Realising how things weren’t normal for me growing up

[Jasminecandle]

I have a real issue with food now as an adult. I am overweight and I eat too much of the wrong things. I also use food as a comfort.

When growing up we weren’t allowed to help ourselves to food. I was so so skinny as a child and teenager and I don’t think it was particularly healthy.
My parents would feed us three meals a day, but usually quite small portions for me, even as a growing teen.
I remember being hungry in the evenings as we used to eat our dinner about 5/5:30pm. Of course I was growing, but I can’t even imagine helping myself to a piece of toast before bed. So when I became an adult and moved out, I was shocked that people I knew including partners would eat whenever they liked.

Even now, as an adult if I go to my parent’s house I don’t ever help myself to food without asking … I bring my own food and keep it in the bedroom where I’m staying instead.

I even remember my Nan trying to feed me extra of her homemade cakes to put some meat on me as a teenager, but my mum would insist I only had 2 of these small homemade cakes, no more as I need to stay slim.

AIBU to believe my parents controlling attitude with food has lead to my issue with food and my weight as an adult?

I think not being able to feel you could ask to eat something if you were hungry, as a child, is crazy, and even crazier is that most people on here seem to think that's normal. I can understand a bit more if you were an overweight child but you clearly weren't.

Was there not even a fruit bowl that you could help yourself to an apple or banana from if you were still hungry between or after meals?

every single snack is going to spike his blood sugar, so constant snacking throughout the day is going to lead to constantly spiking blood sugar, followed by constantly spiking insulin to bring it down. These put him at risk of diabetes and obesity. Three meals a day and no snacking in between means only 3 blood sugar spikes, and 3 insulin spikes in 24 hours, far more regular and moderate, and far healthier in the long term

I was born in 1969 and I don't think I've ever had a time in my life when I didn't have an afternoon snack. Even if it was only fruit, which quite often it wasn't.

One memorable year when we had a bumper apple harvest, I would eat two on my paper-round, one at morning break, three at lunchtime, one at afternoon break, one when I got home and at least two in the evening.

We could always help ourselves to bread (in fact, a family quote is "I'm not bread hungry, I'm cake hungry!"). One of my younger sister's friends really liked coming to our house because they could make themselves treacle sandwiches (conversely, my sister liked going to her house because they had chocolate biscuit bars ).

On several occasions we had a broken biscuit box.

For a while my mother would buy smoked mackerel on the one day a week she worked in the town centre, and we'd eat it between us while dinner was cooking.

Restricting children's food has always been a thing, but that doesn't mean it was a good thing.

You were lucky to have food 3 meals a day we got one dinner a day if we were lucky and it was always the same thing hard boiled potatoes.
Some days nothing.
I stole food from lunch boxs at school.
Me and my sisters use to eat out of the red biffa bins behind shops.
You dont know what real hunger is.

My children are around your age. They definitely had a snack (fruit or toast) when they got home from school, as well as something to eat at playtime. I don't remember suppers but they could definitely eat cereal etc anytime. They did carry on asking permission, rather than just helping themselves, till well into teens. But that was more habit than anything. As adults, they still ask before eating stuff but mostly to check it's not planned for a meal - I do the same at their homes.

All those people saying it wasn’t normal to snack!

We had tuck shops at school late 70’s to early 80’s. Everyone bought loads of stuff.

I was a teacher in the 90’s. The tuck shop queues were crazy. Full of snacking teens.

While I agree that people didn't snack nearly as much then as they do now, I was a child of the 60s/70s and it wasn't normal to send kids to bed hungry. My mother baked and I was allowed to help myself, within reason, and it was the same when visiting my GPs. We also had decent sized meals.

But she wasn’t healthy. She was skinny and hungry.

OP I can’t believe some of these revved up posters berating you - almost as if they’re loving the opportunity to slap down someone about eating issues.

YANBU. There was unhealthy control and tension around food in your home growing up. It of course impacted your eating as an adult. Eating can be a very complex thing.

OP, YANBU.

People on this thread seem to think that you’re complaining because you weren’t allowed snacks and your parents were keeping you ‘healthy’, but that is clearly not the main issue. The main issue - as anyone with an ounce of perceptiveness and human understanding should be able to see - is that your parents had a very controlling and paranoid attitude to food and were overly fixated on making you ‘slim’ even though you already were slim. It’s not remotely normal for a teenager not to be allowed to help themselves to an apple or a slice of toast when they’re hungry.

You wanted to snack because you weren’t being given enough food. Three meals a day is great, if they’re enough to stop you going to bed hungry, but they weren’t.

