Dopers overweight as children: What would you criticize your parents for?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I just came back from visiting my family down in ATL.

For the past couple of months, every time I’ve talked to my mother, she has mentioned how fat my nieces have grown. Each time, I just rolled my eyes. Not because I doubted her (my nieces have always been chubby), but because it sounds like something an annoying grandparent would say. Her constantly talking about it makes me defensive for my sister as well as her kids. I don’t know, but I guess I just don’t like critiques from a hypocrite (my mother has been obese for most of her life and yet is always talking about how fat other people are).

But when I did see my nieces, I have to admit I was taken aback. They are fat. One, the 13-year-old, is obese and her older sister can’t be that far behind if she isn’t already there. Fortunately, they don’t seem to be suffering from low self-esteem about it. They are active (the youngest is doing roller derby), have friends, and excelling in school. They are smart kids. But dayum. They got some meat on those bones!

My mother obviously wants my sister to do something. I heard her making insinuating “jokes” (in quotation marks because they weren’t funny) to my sister while my nieces were eating in the kitchen. My sister just grimaced at her in her humorous way and rolled with it. I’m sure she was thinking, “What the hell do you want me to do? They’re teenagers!” I kinda feel the same way. They’re too old and smart to be “tricked” into changing eating habits. Also, what can she do that won’t destroy their self-esteems?

For the record, my sister is overweight, but it’s really just the pudginess that you see most 40-something females carrying around. I’m guessing she’s about 140-145 lbs, at 5’4" inches. She’s in much better shape than our mother was when she was raising us. Her husband is a tall, large-framed man lacking an athletic build, but he’s not spilling over his pants either. He likes to cook and he does a fantastic job at it, so I guess the girls are accustomed to eating well.

Not that I would dare pass on this information to my sister (unless she asked for help), but I’m curious what Dopers who were fat as kids would say to my sister. Do any of you blame your parents? At what age did you realize you were fat and did your parents try to help you lose weight? I think my sister just wants her girls to be happy. She was not happy as a kid, so she doesn’t want to do or say anything to make her kids have an uncomfortable adolescence. But I wouldn’t say she spoils them. I have heard her tell her kids “no” to extra helpings. She’s even fussed at them when she has caught them sneaking food. It wasn’t scary, go-get-my-belt type of fussing, but it was something. So I’m finding it hard to blame my sister or her husband, like it seems my mother is doing.

2

I was overweight as a child, and now that I’m 43, I’m still overweight. I knew it bothered my mom, who is very intent on maintaining her girlish figure, even now that she’s 70. But I don’t blame any of my weight issues on her. It’s all my fault, I eat too much and don’t exercise enough.

But I’m interested to hear what others have to say. I have 4 kids and none of them are even slightly chubby. I don’t know if it’s because I encourage them to eat healthy and exercise, or if it’s luck of the genetic draw. And I don’t know the best way to handle it if one of them starts having weight issues.

3

My situation was slightly different - I wasnt a fat kid, but I was larger than my peers.

I was an obese adult and I can trace most of my food issues to being a latchkey kid. When I was 11, my mom went back to work. My younger brother and I were supposed to come straight homed after school, we weren’t allowed outside and other kids were not allowed in.

What was there to do besides watch tv and eat? I used to raid the pantry, eat spoonfuls of bron sugar out of a box, sprinkle white sugar on bread and eat it. We spent at least one full summer, sitting inside all day while my parents worked.

As an adult, I munched whenever I was bored - nothing to do? Go check the frig. The effect was cumulative, I just gained more and more weight every year. It’s taken some real work to get over that lifelong habit.

Otherwise, my mom did a great job with food. Healthy, home cooked meals, we didnt go out much to dinner. Drinks were water or milk, no pop. The typical snack was an apple, very few packaged baked goods (like Oreos or whatever). Sure wish my parents had planned for more activity for us kids,

4

Nothing. We ate well - too poor for fancy snack foods, always had balanced meals. I was active in a myriad of sports my entire life and my parents never discouraged it. My mom taught me how to cook and about nutrition. I did get taken to a nutritionist and endocrinologist - they didn’t just ignore my weight.

We are not a jolly fat family, like the Klumps. Mom is overweight and dad is as skinny as a rail. Mom’s whole side of the family is fat and dad’s whole side of the family is thin-to-underweight.

I know it’s not a popular opinion around here that I can be genetically fat, and there must be someone to point the finger at but…nope. It’s how the chips fell for me and I suppose if anyone we can point the finger at me.

