If you were a teen in the 90s did your mum spend a lot of time telling you that she was on a diet?

[Bartg]

Quoting her current weight. The weight she was at school. Whether she put in weight over the holidays or not. And also going on fad diets. Ryvitas, slim fasts etc.
And saying things to you about how you should watch your weight and whether or not clothes are slimming etc etc
this is what my mum did. And her weight was fine. Slim. Basically size 10 I would say.

i am just wondering how normal this was for that generation. It really messed me up and I feel sad for my teenage self

Yep! Always complained about her weight. She would always be on low fat fad diets and the cabbage soup diet.

Last time I was in my home country just after Christmas I realised for possibly the first time that my father really impacts my mother's obsession. he will comment driving past on 'that fat chub walking' and there was a plump weather lady on the tv and he said with disgust 'I don't want to look at some fat bag on my tv'. I'd never really noticed it before- I only see them about every 18th months or so.

I really panic before I have to see them though and usually go on all sorts of crash diets before I do. On one occasion when I was supposed to take a baby DS to visit I actually the day before cancelled my ticket and lost thousands because i simply could not bear the thought of them seeing how much weight I had put on. I was about 12 stone then I think. I'm 13 now and am already trying to work out how I can crash diet down to 10 stone before they visit at the end of summer. This only triggers my bingeing though.

Mine has two ryvitas for lunch every single day with cheddar cheese on. No butter. It’s making my mouth dry just typing that.

No and I am forever grateful for that.

No. I was aware she did something like weight watchers but she didn't really talk about it. I was always skinny and had a very different body type.

No.
My dad did though he ran marathons then.

She's never been on a diet. She's never needed to, she eats a healthy diet and goes to the gym.

My friends mums were on diets though. I'd hear all about them at their houses. It was a bit mad.

I was a teenager in the 1980s. Ryvita, calorie counting books, cabbage soup, Cambridge diet, weighing every day…DM was on pretty much every fad going. But at the same time she would cook huge carb meals and cakes for us. I’ve ended up overweight but I think it’s more due to genetics and comfort eating than way I was brought up. DM is still the same in her 80s with a weight chart etc.

Yes - my mum was always doing some sort of quick fix starve yourself diet. The one I remember she used to always do that military diet where you basically eat like two boiled eggs and a piece of toast per day.

Also she used to go to Hong Kong a lot for work and buy these ‘diet’ pills that were essentially speed. So she used to take them all day and then drink copious amounts of wine so she could sleep on them - which obviously has absolutely no logic at all!

she encouraged me to diet when I was a teenager onwards however she was very keen on fattening my brother up even though he was getting bullied at school for being overweight.

she is a bizarre woman.

I was at primary school in the 90s and, yes, I heard endlessly about her diets (and the au pair's). She didn't start commenting on my weight until I was a teenager.

My DM is now visiting me and yesterday my 3 year old said to me "Grandma told me I have a big tummy because i eat too much food!"

FFS 🤦‍♀️

My mum was on every kind of diet imaginable. And we had every kind of fad exercise gadget - mini trampoline, skipping rope, exercise bike infront of the TV, little pedal machine that you use when you're on the sofa, plus every exercise video - anything to avoid just....going for a walk (which she'd still rather die than do to this day!) She has always been a size 18/20, so none of these fads have worked.

The household was extremely toxic when it came to diet and body image. Mum was obsessed. She was a single mum, so there was no moderating influence of a second parent in the house.

My sister was prone to chubbiness as a teen. I look back now and realise it was depression, but mental health issues weren't and still aren't a 'thing' for my mum. I was always slim (I think I refused to have issues around food and body image through sheer stubborness!). Mum played us off of one another - comparing body parts and commenting who had the better legs and so on.

I remember mum once pointing out to us - 2 impressionable teenage girls - what huge hips and 'thunder thighs' Holly Willoughby had.

Despite me only ever being slim (size 8/10), mum did what she could to try to give me issues. DH often remembers her, when DH and I had recently met in our early 20s, once describing me infront of him as a 'bigger girl'. And she would always buy me shoes and clothes in a size too big.

She's now 73 and has never got on top of her weight. I'm 41 and have been a size 8/10 my entire life (through a love of good nutrition and exercise and the outdoors) and she fucking resents me for it. My sister thankfully is the same and has gone on to be a slim adult without food issues. Very much in spite of my mum.

Gosh didn't realise I had to be that grateful for my mum never mentioning her weight or mine, but apparently so!

I was a teenager in the 80s, my mum got 'Slimming' magazine weekly, weighed herself, bought low fat foot etc. That was just how it was. As an adult, I am responsible for my own relationship with food & think people that try and blame their mums for any weight struggles are pretty pathetic.

My mum no, she had a great attitude to shape and size even celebrated my muscular legs. And loved her shape and the fact she was strong.

My dad on the other hand used to tell my sister she had a fat arse, tell me I really shouldn't wear that, point out if my belly was fat etc.

All the while being an overweight bloke with a pot belly.

So my issues and hating my shape and always dieting etc came from him.

My mum died when I was fairly young but when she was alive I always remember her being on diet and talking about it a lot...late 80s/early 90s. Yes it was very common.

It is rarely that simple. My mother is morbidly obese from her 20s onwards, was never on a diet. I have spent my entire adult life in fear of ending up her size if I am not careful.

