I'm fuming. I will write the whole story and not drip feed. Sorry, this will be a long one.
My DM & DF are always dieting, ever since I can remember. They both yoyo between being skinny to being obese. They never eat healthy though. DF's idea of dieting is skipping meals.
DM does “portion control” and eats 1,000 calories per day when dieting. At the end of her diets, she usually comes out being sick, lacking some vitamins etc.
It is also relevant that our diet as children was terrible. Our meals consisted of carbs and meat. There was never any vegetables or fruit in the house. It was not a money issue. We never had set times for food. Basically, in the evening DM would start cooking when she felt hungry… So we just ate at very random times.
Also relevant is that my sibling DS was obese throughout childhood and teenage years. When at uni, DS became active and lost a lot of weight. DS has put up the weight again due to poor diet.
Like DF, I skipped meals. I never really dieted but I skip meals when I want to lose weight and it works. When I started uni and doing my own cooking, I introduced vegetables to my diet. I eat maybe 1-2 fruits in a week.
When DC was born, I was keen to make a change. We cook 2 portions of vegetables for each meal. The fruit bowl is always full. DC eats 2-3 portions of fruit a day. DC is 2. DC was a chubby baby and still has some baby fat. You would not look at DC and say “what a fat child”. DC needs to drop the milk and we will get there. We are not there yet.
I was speaking to DF today and I had to leave to prepare food for lunch. DF told me not to feed DC unless they ask for food. I thought this was both stupid and cruel. Clearly if this is what he did to us, it did not work. And. now DF wanted me to do the same thing to my DC.
This brought back many sad memories for me. How f**ked up was my childhood.