To be angry at my mum for turning me into a fat kid?

[CJ2010]

Don't know why but I've been thinking back to my childhood and how fat I was. Always thought it was my fault, got told I was 'greedy' . I saw a picture of myself, aged about 2 years old and I was really fat. Now I've got a two yr old DC myself and I know that I control what they eat, i realise now that they can't just help themselves to a pot noodle/ snickers etc, it suddenly hit me that it was my mothers fault.

Why on earth did she fill me crap food, make me fat and as a result, suffer terrible bullying throughout my childhood? I'm having trouble getting my head round it. AIBU?

those early years really do form us and it's really hard to break such majorly established cycles.

I agree that it's entirely down to the parents to provide healthy food and attitudes to eating in the early years, as you do lose some of the control quite early on once they start having pocket money and can go and buy crap to eat as soon as you're not there.

My parents didn't (and still don't) think at all about what they are eating, what's in their food etc. Their attitude is just eat so you're not hungry anymore. That's how it was for me as a child - I left home at 18 not knowing ANYTHING about food and how to cook for myself. It's actually amazing that I have any immune system at all, considering all the pot noodles, microwave pizzas and tinned potatoes I was fed as a child. They also didn't put much emphasis on teeth-brushing, and I remember seeing a jug of water on the table at a friend's house for the first time ever, as a teenager. We always had orange squash (and didn't have a table). My teeth are not good and I do blame my parents.

I have gone the other way with my dcs - probably a little too strict about sweets and juice and we never have any junk in the house. It's worth bearing in mind though that they are all different no matter what you do and you have less control as they get older. My ds for example is just naturally good at regulating his food intake. He might leave food on his plate even if he likes it but is full, and if he wants to eat more I trust that he needs it. DD on the other hand has a tendency to over-ride the hunger if there are lots of things available that she wants to eat. She is not overweight but I can see she has more "padding" than she used to. I'm trying to gently teach her to stop when she's full. It must be possible to stop them eating too much without giving them food issues?!

DH grew up having to clear his plate as they were very, very poor farmers who lost the main cash crop on more than one occasion due to unusual weather.

He is still unable to not finish his plate and hates wasted food. He will try to clear my plate if I haven't finished. It is very difficult to change these eating and behavior patterns.

I was a skinny kid, fat teen and anorexic adult until 25. Food was always loaded with emotion. My adoptive mother used it to express her love (or force it onto me, as I believed). Depression in my teens led to me finally accepting the fatty, carby treats she encouraged me to eat, followed by "rebelling" by not eating at all when I was at uni.

So I think one of the lessons is not to load food with emotion. Just treat it as nourishment.

YANBU
I was also told by my parents I was greedy. But I was a very fat baby and toddler, an age when your parents totally control what you eat. Even the GP told my mum she was overfeeding me.

My mum equates giving food with giving love. She didn't feed us much crap, but just encouraged us constantly to overeat. Now we are all adults, she instead has a very fat dog and cat.

My parents are actually slim as is my brother - but he was constantly in trouble as a kid for not eating up his dinner. He basically refused to overeat and spent many hours in front of a dinner plate refusing to eat more. Whereas I was a good girl . So I know you can have only 1 child who is fat, but it is not genetic.

I agree though that healthy eating info in the past was sadly lacking. In the 60's and 70's when I was young, we were told to eat more fruit and veg, but there was nothing about 5 a day. So my parents would give us an apple say every day and 2 portions of veg in the evening and think that is being very healthy.

The only other healthy eating messages I remember was to not eat chips more than 2 or 3 times a week, not drink much fizzy pop and eat fish once a week. Quiche, which is usually high in fat, was thought to be very healthy. Yoghurt was still seen as a cranky health food as was sugar laden muesli.

Also labelling was so poor. Even as a young adult I would buy ready made things thinking they were healthy e.g. vegetarian, but now I realise they were probably high in fat and salt e.g. cheese sauces. lots that is now seen as common sense, was not known by a lot of the population - remember no internet.

