1970's/80's kids... how much did your parent/s talk about weight?

[Auberg]

I've lost some weight and my family back home (US) will see me at Christmas for the first time since losing around 3 stone. I'm going to message ahead and ask them NOT to bang on about it in front of my kids.

The fact that I'm doing this has made me ponder my childhood and the obsession with weight that my mom had, and still has. Literally every day there would be some mention of weight - usually that my mom felt fat/looked fat/needed to lose weight (she has never been above a size 10 UK). The fridge was stuffed with fat free everything and the bookcase was jammed with diet, low calorie cookbooks and exercise books.

I have three siblings - one has had disordered eating, one was obese, then dieted back to a healthy weight, and I've also been almost obese and anorexic at different points in my life.

Whenever I see my mom, she ALWAYS talks about weight. Always refusing food because she's got fat (right now, she's tiny, no more than a size 6/8 UK), 'letting' herself have a single bite of a cookie etc. I don't think I've ever had an adult conversation with her that didn't at some point go to her being fat/needing to lose weight. I was a little cross with her for telling my son that he looked wonderful after losing some weight (he wasn't particularly big before), and then she gets ratty because she was 'complimenting him' on being slim.

She's never called me fat - at my largest, she was always telling me how I had a beautiful 'voluptuous' figure: at my thinnest, she would make sarcastic comments about how I was 'being funny' about eating anything sweet and trying to goad me into eating more.

At home, we never talk about weight in relation to appearance to our kids, but if it comes up, we talk about the relationship between healthy weight and overall health. It always feels stressful seeing my mom and brothers because of how much they'll all be talking about weight and being slim etc around the kids.

I've started dreading seeing my family because of all this. Writing it down, it sounds fairly extreme, and I know my mom has probably had an eating disorder of some kind for decades, but was some of this just how things were for loads of people?

We're not particularly close btw - we're civilised and sort of socially affectionate - but we're not each other's best friend, so to speak.

Lord, that was long! Sorry!

Never. We did eat very well, lots of fruit and veg. Treats like cake and crisps were only for birthday parties and at Christmas.

I hardly knew anyone who was overweight tbh, it was unusual.

All the time (1970s and 1980s). DM was obsessed with her weight and with our weight, DF never mentioned it though.

Both DSis and I became anorexic in our teens. Looking back, DM was a classic "how to give your kids anorexia" mum.

She's still very weird about food now, but I told her (after she criticised my DS for being chubby at 6 months old) that if she ever mentioned diets or weight in front of my kids again then we would just get up and leave. So she actually hasn't, because she knows I absolutely would do that.

Same here. Everything home made and much of it home grown. No snacks, three meals a day. Not much alcohol , just at Christmas. No crisps, biscuits or takeaway food.
Everyone was thin.
I don't remember anyone "exercising" either. We walked more I suppose and there was no internet and very little TV so I suppose free time was more active.

80s child - I was regularly told I could be beautiful if I just lost 7lbs. There was nothing to me at that point, I wasnt skinny, but I was healthy and slim and very active.
Ive been working through my food issues for years and still have some way to go. It's hard when dmum still harps on about looks and weight a lot

Yep, i knew the calories in everything.

All the time. I was born late 70s - my mum was always on a diet, never ate dessert, used words like "good" and "bad" about food. Whenever we went out for dinner she would always "be good" and have a salad. Recipe books in the house were all low calorie, healthy eating, diet cookbooks.

My parents are still really weird about food. Still all the value comments, "no I won't have a biscuit I'm being good"; as someone else mentioned - the comments about portions being huge (nope, just normal, yes I will eat it all, yes mother I probably will eat tomorrow too) hot food at lunchtime means no need for dinner (and the horror if I have both), "oh goodness I couldn't possibly eat all that". I was out for lunch with my mum recently and when my food came she loudly said "oh my GOODNESS that's enormous!" which meant I felt really self conscious about how much of it I ate.

My dad is quite fat shaming and will make comments about strangers size etc. (I pull him up on it Every Single Time).

Shocker: I have a very unhealthy relationship with food and very disordered eating!