We can accuse my parents of being to accepting and loving, and nurturing me to pay attention to my academics over sport (keeping sport as a leisure activity) but…really?

5

I don’t blame my parents. They did the best they could with the knowledge and circumstances they had. My mother was the sort of person who was generous to a fault, and I think that may have stemmed from her own childhood being poor and not wanting us to go without anything like she did. In hindsight, it’s easy to see that our entire family should have eaten healthier meals, but that’s hindsight. I remember that my mom once said that she didn’t even notice that my brother and I were gaining so much weight - because when you see someone everyday, it’s such a gradual change that you get used to it. I do remember her talking to my pediatrician once about the issue but the pediatrician didn’t really have a lot of useful advice honestly.
My parents came from a generation that grew up before everyone talked about obesity and healthy eating. Our family also had some unique stressful situations that made it a lot harder to have the ideal home cooked meals and family dinnertime so we ate a lot of fast food. Mom was a loving and hardworking mother, but sure there were ways things could have been better if we had known then what we know now.

I am not a big fan of blaming people over this kind of thing. It’s not like parents maliciously plan for their kids to get fat. Some kids are probably more prone to gaining weight, being less active or having larger appetites than other kids, so I do think that some families probably have fatter kids than their neighbors even if both households feed their kids the same food.

That being said, I do think that parents need to look at what kind of food they’re bringing into the house if a kid in the house is gaining weight.
At this point in their life, when others can help them control their food intake, it’s as easy as it’s ever going to be for them to lose weight.
So, yeah, if the parents do consider it enough of a problem, they could start doing things like cooking healthier food or only allowing fruits and vegetables in the house for snacking. I think that would be a more fair and kind way to deal with a fat kid than punishing a fat kid for sneaking food (which seems like a good way to create an eating disorder). Just don’t give them the opportunity to snack on things that will make them fat.
Realistically, the majority of Americans don’t live that way, though, so while it would be a good idea if they were able to adjust their eating habits that way, I don’t think it’s surprising if they don’t.

6

I’m wondering if there might be too many snacks in the house. One or two cookies after school, right before dinner, and/or before bedtime can add up over time. Unless you’re looking for it, you may not see these habits. To be honest, I don’t remember having a cornucopia of snacks in the house when we were growing up, monstro. At least any addictive snacks. Occasionally there would be a bag of chips in the cabinet, but we weren’t permitted to graze from it in broad daylight. (But we’d sneak.)

The kids are of the age that they can buy their own snacks and don’t have to depend on the household to get them. Which means our sister really can’t do too much except model good behaviors and make sure meals are healthy and balanced. What has to be frustrating to her is that compared to the carbohydrate-heavy meals our parents served us, the stuff they eat is perfectly fine. And yet none of us growing up were overweight. Disparities like this confuse the hell out of me.

What are the girls eating for lunch?

7

I started getting noticeably chubby around 3rd grade and put on more and more weight (with ups and downs) until I was 33, at which point I was morbidly obese. I then lost about 40% of my body weight and got within spitting distance of a normal BMI before getting pregnant. I’m close to eight months pregnant now, but fully expect to get back down to a normal BMI by next summer. I have thought a lot about weight management.

I don’t blame my parents, but there are three things I wish they’d done differently:

  1. I wish they’d helped me find physical activities I enjoyed, and helped me learn to be better at them (which would have made me enjoy them more). I was very uncoordinated, and I vaguely knew I was Not Good at sports, but, so far as I can remember, no one ever really helped me to get better. My mom put us in soccer, and it was just “go play”, and when I wasn’t good at it I just drifted away. I was a grown adult before I knew that people who were not 100% naturals at things could learn to be better at them, if never amazing.

  2. When I did want to lose weight, I really wish my mom had had better advice. She is a person of extremes, and tiny, so her idea of a diet is to eat as little as you possibly can: certainly no more than 1200 calories a day, and really, 900 is better. I have a naturally fast metabolism in any case (my maintenance calories are 2300-2400 when my BMI is normal and I am exercising every day) and as a teenager, trying to do 900 calories a day was like trying to drown myself by holding my head underwater. I just couldn’t do it and I failed and failed and failed. Because my mom is such a person of extremes, I learned that when you are not dieting, you might as well eat anything. There was no middle ground in my house.

