If you eat healthily as an adult what were the food rules when you were growing up?

[MustardScreams]

Just interested to see if it plays a part in adult eating habits.

No rules. We just didn’t have a lot of junk in the house and were out playing a lot.
My dm cooked a healthy dinner every night and we had occasional treats like a home baked cake or pancakes.
I do the healthy meals but our treats are a bit more frequent unfortunately.

Absolutely none. We were offered a basic 3 meals a day, no fancy food cooked at home as my mum has zero interest in cooking. We had toast and tea for breakfast. Sandwich for lunch and meat and 2 veg for dinner.

My father regularly brought home takeaways at night (we ate dinner at about 6pm) he would bring chipper chips / chinese etc and share it out. It was often well after 11pm and he would whisper up the stairs 'are you awake?' and bring my up a small plate of whatever it was....happy memories!

My mother has a VERY sweet tooth and there was always a cupboard FULL of sweets, chocolate, biscuits, cake etc as well as fizzy drinks galore. I don't remember having water at home - we were offered either milk or lemonade..

Neither myself nor my sister were / are overweight and we had very little interest in the cupboard of stuff - it held no mystique or attraction, it was the same as opening the cupboard and seeing bread etc I was a very skinny child, teen and into my 30's. Am slim now as opposed to skinny. I don't have a particularly sweet tooth - prefer salty things.

My sister is a vegetarian. Has been since her teens. I am a really adventurous eater and a very good cook, as a direct reaction to the types of meals I grew up on, which I hated for the greater part.

I have friends who grew up in very restrictive households and they had zero self control around treats.

In our house we cook very nice food, dd eats well though food is not of huge interest to her. We have a lot of treats and snacks and we often give / throw stuff away if it goes off.

Sweets and fizzy were for Sat only. Only 2 or 3 biscuits after school.

Mum was a single mum and poor. Meals both home cooked and freezer food.

Could be cheesy mash and beans, homemade pizza or veggie stew.

If we were hungry we could have homemade veggie soups that were kept in the fridge, toast or cereal.

I became a veggie at 11. I favoured veg and pulses so eat healthy naturally anyway. As does DD 8.

DH had no rules, neither did his sons. Food terrible. When I started dating it was all deep fat frier, crisps and chocolate and coke every day. DSSs, who are adults now have only just started eating healthy out of choice.

DH now eats mainly veggie food and understands healthy cooking, but he would feed him and DD crap out of ease.

Ooh following with interest.

I'm slim now in my early 30's, a UK size 10. I 100% believe in vanity sizing though as I was also a size 10 in my early 20's, when I was a good half stone to a stone lighter!

I think I'm slim because as pp have mentioned, I would hate to be fat, rather than a healthy attitude to food. Having said that I do enjoy healthy food, and exercise.

Growing up my DM was very strict with things like snacks, sweets. We were never allowed to help ourselves to multipacks of crisps or what have you, and snacky food was generally hidden! My DM is very controlling and all about moderation, whereas my DF spent many years of my childhood overweight, and was more of a binger. We did have plenty of treats as I got older though, sugar free fizzy drinks, chocolate chip muffins for breakfast some weekends. I feel like there was probably a lot of mixed messages surrounding food!

I am definitely prone to pigging out too much now, although I almost always limit it to the weekends/"treats". My DH is the same as he is slim now but has been overweight in the past, and is very much all or nothing. We do cook proper food 99% of the time though, it's the weekend treats that are the unhealthy aspect.

I very much label things like sweets/chocolate as a treat for my DS age nearly 4, which I know you're not supposed to do anymore! He is mega slim, is active and eats well so I haven't worried up until now, but I'm conscious I need to portray a healthy attitude towards food.

Eat your dinners
Child of the 50s here
So just good quality nourishing food.
Dad would bring fresh fish in and cook it on a Friday.
Certainly no lasagnes or curries.
We would have a fry up occasionally for breakfast sometimes for evening meal
Spotted dick for puddings.
Fish and chips now and then
Lots of vegetables which I hated.
My aunt who lived round the corner was a better cook than my mum. I preferred her Sunday dinners as my mum used a pressure cookEr and the veg was tasteless
Aunt used saucepans and veg was much nicer.
Mum would make corn beef pies, shepherds pie..they were nice
Just her Sunday dinners let her down.
I hated cooked carrots..now more than happy to eat them.

We had to eat everything couldn't leave the table. Huge battles (more with my sister). It was always processed food think smiley faces and nuggets. Occasionally pasta, I was quite fussy but I remember being hungry quite a lot as what I got wasnt enough. Probably could have done with healthier food to fill me up longer. We did always have a roast on a Sunday which was great tbf. She got better as we got older. I think my mum just learned to cook better as she got older. Now she's a pretty good cook but I moved out 6 years ago. This was during the 90s.

Now I eat most things although can be a picky around textures. All my meals are home cooked between my fiance and I.