60's child here and nope, no such thing as a diet in our home and as for fat or obese people - rare

There was one neighbour up the road and she was the only "fat mum" I knew but she would be stood in the kitchen spooning sugar into her mouth from the sugar bowl, and even though sugar sandwiches were part and parcel back then, even I knew that wasnt normal

My first memories of "diets" were the adverts on TV for Special K and PLJ, although I never knew anyone who was buying them. Although I must admit I got the taste of TAB which was the first calorie free soda sold

Born 80s

Mother constantly "on a diet" or "slimming". Slimming world etc

It was really unhealthy sort of dieting. Lots of these processed fat fee products and sweeteners, a total fear of fats, butter somehow considered vastly unhealthy vs processed margarines/spreads. Phases of obsession with various trends - superfoods, low carb, "syns". Never ever happy with her weight but was a slim/healthy weight throughout.

Didn't really stick to a proper exercise regime.

Grandmother simply smoked instead of eating. Lived on coffee with sweeteners, cigarettes, and biscuits/cakes & was size 10.

I had to google the Roly Polys but I knew of them as a child. Looking at this photo they aren't even that big compared to today's standards.

My mum never dieted and was always slim. It's only since she's become disabled that she's gained about a stone in total. She's 85 and if she says that she's gaining weight I tell her not to worry be she's she's not overweight and at 85 and disabled then if you can't eat chocolate and enjoy your food what's the point in life?

My sister is much older and was always dieting as a young mum and her daughters picked up on her issues and developed issues themselves. One is obese and one is very slim with a lot of food issues not helped by intolerances. She was always commenting she was fat and how she needed to lose weight and lots of negativity around her weight and I worried it would impact on her DDs. My sister was a little plump but not fat.

I was a skinny child and got fatter when I married, got divorced and lost loads, gained it after ds gave up breastfeeding then lost it again.

My mum spent her life yo-yo dieting. She was a beautiful woman who put on baby weight that was difficult to lose, was prescribed amphetamines to lose it, succeeded, felt great and was angry when the prescription was stopped.

After that, she was always overweight and always hated herself for it. It made me vow never to diet but both my dds have gone through periods of eating disorder so I don't know why I bothered. The western beauty standard has a fuckload of misery to answer for.

My mum was cheerfully overweight, never less than an (old school) size 18/20 as long back as I can remember. She never complained about it and was very happy with herself.
Unfortunately her love of food and seeing it as a form of love and hospitality meant that I was an overweight child, which she saw no reason to address. In the 70s this was pretty unusual. There were only three of us in my class at school and we were tormented mercilessly, it was a miserable existence.
I lost weight in my early teens and my life transformed and from then on vowed to myself I would never get fat again. Cue a life long preoccupation with weight and diet and an unbreakable association between being slim and being happy that is still with me at 55.
So, while I hear you OP, I think its too simplistic to lay everything at the door of a weight conscious mother. My mother's approach when coupled with the attitude of society in general to fat people (which was even worse then than now) messed me up just as badly.
It's also worth remembering our mums didn't invent fat phobia. They were the product of their society, and their endless diets were their way of navigating the same issues we have inherited.

All the time, it has given me disordered eating all my life. My mum still doesn't stop talking about her weight and hiw she's lost half a lb etc and she's nearly 70. Drives me insane. I have never been overweight but my DC are and that is definitely due to my disordered eating. I feel incredibly guilty about it.

My mum was quite fat and often tried the latest diet. I remember the grapefruit diet, low fat and high fibre ones. She had a problem with portion sizes, my brother and I were forced to clear our big plates. Served it for breakfast if we left any, that sort of thing. Starving children in Africa wouldn’t be ungrateful and not finish their dinner.

I was always overweight as a child, I have never been a normal weight. I was constantly punished for being fat as well. No idea why she couldn’t see the connection between my being fat and being forced to eat everything that was put in front of me.

Never. I never heard my parents discuss their own weight or talk negatively about ours.

I don't do it with my child either.

Way too much!

The diets were crazy. Slim fast, cabbage soup, special k, the Atkins diet etc. I thought it was completely normal to drink 2 shakes then have a salad for dinner.

Then the fitness VHSs. Lizzy Webb, Jane fonda... None of it lasted for long.

My mum was obsessed with weight . Always pointing out fat people, going on about her weight and my weight. She's always been underweight but no one in our family was above average.

It gave me lifelong issues with self esteem - looking back now I realise I was slim and attractive but at the time I thought I was huge and as a result never wore trendy clothes etc. I mean no reason why someone overweight shouldn't wear nice clothes obviously but that was the message I absorbed growing up. She once called me a my friends a bunch of fat women when we were about 15. None of us were overweight. It spoilt my teenage and young adult years really. I'm now a stone heavier after kids and still average weight. Finally don't care how I look any more - it's so freeing!

I don't mention weight or dieting at all to my kids. My.mum gets told to stop if she mentions it now.