My mother was quite overweight when I was a kid and often asked my sister and I 'am I as fat as her?', pointing out someone thinner than her. We know, of course, always to say no. And everyone was forever going on about how much like my mother I looked. Also, when she took me clothes shopping, she'd always tell me 'You're not as thin as other girls, you can't expect to look like them, you shouldn't expect to wear nice clothes, just be glad that you're decently covered'. So I thought I was enormous. Looking at photos of myself, I was actually a perfectly healthy size; at 14, I was a size 12, but I was very tall so in proportion.

Also, my parents used to fight a lot, plus my mother suffered from depression and went through horrible phases of terrifying anger where she would ignore all of us for days, aside from when she roared at us; my dad used to try and make up for this by giving us junk food because he didn't know how else to help.

Plus my mother could never summon the energy to cook properly so there was a lot of processed food, and frequent takeaways.

I know I'm an adult now and it's my fault I'm overweight but I can't help but feel that my parents have conditioned me to end up like this.

I don't think YABU.

Wow what an emotional thread.

I definitely have weight ishoos. I am not really overweight - could do with losing half a stone but slim-ish.

My mum is slim and has always made comments about weight and looked large women up and down with disgust - she is fattist. She put my on a diet at eight and my dad's nickname for me was Tubs!

Doesn't take a genius to work out how I acquired my complicated relationship with food!

I thank my lucky stars my parents had no issues about food, despite both being brought up during WWII with rationing. Both were slim/normal weight all their lives, as were their own parents.

Back in the 60s and 70s, when I was growing up, we had 3 meals a day, at a table, and no eating in between meals - if you pleaded hunger you got an apple or piece of bread and butter. Biscuits and cakes were for special occasions, not snacks, although DM always made a pudding. Limited pocket money meant DB and I could only buy a few sweets a week. We drank squash, milk or water. Crucially, no one banged on about healthy eating. Ever. We just ate what was put in front of us, and it was good home-cooked meat/fish/veg/dairy with a roast every Sunday.

Result - I don't have hang ups about food, eat what I like, when I like, but because of the habits I grew up with I just find myself most comfortable with eating "everything in moderation". I have been the same size and weight since I was about 18.

I have tried very hard to be the same with my DC, but the obsession society now has with healthy eating, thin-ness, and all round body consciousness means, ironically, DD, 20, has a critical view of herself which is totally unjustified. She now thinks fat in food is evil, as are carbs, and goes on ludicrous diets to detox and lose weight (she is a size 8-10!).

I tried my hardest to raise a daughter with no body issues, never spoke about dieting or made disparaging remarks about my own body (or hers!) and yet still the propaganda from women's mags and the celeb culture has managed to give her complexes about non existent body issues.

This isn't a stealth boast, but to point out parents don't hold all the answers to their children's atitudes to food.

attitudes

Bugger ! Why can't we all be perfect ?

And you know what? Your parents generation was probably one of the first who was brought up to have the luxury of worrying about getting fat kids. Prior to that it was a question of getting enough food to keep your offspring healthy - unless you were very well off. And food was a neccessity, for meal times only, not a leisure pursuit. I suspect it takes a few generations, if not a few millenia, for the changes to set in.

It is all very easy to say separate food from emotion; many people can't. Look how emotive the topic of breastfeeding can be to see how intrinsically linked food and feelings are.

My MIL has told me that when she had her kids, in the early 80s, it just didn't occur to her to give them the same food as the adults. They were weaned onto jars and then onto lots of kiddie type food - fish fingers etc. (I got quite cross at her house when DS was about 10 months when she wouldn't let me save a little portion of fish pie for his tea the next day, she kept saying she had fishfingers for him, which I knew he didn't like). Anyway, her kids didn't turn out fat, but it's no wonder that some did on that kind of diet.

lashings - We also ate 3 meals a day at a table with few snacks in between. But the amount of food we were served up with and expected to eat was enormous. We didn't eat crap, but we didn't eat enough veg and rarely enough fruit.

I still can't quite believe this - but I was actually taught as a very young child when I said I was full to wait about 5 minutes until the full feeling went away, and then carry on eating! No wonder it took me ages as an adult to recognise when I had had enough to eat.