  3. I wish she’d found a way to be supportive of my weight loss without being invested in my weight loss. I needed the support but resented the pressure. My husband does a good job of this: when I was losing weight he was proud and amazed at my efforts and my discipline, but didn’t seem to much care about the actual result. That really helped me.

So if I were to give your sister any advice, it would be to do her research now and be ready to answer the question “How do I lose weight?” when the time comes and be willing to help her follow through. The problem is that nobody gives you good advice. Doctors don’t know shit about weight management. (I mean this. They get little to no training it, near as I can tell, and are reading the same magazines as everyone else). A good nutritionist can be better. I figured out what worked for me (VERY careful and strict, but not very low, calorie counting, high protein) through a lot of internet research (much done by my sister, who also lost a lot of weight) and trial and error.

Then, finally, if/when her daughters want to lose weight your sister has to find a way to praise their behaviors, but not have it turn into weird pressure. She needs to be their pit crew, but not their food police. This means being willing to commit to helping their weight loss, making sure they have access to whatever foods are in their food plan, helping them plan for things like trips, not pressuring them to eat off plan for special occasions, but not giving them looks or heavy sighs or asking searching questions if they are making a choice she disagrees with.

8

My niece battled with her weight all her life and was miserable. She has only recently gotten her weight under control.
When she gave birth to her daughter, she swore it was not going to happen for her her daughter.
So, my niece refused to have any junk food at home - period.
No candy bars in the drawer, no chips and dip in the kitchen, no sugary soft drinks in the fridge - you get the idea.

Fast forward 15 years.

My niece’s daughter has played softball since she was about 6 years old, and then started playing for those semi-professional kids teams. She was the first Freshman in her high school to be playing for the varsity girls softball team and as a Sophomore is already being approached (subtly) by colleges. She has almost no body fat, is drop-dead gorgeous, has gotten almost all straight “A’s” in school and is very popular. Additionally, I was proud to hear that she noticed a small boy in school was being picked on and bullied at school. She went up to the kid and took him under her wing and has befriended him - essentially ending the bullying that was going on.

Yes, my niece seems to be a great parent, but she also thinks that her daughter has an entirely different outlook on life, due to the fact that she has never had to worry about her body image and ensuing insecurities and depression that my niece went through at that age.

In our family (and particularly my niece’s mother), food was used as a reward - lots of great deserts, candy, cola - the house was always stocked full of it. Add to that trips to KFC, McDonalds, Burger King, Dairy Queen and those became the fine-dining “restaurants” of choice. That my niece aggressively broke this cycle is nothing short of a miracle.

9

You might be onto something, DMark. We weren’t overweight as kids, but we didn’t have access to anything but healthy food - a bag of chips was a rare big treat, and it was shared by the whole family, not one bag per kid. I only gained weight when I moved out on my own and started buying my own food, which, unfortunately, did and still does include junk food.

I see my nephews and nieces growing up with constant access to all the junk they want, and three out of four are overweight. They also have parents that are not active; there is very little emphasis placed on physical activity.

10

I gained a lot of weight as a teenager. My mother forced me to eat more, even though my classmates were teasing me about how much weight I had gained and how unattractive it was. “I’m your mother,” she said. “I know what looks good on you. They’re all wrong and I’m right.”

Yeah, I’m still a little bit upset about that, especially since it took a couple of decades to completely get rid of that extra weight.

11

That was our house as well. I was also latchkey kid. My mother would bake chocolate chip cookies, but there was hell to pay if you actually ate the things out of turn. Two after dinner, two in your lunchbox. There was one or two 2 liter bottles of pop in the house for the WEEK. We were also encouraged to get out of the house - even when we were home alone. And I didn’t eat when bored - I read. And while sitting in front of the TV and eating go hand it hand - its harder to eat when you read (or, I think, have your hands busy with video games or the computer - I’d rather my kids have interactive screen time than dead screen time).

But there IS more to it than that. There IS a genetic component to your body type - I got lucky, my kids got lucky, my sister didn’t. She’s always been “hippy.” My son is blessed with thirteen year old six pack abs (he does skateboard a lot, which I think helps), and has an American thirteen year old diet - we are constantly scolding him about helping himself to pop or chips or eating junk. My daughter eats better, and while she is thin, she is more likely to need to watch her weight in middle age than he will.