She didn't go on about it but we noted her tiny meals, she went to quite a few aerobic and pilates classes. She was and is very slim, she is short though so maybe didn't need as much to eat.

My mother has a lot of issues with food

She was massive (I'm not being cruel-at her biggest,she was a size 34)

She would eat nothing all day,scoff 2 family size buckets of KFC,swear to my father she'd had nothing all day and send him out for 2 takeaways,scoff those and send us out for a kebab

Or she would eat just one food for weeks-egg or salmon and then she'd crack and eat everything she could get her hands on-I'd hear her eating sweets in the middle of the night-my brother once got a smack for commenting on the amount of wrappers in the outside bin and I was beaten for telling my father that she'd eaten massive amounts of Maccles and the wrappers where in the bin

She was always trying to push this disordered eating onto us even though we where all healthy weights and she'd call us fat (one memorable comment to me when I was a teen was 'shame all the fat is on your legs and not on your tits')

She even fat shamed me the day after I gave birth-i was one of those woman that walked out of hospital,slimmer than then I first got pregnant-i still wasn't skinny enough for her

(I think the comment was 'your gonna have to work hard to get rid of all that flab' I started the pregnancy a size 14 and walked out a 12-id taken snide comments about my bump all the way through)

She had her stomach stapled and that didn't help at all-she lost weight but didn't deal with the underlying issues (I've seen her put a kebab in the blender and drink it)

As soon as we became adults,my brother started piling on the weight-he was copying her habits

He's now massive (again I'm not being cruel but if he doesn't lose 3/4 of his weight,he will die,hes a diabetic,at major risk of a stroke and is inches away from a heart attack among other health issues)

I've picked up some of her habits but I'm conscious of this and dp helps me make better choices

I'm nc with the narcissistic bitch but she's caused so many issues in life-weight is just one of them (her sisters all struggle with their weights too and have all passed on weight issues to their dc)

I've also just remembered that, recognising my ability to be moderate, I had my own biscuit jar in my room as a teenager, which mum would fill.

Every so often I'd find that it was empty, as mum had raided it and eaten the lot.

I imagine lots of Ryvitas amd Slim shakes would follow.

I've always seen fad diets as an inescapable prison. The endless cycle of binging and going hungry, all the while hating yourself, looks like hell.

Do you really not know that childhood experiences can impact people in later life? Also when those impacts are negative, people often need professional help to unpick their issues, which isn’t easily accessible to everyone. I think people who don’t realise this are pretty ignorant.

My mum never bothered about weight. I'm not sure she raised me with a positive body image though. She let me go out looking awful and never suggested I tidy up a bit. I was always the scruffy kid. Mum always said I looked lovely. I didn't, and it took me years to learn to dress appropriately.

No, my parents never mentioned weight or dieting. They did tell me/siblings the importance of keeping healthy and fit, having a healthy balanced diet and making sure you get plenty of exercise. They were both very active, and encouraged us to be the same. They didn't buy in crisps, sweets or chocolates, or fizzy drinks. Fast food was a rarity, and Mum (an SAHM) cooked everything she could from scratch (she'd make cakes, bread, pickles/preserves, yogurt/butter/cheese and things like biscuits). Diet was mainly Middle Eastern/Mediterranean cuisine at home. There were plates of fruit, dried fruit, nuts/seed and crudités to snack on. Drinks: water, milk, fruit/veg juice or occasionally a little bit of squash/cordial. We had a small-holding with goats etc, so me/siblings were only used to goat milk dairy products - when people would give us chocolate and we'd always be sick (most commercially made dairy-based stuff back then was cows milk based). Took my parents a while to figure that out!

I will add though, that my mum was always very petite and slim (as were all her family), and my dad only put on some weight once he retired...but then addressed that after a diabetes diagnosis and managed to reverse it all. Food was plentiful (Middle Eastern family so we love feeding everyone LOADS of beautiful home cooked food!) and Mum always made sure that everyone was well fed. It was always: eat and enjoy food, stop when you're full, keep the sweet stuff/junk food in moderation, stay strong and active. I love cooking and sharing meals now :)

My parents were horrified seeing some of the "heroin chic" looks in the media during the 90's. They didn't care about fashions, clothes sizes or things like that (obviously they'd dress appropriately for the occasion though!). Enjoying food and keeping healthy/fit was their main thing.

No, diets were never mentioned at all. I still ended up overweight as an adult though but that was my own fault.
The only time my mum went on a diet was after a routine check up at the GP where he noted her blood pressure was a bit high, so very much for health reasons and not vanity.

MIL on the other hand is absolutely obsessed, very disordered relationship with food all her life.

Yes. And also random commentary from other people on my weight

My uncle saying out of nowhere "you would look perfect if you lost 10 pounds" (I had a 24 inch waist when he said this)

My mum's boss looking me up and down and commenting that I was a "big girl" - I was 15 and had big boobs but also a 24 inch waist ..

No-I was a child of the sixties and diet was never mentioned. We had mealtimes and the odd chocolate and that was it. But my colleague in her 40s constantly talks about how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ she is and it gets on my tots. Even more when she says Oh Danvers aren’t you good, not having cake. I have to listen about weight fluctuations all day and it’s boring.