Child of the sixties.
Finish your dinners. No snacking, no fizzy pop( treat on Friday) I had limeade my sister had orangeade.
No takeaways, fish and chips very rarely.
Meat and potatoes for dinner.

No rules really but we were strongly encouraged to try and get in 5 fruit/veg a day. Always had a chocolate drawer and treat cupboard but from an early age I completely understood that these were only for pudding, not for just helping ourselves and there was an understanding of a two biscuit limit from the tin!

I can remember seeing my cousins eat entire packets of biscuits and being 😮 that they would even do that! I’m a lot less strict than my parents but I talk to the kids a lot about what they think is a reasonable portion etc (eg how many biscuits do you think you should have?) - oldest one makes good choices but youngest struggles a bit. Try and encourage fruit before treats. As a household we have less sweet stuff around than my childhood home as a matter of course (no biscuit tin for example) but they seem to have more sweets collected from parties, Halloween, Christmas etc.

Three meals a day, no snacks, no sweets apart from Christmas

Mine was v similar, though occasionally we had sweets from pocket money (maybe once a month)
We also had to eat everything on our plate. I think that was driven by both parents having experienced rationing, but also because we were so poor when I was small that my parents were often having only one meal a day and they couldn't bear us not to eat when they were sacrificing their meal.

As an adult, I realised that it wasn't actually healthy to eat everything on one's plate, particularly when you haven't served yourself! (SIL is a huge feeder!)
The no snacks thing hasn't gone though, I just don't snack and DH drives me insane some days, he will literally get up from table having eaten a big meal and open the cupboards for something else.
I don't eat sweets either, really, nor chocolate very often.
I did go through a phase of eating a lot of sweets as a teenager, secretly as a rebellion I think. It makes me sad now though, to look back at how unhappy I was in those years.

I try to instill a balance in my children's eating. We eat very healthy food and a wide variety is available to them. Sadly one has many food intolerances, and struggles to maintain a decent balance, and also finds it hard to tell when they're full/had enough as their feedback mechanisms are a bit up the spout.

Now me and dh have a fairly restrictive diet
Completely gluten and dairy free .
I can’t eat chilli. So restricted in Indian food. Not a lover of pasta either.
We tend to eat quite simply.
I have home made gluten free muesli for breakfast
Banana on rice cake for lunch and then we have protein with veg and carb for evening meal. All sounds very clinical doesn’t it.

We do eat out a fair bit when away..and will try some ore adventurous but if I find something I like..oops I tend to order it every time.

My problem is I see food a bit more like medecine.

No sugary drinks were allowed,
Resulted in low sugar intake in my adult life

1980s. Growing up we never had fizzy drinks at home (and I have never liked them) and I don't remember having many desserts, cakes, chocolate around. Snacks were mainly fruit.

We'd get crisps and tropical fruit juice with the weekly shop and Dm would sometimes get us a chocolate muffin each. Also freshly baked white bread.

Meals I remember at home were (all home made) chicken breast or chicken pie with potatoes and veg, lasagne and salad, cauliflower cheese, macaroni cheese, homemade pizza with anchovies (Sunday night treat with a James Bond film, I realise now the anchovies were just a wierd thing that my mum liked!), ham or cheese and tomato sandwiches, marmite on toast for breakfast, set yoghurts. We occasionally had chinese on a Saturday night.

I've never been a fussy eater, although there were lots of things I didn't have until I was older -like other kinds of pasta and curry. I've consciously educated and expanded my palate and repertoire.

We were out all the time on bikes, roller skates, swimming etc. (often getting sweets from the shops lol). I remember going to McDonalds and Burger King twice for birthday parties. DM would takes us for a sundae on the last day of term in primary school.

DM never made any comments about my weight, appearance, calories. I ate proper hot meals at school.

On the other hand we often ran out of food and meal times at home were often quite late. I never learned to cook properly until I was around 24 and have had a lifelong problem with sugar (that's more to do with my brain chemistry than upbringing). I think I got away with it when I was younger but can't now so that's been the motivation to change.

I agree the problem is with extremes, when you ban or openly restrict, equally you can be too lax and turn a blind eye too much.

We didn't have snacks, just a fruit bowl. Bananas were a rare treat as they are packed with sugar.
No fizzy drinks unless it was a party of Christmas.
Meals were all cooked from scratch, not a jar or ready meal in sight. There was always more vegetables than carbs on the plate.

I am one of 5, we didn’t have rules as such but mum nearly always cooked a home cooked meal from scratch. As adults one of us is super healthy eating the right foods although he is not obsessed with it. 2 of us are probably what I’d call average try to eat well most of the time but have gained weight in middle age, the other 2 are very unhealthy with health conditions that could be improved with a healthy diet. So for all of us growing up in the same house we are quite different although this is just us, it will be interesting to see if there is a link

Healthy varied home cooked meals reasonable portions. Restrictions on sweet stuff, sweets on Friday only. Now eat mainly home cooked and eat most veg and fruit. I prefer to eat lots of veg than processed food.