12

Once I was in high school I gained a lot of weight, and my mom kept telling me how I gained too much weight, but she never let me not eat if I wasn’t hungry. If I wasn’t hungry it was “too bad, food time is now” or if it was before a 2-3 hour event “you may get hungry during the event and get a headache” since lack of eating is a migraine trigger for me. When I was allowed to eat on my own schedule after I lived alone I lost a lot of weight really fast, I’m about 20 pounds under the same weight I was in high school now, a few years later (as opposed to the 50 or so lower I was before), but I’m not sure what my body fat percentage is since I’m a lot stronger, and my waist is still about 5 inches below what it was in high school (as opposed to the 6 inches from before).

13

When I was a kid, my mom kept pretty tight control over what I was allowed to eat - few between-meal snacks, have to eat a little of everything at dinner, have to ask if you want a cookie, etc. Then when she went back to work, I was home alone by myself for a couple of hours after school and of course I ate every damn cookie in the house and went from slim pants to husky pants in a few months. I suppose the tight parental control prevented me from developing self-control, so I couldn’t handle the freedom.

14

Yes, we did a lot of sneaking. And searching for quarters between the couch cushions so we could buy candy (since weren’t given an allowance). I remember always being hungry as a early teenager, when the both of us were going through our growth spurts. But despite the strange restrictions put on us (and the starchy dinners), we did not get fat after we left the nest. Either we are blessed with great genetics or something–perhaps nutritional education in college?–put a stop to the inevitable. I dunno.

So it could be that they’ve simply got lots of snacks and two parents who are more permissive than ours were. But damn. If Sister has to take responsibility for having a bountiful pantry, why shouldn’t our parents be taken to task for starving us out the way they did? That approach wasn’t healthy either. It just turned out not to manifest itself in obesity in us. (Maybe I’m so neurotic because of that goddamned Dorito Slap :)).

We had a party for Sis’s birthday at our parents’ house. Tex-Mex stuff. Even not-appetite-having me had multiple plates. It didn’t seem to me that the girls were eating more than anyone else, but then again I wasn’t paying attention to their whereabouts or their doings. But their grandmother seems to be at that age when she’s in EVERYYBODY’S business! So maybe she noticed more eating because she doesn’t have anything else to preoccupy her mind.

15

To my mother (and her mother before her) a fat kid was a healthy kid. “Ess ess, mein kind” was their slogans. My brother and I reacted in the opposite way. I just got fat. There’s a picture of me as a fat kid at age about 6 with my fat mother and fat grandmother. My brother was much more stubborn than me and his reaction was to stop eating. He really looked emaciated. Eventually, he came out of it. I didn’t. I passed 200 lb in HS (I’m just under 6’1") and was probably around 225 when I got married. Then I had a heart attack at 28 and stopped smoking and lost down to 206 (from where? I don’t remember). Then I started gaining again and as recently as 10 years ago weighed in at 281 one year.

Do I blame my mother? Damn right I do. But they didn’t know any better. I was born in 1937. Nowadays it would be inexcusable. Incidentally, one day about a year ago (when I had stuck at 240) I simply stopped eating between meals. Without adjusting my meals particularly (and eating hearty out of the house and on vacation) I have still managed to shed 30 pounds and am in hailing distance of that 206 which is the lowest I ever weighed in 60 years.

16

That isn’t really significantly overweight, but…if her children are that fat, there’s a 99 per cent chance it’s her fault.

My son and I try to mask the horrified looks on our faces when we see obese children…especially at a restaurant or out shopping with parents (where, not coincidentally, they seem to be getting everything they want).

17

I hope you feel good about yourself and your decision to get healthier! Kudos to you. I struggle with food all of the time. I’m 5’2" and currently 127 and trying to get down to 115. A year ago I was 98. I love food - and always the bad kind.

I worry that parents of the ‘eat, eat’ generation pass that on to their children, and those children pass it on to the next because they have bad eating habits. Plus there are subcultures in America where food = love.

I don’t think Michelle Obama is going to get far with her campaigns. :confused:

18

I was the only one in my family significantly overweight. My mom was maybe 10 pounds more than she liked for most of my teens so I was always aware that she wanted to lose weight. My older sister’s weight yo-yo’ed around as a teen but she was probably never more than 15 lbs overweight at her highest. My younger sister was always thin without effort. I started gaining weight when I was around 10. Then we moved and I gained like 20-30 lbs in middle school. I was pretty depressed around that time; I didn’t have many friends and I felt really awkward. I went from a small private school where I knew everyone to a big public school with a bunch of kids who mostly tried to act older than they were, mostly by being obnoxious. I wish my parents had recognized that I was unhappy but I doubt if I would’ve responded well to suggestions to see a therapist or anything like that.

