Do you blame your parents if you are overweight?

[familiesarrggghhhhh]

So I’m 45 and I’m overweight - size 16/18

ive always been big, especially during primary school. I slimmed a little during secondary school but have been consistently overweight all of my life

My DNiece is 10 years old and is very overweight (Niece by marriage). I really feel for her as she reminds me of me when I was her age 😞

I mentioned this to my mum a few weeks ago and she got very defensive and rather rude. She said oh here we go, I’m blamed for everything aren’t it. Then she said “you’re 45 years old now, I’m not the reason why you’re still fat”

To say I was gobsmacked was an understatement. She denied I was even that big so I showed her a picture of peak fatty at around 8 years old. I told her that I certainly wasn’t buying the food that I was eating at that age so I didn’t know what else to say 🤷‍♀️

I do feel like being overweight from a very young age has left me with a very unhealthy relationship with food.

I have 2 daughters now and I’m very keen on healthy eating and exercise as I don’t want them to have my childhood.

so my question is, if you have been overweight since a very small child do you blame your parents?

to be clear I hadn’t blamed my parents until my mums very strong reaction when discussing my niece, but the more I think about it the more I think why wasnt it addressed?

At the end of the day it’s what you put into your mouth that causes you to be overweight. Using the excuse that you are “big boned”, “stocky”, “solid” or I was a big baby, I only have to look at a cake to gain weight is an excuse. It’s bullshit.
That said, there are many psychological factors that come into play with obesity that cause people to gain weight and not be able to lose it. That is a different kettle of fish. It you are stones overweight it is NOT genetic, it is overeating (for whatever reason). It really is that simple. What’s not simple is how hard it is to lose weight when you are addicted to food and even worse when that addiction started in childhood. Then it is an ingrained habit that is very hard to overcome. If you feed 2 people the exact same healthy diet day in and day out one of them is not going to be stones heavier than the other because of “genetics”.

Maybe OP, and for a child: yes

BUT any middle aged person who is unhappy either their weight and still attributes it to their parents is refusing accept they have agency over their own lives

It's almost like an excuse to hang onto?

A 45 yr old blaming her mother for being the weight she is, needs to start off by accepting she now is making her own decisions about what she eats and how much she exercises

While I think an adult should be able to regulate their weight independently, the lessons and feelings about eating and food from childhood have never left me.

No I don’t blame my parents. They did their best. There were definitely issues growing up and they didn’t have the skills nor capabilities to handle them but in other spheres they excelled. It was what it was.

Yes I absolutely do blame her. I suffered neglect as a child and went from being hungry most of the time to having the freedom at around age 16 (when I had was no longer living at home and had a job) to eat what I wanted. I also have ADHD and autism, both of which seriously affected my ability to 'right' the problem when I started to gain weight. It all began when I was a hungry child though. No amount of therapy is going to fix this though, I think people cute 'get therapy' as a magical solution to all. It just doesn't work for me. I'm fat and while I do try to make better choices; I will always be a greedy binge eater.

I refuse to be held personally responsible for all the damage that was done to me as a child.

This is something I’ve been thinking about recently, not sure why!

By the time I was a teenager a doctor told me my BMI was above obese. I was so shocked. I actually thought I was slim but never understood why I didn’t look the same as other girls in certain clothes. My parents always let me skip P.E and never encouraged any physical activity at all. As we lived in a remote area we were in the car constantly and never walked anywhere - not even to a shop. We had a huge fridge freezer and we never had veg or salad or fresh food - ever. It was only when I was about 14 I started to realise I was bigger. I asked for a gym membership and I lost nearly 3 stone. Quite frankly I’ve battled with my weight ever since. Done every diet you could think of and basically trained myself to learn how to be healthy but I still get the odd binge - never seems to truly go away. When I got to my healthy weight (top end of my healthy weight) all my father kept saying to me is that I looked too thin. Both my parents are overweight by the way.

How can it not be their fault really if you’re a child and you’re overweight? You’re not the one grocery shopping and you don’t know any different. I take full responsibility as an adult but I do feel I’ve spent years trying to undo the rubbish habits they instilled in me. Not sure if that’s fair to say. It’s really not fun to be starting your adult life with excess weight - I spent so much of my youth in gyms whilst my friends didn’t need to do half as much. Never been confident to have my arms on show. There’s lots of repercussions in my opinion.

My mum always hated cooking. Everything was frozen and she would be notoriously moody making food and couldn’t wait to sit down. My dad always treated food as a treat or a reward. Hard day? Get a takeaway. Also we always ate in front of the tv.

The problem is that associations with food are set in childhood. Also, there is some research showing that the number of fat cells is set in childhood and then stays constant during adulthood. And that affects leptin levels, which regulate appetite amongst other things.

To summarise, if you are an overweight child and teenager, you are much more likely to be an overweight adult and it is likely to be much harder for you to lose weight.

So yes, as an adult your weight is your responsibility. But unlike someone who enters adulthood and then puts on a few pounds, you have a mountain to climb to get back to a healthy weight whilst they have a gentle hill.

Parents are partyly to blame I think there's a huge difference between chubby combined with a parent trying their best but they have a fat gene. Then there is a parent who is fat and just follows on unhealthy habits.

Sorry to sound mean I'm not skinny... but I think it's a touchy subject fat parents often are oblivious to making their own children fat also!