DH's family were very poor and often hungry, he has real issues with his weight and is always eating large portions of carbs (to feel full), has little self control with sweet stuff and fizzy drink but does does eat a range of veg and fruit.

No 'plating up' -urgh-, so just we would just take what we wanted and finish it before second helpings. Desert once a week.
DP is a great cook and does about 75% of our cooking. But he bloody insists on plating up. Invariably too big portions for me (he gives us identical plates, despite him being an 6'4" exercise freak). Battling weight ever since we moved in together.

No rules. We ate with adults and extended family and were praised for trying and finishing our food. No restrictions. Food would be the centre point of any major social occasion. Everyone cooked and cooked in front of children who helped with preparation and tasted things.

My parents cooked fairly typical food. Toast, cereal or eggs with a cuppa for breakfast if you wanted it, occasionally a fry up on the weekend at around 11. Dinner was sandwiches, soup, toasties, crisps, crackers, cheese and or bread or something more substantial if you could cook it yourself. Tea generally stews or meat and two (five) veg with lots of potatoes or things like gammon and cauliflower cheese or bacon boiled potatoes and cheese. Or when I was very restrictive with food a tin of meatballs in gravy with packet smash, chicken burger, curly fries, pickled cabbage and peas.

I eat far healthier now though but my siblings and I all have eating disorders. One has been anorexic her entire life, one is a yoyo dieter, one was bulimic and is very restrictive with food now and one is a secret eater. I've been hospitalized with anorexia before and now I'm overweight and trying to lose weight so I can be healthy for once in my life.

No snacks. 3 meals a day. Veg or salad with dinner. Fizzy drinks / sweets were a big treat. No helping yourself to anything from the kitchen. Expected to eat everything on your plate and eat whatever was served to you. Food was just not the big thing that it is these days.

I don't think what your parents restrict or don't has much impact in adult life tbh.
Posters have said treats were restricted so they wanted them more, AND that they never had them so didn't want them!
In my large family we all like food and know how to cook but some have a sweet tooth, some don't. I think your food preferences are quite inate.
We always had pop in the fridge (although I wasnt that bothered about it)and sweets whenever we got pocket money
I'm a bit that someone up thread doesn't have a biscuit tin! Is that a thing now?

We had no restrictions. All foods were home cooked. I grew up on an island so had lots of fresh foods. We learnt how to self control as nothing was forbidden. We were 9 siblings and no one had a weight issue bar pregnancies for me. I bring my children the same way and no food is forbidden. It’s all open cupboards and fridge to easily access anything they want. They don’t over eat and aren’t fussed about chocolates, biscuits and crisps as it’s all there if they want it. We easily stop eating and say we had enough and can put our plates away. I hope and pray that this way they don’t end up with a food issue in their lives. I am trying my best.

There were no rules really. However, we mostly sat at the table to eat. Food was homecooked. Vegetables came with every meal, yet we weren't pressured to eat them. Dessert happened at the weekends. No rule was made but fizzy drinks were a birthday, Christmas and meals out thing. We had a lot of variety and were encouraged to try new foods.

I remember getting to university and being shocked that my roommates would eat an entire pizza to themselves, or a massive thing of ice cream.

Very few rules. My mum was a fussy eater and our family meals tended to be a lot of things like roast dinners, potatoes and veg, fish fingers & home made chips, home made lobby (a kind of stew), plain grilled meat with potatoes and salad etc. No puddings except on a Sunday and then eaten about an hour after Sunday dinner. Nothing except chips was fried, everything was grilled.

My mum was totally against the clear your plate ethos. Her mantra was eat until you are full, then stop. Snacking in between meals was not encouraged. Friday night was treat night. we had a fuss box where the chocolate was kept but no-one had a full bar. The bars were broken/sliced into blocks and everyone helped themselves to some. Chocolate bar sizes were smaller then anyway.

We were brought up on 80% vegetarian meals (veg and pulses). Carbs were mainly whole grain and only a side dish to the veg.
Always lots of fruit on hand for snacks. (And lots of sweets and biscuits!)

I still have a sweet tooth but gave up meat as a teenager, have always eaten lots of veg and salads, never got into cheese and see carbs as a side dish, not the main part of the meal (which reflects childhood meals).

There's a lot to be said for not being brought up on pies, spag bol, endless meat/potatoes type dishes etc. I've never assumed a meal has to revolve around meat/carbs

We always ate a home-cooked meal at the table. I think I can remember 1 TV meal in all of my childhood. My parents both worked FT.

No crisps, sweets or fizzy drinks in the house. Obvs I could buy whatever I wanted with my own money! I went through a chubby comfort-eating phase as a teen but now I eat very healthily and am slim. Me and husband also cook from scratch most of the time and eat together at the table.