Ormirian - I know no parent is perfect - I have 4 children and I am not the perfect parent! But I don't think this doesn't mean that you can't criticise something about how you were brought up - which is what your comment implies.

yanbu but like most things its best to just move on and not dwell. I as very overweight as a child (was nearly 12 stone at 11 years old) and my diet was awful even though i was never actually a fussy eater. For example a packet of biscuits for my breakfast. When i was about 15 i started to realise it wasnt normal and my weight did stop going up although at that age i couldnt really control what i ate enough to lose wieght, When i left hom at 18 i did and went down to 10 stone in the first year which is an ok weight for my height.
I have since then gone up and down and tbh i have major problems keepign it in control its ok i am overwieght especially having 5 pregnancies in 7 years but it could be alot worse.

My mum however paid the price for the bad diet etc dying of heart attack at just 42 so although i do get upset at the bullying etc i got and the fact i have high blood pressure etc at 28 which i blame on being so big as a child and teenager she clearly knew no better so i cant bring myself to hate her for it as such.

My parents always made me feel guilty if i was hungry between meals, and we were never allowed sweets/crisps/biscuits. We were also served up huge portions and made to remain at the table till we had finished every bite.

As a result my DB and I have really struggled with control around fatty/sugary types of foods, and i have no concept of what a 'normal' portion size is. I'm obese, and DB works out almost daily to keep his weight under control.

I don't blame my parents as such, but why did they make eating something that had to be hidden? I look at DD1 who is the image of me as a child, she eats like a horse and is extremely active. I just steer her in the direction of fruit or granola bars and i don't deny her sweets. She can control what she eats and stops when she's full. I never learned how to do that.

my parents wouldn't let us eat any junk, ever, but let my sister have chocolate before exercise (she's diabetic). consequently, the rest of us saw it as 'forbidden fruit' and I used to gorge myself on it if I ever found any in the house. I am obese, my diabetic sister is obese, my younger sister is very thin, and constantly dieting and worrying about her weight, and my brother eats no fruit or veg, but has such an active job, he is skeletally thin.

mum has told me since I was about 10 how fat and ugly I am, still does, and dad does too. they told me for a long time I'd never find a man because I am so fat and ugly. DH would love me to lose a bit of weight and gain a bit of self esteem, but that won't happen any time soon (am pg, so losing wieght through morning sickness at the moment). I hate my body, hate myself, and am angry with my parents for always bloody going on about my weight and looks. Even on my wedding day they said it would be nicer if I was thinner, then competitively under ate all day, as loudly as possible, to show me 'how it is done'.

DH and I are trying to bring DS up with an 'everything in moderation' approach, but I hope to goodness he doesn't end up having issues with his looks when he's older. just as I hope he doesn't end up a fat arse like his mother. (DH is pretty much perfect body wise, but his parents were sensible).

kveta your parents sound like they have issues beyond diet control tbh. sorry to hear how they make you feel :(

lesley33 - blimey! That almost sounds like force feeding.

We always served ourselves at the table (I guess from about age 6 or so) so we sort of learned how much we wanted that way. DM just expected us to eat what we wanted, but not to be greedy and not take too much and leave it (hated waste - hangover from rationing no doubt).

Oh kveta . It's such an emotional thing, isn't it? :(

Your son is precious by the way. :)

My parents were both obese, so I guess because they had a poor diet, they passed their bad habits onto me and my DB. My DB was a very active child so he was able to burn off the calories, I hated sport ( maybe because I was so unfit & would end up in pain?)

I am sad to hear some of your stories, some of your parents sound so cruel. My dad was a bastard, but that's another thread entirely! Do you think some people have kids, just so they can fuck them up?

Critisise their parenting if you will- I just think anyone with their own children should be aware how hard it is to get everything right. And anger is a strong reaction towards someone who presumably didn't damage you due to malice or neglect, just ignorance and misunderstanding.

Anyway look at all the posts on here - women whose parents fed them too much, restricted their diet, told them they were fat, told them they were too skinny, never let them have sweets so they became forbidden fruit. All of which appears to have had the same end result-a bad relationship with food and weight. How do you get it right? Over availability of food is not a natural state for us- we didn't evolve to deal with it. Hence so many fat people, diabetics, those with eating disorders. If anyone has the solution please could they give it to me? Cos I don't have the answer.