The way people are brought up around food can have a huge impact on their eating habits and hang ups as an adult. It’s pretty basic psychology, and I can only assume the people claiming not to get it are being wilfully obtuse.

This is spot on.

In every food-related thread on Mumsnet, it’s really striking how many people have very extreme, fearful attitudes to food and that they are projecting those issues on to their children while labelling it ‘healthy eating’. And they love to push it on to other people too, because it makes them feel superior and in control and masks their own insecurities.

White bread is packed with calories

It has no more calories than any other bread.

its not normal. I’m sorry you have that kind of childhood. But you are adult now. You have full control of anything that you put in your mouth. Dont blame your overeating to anyone but yourself. You are what you eat.

Seriously? Are people STILL doing this?

The 'And what did they say when you..." remains one of the most irritating, tone-deaf, smirky little MN-isms ever.

No point in posting this on AIBU, @Jasminecandle, unless you like people having a go at you. Plenty hang around here just to try to undermine people who are struggling with something.

YANBU. No child should go hungry like that. And of course our childhoods effect our adult thinking and behaviour. Doesn't mean you don't take responsibility for yourself as an adult, but it has an impact.

Have a look at this thread:
January 2024 - Well we took you to Stately Homes www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4991681-january-2024-well-we-took-you-to-stately-homes

It was normal to have 3 meals and no snacks in the 70s/80s when I grew up. I was also not allowed to help myself to anything. If I got hungry I was told to have a piece of fruit.

I still don't snack now but my portions are bigger than what my mum dished up.

It causes a massive blood sugar spike

This type of food control sounds odd to me. We always had homemade buns or fruitcakes, fruit, yoghurt, cereal as snacks, tea and toast before bed, biscuits too. Can't imagine not being able to help myself as a teen. We were all slim.

Sorry OP, doesn't sound normal to me at least.

A natural response to feeling starved and deprived is to over eat. You felt deprived.
your parents had a good intention but for you, it didn’t work as they had hoped and it created an eating disorder.
I try and learn from my mum who like another pp would over feed me incessantly but then tell me I’m overweight but no way to do it.i thought diet meant stop eating. So my set is to try and starve myself.

I think being sent to bed hungry is the key thing, for the era the op is referring to.

Were/are they stingy?

Ah OP.
Never post a food or weight thread on MN.
Disordered relationships with food & are rife here.

But no, It's not 'totally normal' to deny kids a larger portion when they're complaining of hunger, or to send them to bed hungry. Or not have a bowl of fruit for them to help themselves during the day, or to build up fear about asking for food or tell them 'no you'll get fat' if they ask for food.

And it's not normal that as an adult you still fear the food/parent dynamic but, I mean this kindly, you seem confused in your own adult habits now - your mum's chocolate consumption (small amounts) was okay - your boy snacking, rather than eating is maybe not the best.

It sounds like they've definitely contributed to your poor relationship with food, but sadly, it's you that has to make the choice to put the work in: to undo the damage, break the harmful patterns & relearn what normal is.

Can’t believe the responses here. My mother was similarly restrictive about food - I had all these mysterious stomach pains especially as a teen that I now realise were simply hunger. No eating between meals - no eating before meals (for unspecified time periods) because it would ‘spoil your dinner’ Never taking food without asking. Tutting when you did ask. Things were always being ‘saved’ for something. Never more than two biscuits. Fucking relentless.
Three small meals for a growing teen is not enough and yes it will give you issues an adult that are very difficult to unpick . Sympathies.

Mumsnet's performative under-eaters are out in force tonight 🙄

OP, you're about the same age as my bulimic best friend's children, born in the 80s. They were fed a calorie-restricted diet from infancy and an unremitting stream of criticism about other people's weight, alongside praise for being 'slim'.

The girls grew up very short and slight - both parents' families were tall & sturdy - with anorexia for which two of them had to be hospitalised.

You're doing pretty well by comparison! Do try some therapy if you can. My other suggestions are to make sure you understand nutrition - not the fringe theories you get on here or social media, but the absolutely basic stuff - and to read Fat Is A Feminist Issue.

Oh, and enjoy your food!

I was a kid in the 80's/90's and surprised how many people are saying no one snacked back then! I remember at school we'd always have "morning tea" which involved eating something small, then afterschool it was the norm to have an "afterschool snack" at my own house plus any friends houses I went to.

I was never restricted in what I ate at home and could help myself to toast/fruit/noodles/etc at any time - my mum didn't generally buy anything sugary such as fizzy or biscuits though. Anyway I was a skinny kid - as were my brothers - and have been slim all my life. I am the same with my own sons, they can help themselves to the pantry. And both of them are slim - actually my youngest is underweight so I am trying to get him to eat more.