of alcoholism in my family and I do believe that I have inherited some of the compulsive/addictive personality traits. I am certain that has played a part in my gaining weight over the years. Moreso, though, I just gradually became less and less phyically active and began paying very little attention to my food choices. Like any other bad habit these two things "stuck" without me really noticing and I've been fighting them ever since. Thankfully, I've finally found the right balance of knowledge and determination to replace them with much healthier living habits but I don't think I will ever defeat them completely. I can, however, manage them from here on out.
well my mom told me once that she lost alot of weight once b/c she stopped eating and just drank all the time...i think she said she was around 100lbs or less at the time...
My grandma (who raised me) was a control freak with food -- she was never diagnosed with an eating disorder but she was very thin (90-100 lbs at 5'6") and she never ate...I can't remember the number of times growing up when people would comment on how she ate like a bird. My grandfather used to get annoyed because he would take us out for dinner, she'd eat 4 bites and be full. It was rare that she actually ate a full meal.
On the other hand, she used to cook a lot, in mass quantities, and mostly friend / gravied/ heavy food. And if you didn't eat it, or didn't finish it, or only took "a little bit" -- it was a personal offense. Take a big plate and eat it, or she'd be upset.
Well, I breastfed both my children. The one I breastfed longest (22 months) is a smoker. My daughter, whom I breastfed for about 18 months, chews her nails to the quick. They were both thumbsuckers (as was I), who needed extensive orthodonture (as did I). So if there is some kind of correlation between being breastfed and lack of oral fixation, my kids are the exception.
I myself have suffered from Bulimia mostly as a teen-- ( a few times as an adult under some situations) and one thing I worry about most is that I dont want to pass my horrible habits off to my children--
I was a child that needed to lose some weight-- I remember my mom paying me to lose weight-- then at age 12 we joined WW together--
I lost a lot of weight on WW-- but the last 10 lbs I lost because I discovered purging. A friend mentioned that she did that-- and that was it for me
Now I am an adult-- and I think my past weight obsessions has made it even harder to lose weight-- and I have to be careful because the purging is an easy habit to fall into--
my biggest concern is my 12 year old daughter (who looks like she is 15) is overweight. And I really dont know how to handle it-- She is not huge-- but she is a tall and big girl and I just dont want her to go through anything I went through.
For the most part I tell her how beautiful she is and encourage her to eat right-- but never mention losing weight.
I need to be a better example by what I do and not by what I say.
Did you have a parent with an eating disorder?
-- it only took me 33 YEARS to figure this out?!?! (Duh, Kate! 
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