Childhood eating habits

Kikikisses

Silver Member
I put a lot of my weight troubles down to my child hood eating habits.

When I was a child/young teen I would sit in front of the TV watching crap kids programmes and gulping down 5 or 6 packs of crisps, a few chocolate bars and biscuits galore. Now I understand I didn't HAVE to but why did my parents let me? I have 3 siblings so I guess unhealthy snacks were cheaper and the TV can be an easy baby sitter.

I know I could have stopped myself but I was always bored out of school and didn't understand that what I was doing would harm my body so much. Even at school when we did cooking lessons it was never healthy food, sure I know how to bake ayummy chocolate cake but I can't cook a joint of lamb and vegetables from that!

My point is do you feel your family was a big part of why you gained weight? Do you treat your children differently because of your experiences? Do you think the schools put too much pressure on parents at lunch times with this Jamie Oliver stuff and forget to teach the children proper nutrician?
 
yes, i blame my mother! - Hard times = cheap food= unhealthy food + Big family = lots of tv time.

not entirly here fault, shes never had good eating habits herself so how could i expect her to teach me right from wrong with reguards to food? - i just know i wont be that way, thats for sure. now im equipped with the good knowlege!
 
Aye my mum used to eat crap but then did SW and lost bout 4 and a half stone. She's since put most of it back on which can't blame her for since the house is full of snackfoods for my brothers (both are very slender, hard to watch).
 
hi i started putting on weight when i was 7. i think it's because my dad died just before i turned 7 and we we're often bought 'treats' from people who came to see our mum or given money in sweet shops when people in the village saw us out cos they felt sorry for us. My mum probably didn't help matters either by spoiling us food wise- we had a lot of 'nice' food like chips and nuggets, etc. i think she was probably just trying to compensate in some way but she was obviously going through a lot herself and would comfort eat, which me and my sister now do. planning meals was probably the last thing on her mind for a while too.
 
my habits are because my mother was healthy and my dad was strict
dad eat everything on your plate =i later in life still did this
also he mad us eat food we didn't like = I aint junk and not veg when I left home because I could.
mum was always dieting = I have dieted for as long as I can remember but yoy yo ing
chocolate and crisps where restricted to once a week max once I hit my teens i used to by it myself and hide it creating binge eating.
I don't blame my parents they though they where doing what was best for us.
as a parent I never force my children to eat everything on there plate and educate them on healthy food but let them know its ok to have treats they see by example. I try not to mention my weight but my dd knows I go sw and is intreseted but she seems to have a healthy realtionship with food shes a gymnast which shes being doing since she was 4 and loves it.
 
I had the clear your plate thing pushed on me, I was actually really lucky as we always had home made food and my Mum, when I look back now, was quite adventurous in the 70's & 80's. The main issue was portion sizes and a Granny who gave me a proper 2 course lunch each day with lashings of mash or a milky pudding. She loved nothing more than someone eating her lovingly prepared food. She would say "it's you meat that makes you bonny". I still to this day have problems with portion sizes and hate seeing food go to waste. I have never made my girls clean their plates if they don't want to. I am now using smaller plates for meals and trying hard to stay focused.
 
Yes I do partly blame family, it was frowned upon to eat the wrong things so when you did you ate loads & in secret. I always remember as well my cousins coming round as they lived on the same street and everyone being int he sitting room & making me lift my skirt up so they could all slap my thighs and say 'look at the size of those', terrible really as I was 4 or 5 then and to this day I still have issues about showing my legs in public and considering I have now lost so much you would think I would be happy too. It is one of the reasons I won't go swimming too.
 
When I was a young child my mum used to mainly cook pretty healthy meals - stews, fish, roasts. We rarely ate between meals. If you were hungry you were allowed some bread & margarine, so basically it wasn't worth snacking! The only biscuits my mum bought were Rich Tea, so even if you were allowed a couple of biscuits, they were boring too. I'm going back to the 1960s/70s so telly was only 3 channels & it was hardly ever on in our house, so I never sat in front of the tv.

For me it all changed when my dad died. I was 13, my dad passed away, my brother & two sisters all married within 7 months of his death & moved miles away & there was just my mum & me. Her whole outlook changed & she would comfort feed both of us, which was fine by me as I felt I'd lost virtually my whole family & did get comfort from all the crap I ate. I went from a skinny kid to a fat teen & never did shift that weight!
 
hi

i partly do. I never ate fruit or salad (still dont now) as im funny about food textures. However my mum never encouraged me to try anything new. because she worked fulltime it was always frozen food for dinners like fishfingers, chips, chicken dippers etc.
Having said this i could have got better since i got older but i chose not to. Because up until i was 19 i could eat what i wanted and not gain any weight (including 10 takeaways in 14 days...i know!)
Now i eat alot more fresh food and although i still live at home (im 20) i cook myself alot of meals and both myself and my dad being on this diet has also encouraged my mum to cook things from fresh an create meals rather than grabbing it out of the freezer

Kate
 
I'm a bit of a chocoholic, but I feel that it comes from not having had much as a kid. My mum never had a "Crap cupboard" full of chocolate, biscuits and crisps... because we never had the money to, but we did have a poor diet in that everything came with some form of potato and a slice of bread or two. Cheap meat such as corned beef. Lots of sausage rolls and pies to fill up on.
Now I can't stand pies and sausage rolls. I do however love corned beef, mash and beans (we lived on this for a while when I was 5)...