70s child. My dad used to make nicknames for me about my weight and my mum took me to weight watchers aged 9. She didn’t want me getting like her dad’s side of the family.

70s. A lot. My grandmother was proper in and out of hospital anorexic, and my mother tried to not make it into an issue but mostly failed. She would crash diet on a regular basis, as would my sister. My younger sister was slightly chubby and it was all but the end of the world as far as my mother was concerned, she started putting her on diets when she was a toddler (she did have a nanny who was equally fucked up about food but in the opposite direction, she was pretty much force feeding the child).

I was the only one who never had food issues, but when I got fairly sick as an older teen and lost a lot of weight and became unable to eat much (everything made me ill) she decided that I was probably being anorexic and that the best approach was to ignore me as it was attention seeking behaviour. It wasn't, but as a result I didn't get medical treatment until much later when I had already moved abroad.

Most of my family still has big issues around food. Fortunately I don't so much, which is a small miracle I believe.

All the freaking time. I didn’t realise how disordered my dear Mum’s relationship with food was, until well into adulthood, because it seemed normal. The consequences of her constant restriction were not good. Dad was also obsessive about weight and very unkind about normal teenage weight gain.

Similar here, born 60s, there were maybe one or two kids who were bigger at school, but probably not more than chubby by today's standards.
DBro was chubbier and bullied because of it. Looking at photographs, though it wouldn't even be noticeable now.
The only comment I ever heard was 'a moment on the lips, lifetime on the hips' from DGM.
We actually ate fairly healthy foods as we were fed a 'wartime' style diet by grandmother. I was on the go the whole time, always out playing, football, biking. Dbro liked airfix modelling and was less active.

No, no one in my family ever talked about weight, and there was nothing to talk about.

Your Mum did not / does not act healthily around food OP, and in your shoes I would call and have a serious conversation about how you don’t judge her, and she can obviously eat as she chooses , you would very much prefer not to expose your children to talk about diet or weight.

How old was your Ds when she talked to him about his weight?

Have a few stock phrases up your sleeve and don’t answer any questions about weight / diet. “I’m not interested in weight or diet, we just try and eat healthily” “we don’t talk about people’s weight or diet” “ let’s talk about something less personal “ “let’s talk about something more interesting “.

If she says you are being rude, just say “I explained to you before we came that this is not a subject for conversation “ . On Repeat.

Born early 70s. Mum type 1 diabetic so constantly watched her carb/sugar intake which was fair enough but she was always a size 16. She had been size 8 when she married and had me and my sibling but subsequent diabetes meant she put on weight easily and found it very hard to lose.

She would serve huge plates for us tho. DF was a heavy smoker so barely ate anything so my sibling and I would frequently be subjected to 'puppy dog eyes' and conversations along the lines of 'if you loved me, you'd eat it' and 'I spent all that time in the kitchen for you and you're not eating it?!' As children, we felt guilty that we made her sad so naturally ate everything given to us. 😔I now see this behaviour as dreadfully manipulative. She controlled us in lots of ways, including food.

Awful behaviour. Always, and still does comment on 'fat' people IRL and those on TV. I tell her to stop being rude about people, as do my own kids. 🙄

I've got an awful relationship with food as a result. Dieted on/off for 36 years now and I'm a size 16. Hate myself and I've got DM and her emotional blackmail to thank for that. 🙄

Endlessly. A child in the 70s, teen in the 80s.

”You’d be such an attractive child if you lost 5 pounds…”
”Do you really need that biscuit?”

Mum was slim but forever dieting - Scarsdale was particularly unpleasant, grapefruit diet, one involving a lot of cabbage soup, several involving fasting… I remember a food combining one where you could have a carb or protein, but never both. Then in the 80s Weight Watchers, meal replacement shakes, Rosemary Conley etc etc.

The first thing Mum and her cousins would say about anyone was whether they had lost or gained weight. Even two or three pounds either way.

Being a size 12 was “on the big side,” being size 14 made you a heifer.

I’m obese. Wonder why…

1970s here. Mum was slim, but never dieted. She’d comment on the size of a fat person on telly but there was never any diet talk in our house.

My MIL on the other hand has been on a diet for the 20 years I’ve known her. Always remarks on someone apparently gaining or losing weight. In fact after my dad died, and mum was insane with grief and not eating properly for months, MIL excitedly told me ‘your mum’s dropped a lot of weight, hasn’t she?’ She was utterly clueless about what mum was going through.