I don’t exactly blame my parents for my becoming overweight. Maybe for the initial weight gain because I was too young to really take control of my eating habits. I think they were way too passive about my eating habits in general (actually their whole parenting attitude was pretty passive). They never said anything to me about my gaining weight. It’s strange, I actually must have put on a lot of weight in a fairly short period of time but I don’t remember feeling so much bigger until I was fat. There must’ve been a period where I was just getting chubby but wasn’t really overweight yet.

Looking back I wish they had done the following:

  1. Made sure I ate breakfast. I don’t recall eating breakfast on a regular basis at all during middle and high school. Maybe occasionally I would take a cereal bar to school. I never feel like eating when I first get up and I only leave myself enough time to get ready in the morning (I’m still like that) but they could have made sure I brought an apple or ate some yogurt.
  2. Encouraged me to bring a lunch from home. Not only did I skip breakfast I almost always skipped lunch as well (maybe 3-4 days a week). I didn’t like waiting in line because I felt like it took too long but I probably would’ve bought something unhealthy anyway. The popular items on the menu were pizza and fast food. The “healthy” options were for people who were on free or reduced lunch. I don’t recall anyone who paid the standard price actually choosing these items. I don’t even know how healthy they were really or what they usually prepared. So then of course I was starving by the time I got home and pretty much ate whatever I wanted. If my mom wasn’t working that day she usually cooked something fairly healthy like stir-fry but if both my parents worked they’d often just buy something like pizza. That leads me to 3.
  3. Encouraged me to cook. I hardly ever cooked for myself in high school. It’s not that I didn’t like cooking, it’s just that it didn’t really occur to me to do so. I definitely could’ve prepared something more healthy like baked chicken on days my parents were working.
  4. Encouraged me to do activities that got me out of the house. I don’t necessarily mean physical activities because I was totally self-conscious and would’ve refused but something like art lessons or volunteer work.
  5. Not bought soda. I drank way too much soda as a teen. I still do but it’s diet now.

I can’t say these suggestions would’ve made me thinner but they probably would’ve kept me from getting as fat as I did. At my highest I was 35 lbs over a normal weight and probably 45 lbs more than I weigh now. I only really started to lose weight a couple years ago and now I’m at a normal weight for my height (still a little chubby for my tastes though). I exercise on a regular basis. Diet is harder; I don’t eat perfectly but it’s not too bad most days.

It’s a tough issue. I don’t have kids but I don’t know what I would say if they were getting overweight. I definitely wouldn’t want to make them feel bad because I would’ve been mortified if my parents told me I was overweight because I already knew I was. I don’t think I would stress losing weight (unless it was severe enough to become a medical issue or they expressed a desire to lose weight), I think I’d try to encourage them to lead a healthy lifestyle and model it myself.

19

My parents insisted, on threat of the belt, thta we clean our plates. As a result, neither my brother or I has ever had a normal appetite. We were forced to eat beyond the point that our appetites were satisfied. then publicly and toxicly shamed for being overweight. Ai yi yi! ! !

That said, I was a ballerina for many years, and am perfectly capable of exercising the necessary discipline to stay thin.

I have never done this with Celtling, despite all four of Grandparents insisting that I should force her to eat. (And all of whom struggle with their weight, some more successfully than others.)

She is natrually and comfortably slender; taller, stronger, and faster than most of her peers.

20

There’s no one answer. Some kids (like I and my siblings) growing up in the 60’S and 70’S were simply prone to being overweight because we are inclined to eat too much if left to our own devices, and we were generally left to our devices fairly early and often as both parents worked. My father was away for many months at a time as a senior Foreign Service officer and my mother both worked as a Realtor and admin asst. to high level execs and was a chronic (though functioning) alcoholic.

We were all sturdy kids. We were all “big” and overweight but strong, we weren’t sloppy fat. Food was not pushed at us, it wasn’t like we ate to alleviate some existential or emotional pain. We ate because we liked to eat.

Having said all this, if our parents had controlled our food supply and forced us to exercise from an early age our weight would have been a lot more manageable, however, if they actually did that the reality would probably have been an ongoing battle with them forcing us to look for food outside the house.

Beyond this it would have required them to know a lot about diet and exercise that was not common knowledge at the time. Plus my parents grew up the depression. Kids being fat was not a major problem for most families.

I can hardly blame them. Obese kids are mostly a problem of relatively (historically) recent low physical activity lifestyles.