Since being with my husband though (I was only 17 when I met him and moved in with him)... he's always had a "crap cupboard", and I fell into the trap... I got addicted quite quickly and find it hard to resist chocolate now...

I was quite a big girl at school (from pies and sausage rolls), then I lost loads of weight when I went to college ('cause I couldn't stand the sight of another sausage roll and ate loads of fruit and veg), then I met my husband and piled on the pounds over the last 4 years (from too much chocolate...

so I blame my parents and my husband lol... I can't blame my mum, she was only doing what she could with the budget she had... and it made sense to get cheap but filling foods...
and I can't really blame my husband, as I'm now a grown up and I control what I eat...

*sigh* It would be so much easier to blame everyone else though... I blame akon :D
 
Very insightful :) I think this shows that you can't really blame the parents overly because if they give you lots of treats then you think it's right to do but if they don't a lot will binge on them in secret. I think the behaviour of me and my siblings is pretty good so it's not like we had a bad upbringing though my brothers and sister used to call me all manner of fat jibes when I was little which didn't help keep me away from food.
 
we can never really blame our parents cause they did the best job they knew how to and whether that resulted in food problems later down the line they wasn't to know
 
Great thread by the way!

For me, i always had really good, wholesome home cooked meals at home, my mum was a housewife so she would cook big stews and soups and make really hearty food as there was 6 of us in my house. We were really active as a family as well and we were always out walking, bike riding or going for long drives to the Lakes and hiking for the day.

My dad used to go deep sea fishing and hunting as well so we always had fresh fish and meat and i've been brought up on organic meat from my dads friends who were farmers.

The positive side of this is that i have always gone for healthier options and good quality fresh food as opposed to processed or pre packed food, but on the negative side, we were always told we had to finish all the food on our plate. My dad was very physically fit and used to body build so he drummed it into our heads we had to finish our meals - this affects me even now as i always eat massive portions and even if im full will finish everything on my plate.

My mum also used to guilt trip me a little if i didnt want something she had cooked, because she was a housewife she viewed it was her job to cook for the family so if I turned something down she would be upset.

For me my eating got out of control when my dad became terminally ill in my early 20's - i turned to booze and then eating crappy takeaways after a big drinking session which was pretty much 5 days out of 7.

I think some of my childhood habits are still with me in terms of portion size and finishing everything but as a positive, i cook from scratch 95% of the time and lead a really active lifestyle.

I still feel bad for my mum though, bless her, since my dad died and none of us girls live at home, she still cooks massive meals to feed 6 - she just cant get out of the routine. She still guilt trips me now when she has made a massive stew and puts a portion aside for me to have - i think its just her thing.
 
this is very interesting. i don't blame my family, we had decent healthy meals and we had sweets now and then and it was all very balanced.

but when i was an adult i starting mixing with people who were larger, and i think you just eat how everyone around you eats. we used to go out a lot and drink a lot and because everyone was doing it it never seemed so bad, but now, 6 stone over weight, i can see the damage!
 
I don't blame my family but it is because of the circumstances in childhood that I have weight problems.
I was a big baby, 10lbs born and my dad died when i was 6 years old. I now know that i did not grieve for him and i also thought it was my fault he died.(found this out in therapy years later) So i stuffed down the feelings with food.
When i was 14 i weighed 14 stone.
We used to have afternoon tea and cakes before dinner. (my they were so good, fresh cream meringues and éclairs were my favourites).So much food and had to eat it all up. Staving kids in Africa and all that.
When i got pocket money i wouldn't buy one 6d ice lolly i would buy 6 1d ice lollies. I just ate and ate to feel" full up".
I felt so unloved anyway and more so the fatter i got
I left home at 19 and then i started to loose weight but it has been a battle all my life. But i am an adult and i have to take responsibility for myself.
Familiar veins running through some of the posts.
I feel it is important to remember that we are all amazing survivors of our pastsxxxx
 
my mum has been between 9 stone and 6 stone throughout my entire life, constantly dieting and never being equiped with the proper knowlege on how to eat well, when my dad finally left us for another woman, she hit rock bottom and fell to 6 stone, i dropped out fo school and would cook for her, but she never ate. Shes almost 8stone now, but shes still a rake and id give anything for her to just be half a stone heavier.

shes got that horrible mindset, always struggeling with a 'weight problem' even though its all in her head, shes never had a weight problem, just a problem with herself that shes created.. all these bad habits rubbed off on me, along with never learning to eat healthily, and of course, food is reward..!
 
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