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!

that is horrible. I’m so sorry that happened to you.

80s child here.. very similar experience. Very early memories of slim fast and rosemary connolly video tapes. Always talk of feeling "massive" and "how many calories per bite?"
Quite disordered I would say.. mum never ate with us- frequently mentioned she'd "been eating all day" but actually had only had a few crackers, 10 coffees and 20 fags!
Lovely slim figure and very fit- but probably depressed and lacking self confidence sadly.

80s child. Always criticised for my weight, and I wasn't fat. But, being Twiggy skinny or like a child European gymnast was the only look my parents wanted and admired. Told to first loose weight age 7, comments such as "you're OK from the knee down". Had a huge complex and no idea I wasn't overweight, hid under baggy 90s clothes as a teen. At 15 someone pointed out that I was very slim underneath my huge jumper. I was never fat, but made to feel like I was. I will never pass this on to my children.

All. The. Time. Even in her 70s my mother is obsessed with it.

I remember my mother telling me (age 11) that I wasn't allowed any cookies as I was getting a tummy. A week later I got my period and the tummy magically deflated.

Born 1980 and all the time, my mother was always on about her weight, she was never above a size 12. We ate well, lots of home cooked meals and nobody in the family was overweight.

I eat normally and fairly well and the only downside was that I have always thought I could lose a few pounds.

My parents are Holocaust survivors. I was naturally slim and ate like a horse, but my mum and grandma always told me I was too thin.
My parents of course had issues around food and consequently so do both my brother and I, even in our 50's.

We ate quite healthily. I was very slim until I got ill in my 20s. My parents have brought up my weight (either gained or lost) ever since, so about 30 years.
Tbh I don't give a fuck. I'm a bit tubby (around a size 14/16) but that's now down to me eating too many biscuits and drinking wine too often. I don't hate being overweight. I don't love it but try not to think about it. I would like to be fitter though as when I run it's barely faster than walking.
I try never to mention weight to my kids but do talk a lot about being strong and fit as I see the difference that makes in my older friends and families quality of life.

80s born, and constantly. She and my grandmother were always on a diet. My weight was commented on frequently throughout my teens and long into adulthood. I've subsequently always had disordered eating, either bingeing or starving myself, and have been lucky not to have had a full blown ED as a result.

My mother was obsessed with being thin and attractive. She came at it from a reasonably healthy angle; she cooked very healthy food for us and went to the gym five days a week. She was always banging on about Rosemary Conley or aerobics or step or whatever the latest fitness fad was. She looked amazing as a result, and lived for compliments.

But, she was constantly denying herself anything ‘fattening’. And she was terrible for fat shaming, as was my Dad. They were both very rude about anyone overweight - friends, family, complete strangers. I remember walking round Top Shop with her when I was about 13, and she held up a clingy micro mini skirt and loudly chortled “Look at this, Venus, you couldn’t wear this with your bum!” It was mortifying. And ridiculous, because I was a size 8 (an 80s size 8). She never missed an opportunity to point out imperfections.

Did it affect me? I’m a bit Teflon, so I rolled my eyes and didn’t end up with an eating disorder or anything like that. Instead I went the other way. I rejected gyms and diets as a result of her example, not wanting to become someone obsessed with appearance like she was. I ate what I liked and did no exercise. Luckily I had a fast metabolism until I hit perimenopause, so remained slim.

Now that I’m a bit fat I am a bit more philosophical! I wish I’d developed a more healthy lifestyle. Starting from scratch with exercise and healthy eating in your 50s is a bit late.

None of those were around until late 70's early eighties , when food processing took hold

Im officially a boomer being born in 64 my parents were pre war

I think the boomer parents being alluded to are those that were born during the war years and the rationing years after

And they were the age group being targeted by the food processors

PLJ? Pure Lemon Juice. You could get a mug of hot water and squeeze a lemon, but no, you were brainwashed into buying a bottle of lemon juice with all its additives and sweetners. Special K - just over puffed cornflakes - why eat a smaller portion of cornflakes when the processors could convince you to pay a pound a box more for a box of air? Lets rush out and buy a lean cuisine , full of sweeteners and additives and you still need to buy a bunch of veg to "balance' it, but it was sold to the consumer - not enough food in a meal to fill a hole in a tooth but you would be paying more for it

And those foods are the foods that have made us fat

Pre these foods we ate fat - every house had a chip pan full of lard, we ate sugar - jam roly poly anyone? Treacle sponge and custard? Spam fritters? full fat milk? Our sausages and burgers were more fat and gristle then pork, we ate hearts and liver and sweetbreads, lungs and tongues - not to forget kidneys - all high fat meats, yet we were not fat

Perhaps because meat was a tiny amount on the plate, the rest was veg ( I still hate marrow and greens ) and potatoes, mashed with butter because we all knew spread ( margarine ) was made from crude oil , dad always called it axel grease and I dont think margarine is sold any more?

We ate unadulterated food back in the 60's and early 70's

Born 79. My mother would occasionally comment on her own weight, but it wasn't frequent or negative enough to have made much of an impression. In the wider family, we would hear more talk about weight, but never negative remarks about anyone else's weight or size. People would comment that we (the children) were skinny, slim, etc, which I suppose could potentially be harmful, too, but I think my own relationship with food is fairly average. I do overindulge at times, and I like to 'treat' myself to food I particularly love as a way to reward myself/boost my mood, but I remain steadily within a normal range and don't obsess about weight.

Mines an unusual one.. I’m 50 and recently diagnosed ASD. This explains quite a lot as Many autistic people struggle with ‘interoception’ - they have a difficult time feeling and interpreting their body's signals. if you have ASD you’re more likely to have an eating disorder.

Anyway due to the above in my case I didn’t eat much as a child as 1: very picky and 2: didn’t get what hunger was (I know 🙄). My DM had no idea what to do about that and tbh also had her own issues with food (ASD running in the family perhaps) and also being a war child (no waste etc) - so as well as thinking that corn-on-the-cob or soup are main meals (not in many people’s book!) she would feed me the same thing for weeks if she knew I’d eat it. Must have been hard for her…

Anyway I was skinny as hell and behind in adolescence, then discovered my appetite but remained thin as a student (honestly I ate really well). Then I was very ill with meningitis at 21. Having escaped death (literally by sheer luck) I was then dangerously thin (under 7 stone) as I’d had no reserves really- I actually had to be sure to eat enough to leave hospital - like build up milkshakes etc. Anyway I think it broke my body’s regulating instinct and I then put on weight. For one small moment I was happy to put on weight (having been distastefully underweight) - but it didn’t stop… I’ve just lost 2 stone and gone down to a small size 16, but menopause makes regulating your appetite even harder.

The war does have a lot to answer for - my mum was a little bit older than the mums of my peers as she was 35 (gasp!) when she had me - so she’d grown up with rationing until her teens - but a lot of mid-70s babies have boomer mums who grew up in the plenty of the fifties - my friends mums were into counting calories and weight watchers as well as noticeably having things like big Tupperware boxes of crisps or biscuits in the house - which we didn’t have.

Born in the 70’s. My Mum has always been a similar size - not skinny and not overweight. She never ate large meals or lots of snacks. Never really remember her commenting on hers or anyone else’s weight. My dad tended to eat large meals and I remember him putting himself on a “diet” before we went on our annual caravan holiday every year!!
I can remember comments about the amount I ate “you must have hollow legs” and that I had “footballers legs” because I had quite defined calves.
it probably has given me a complex. I’ve been overweight in the past but have been a size 10 now for many years due to my activity levels.
my brother was an overweight child and was overweight most of his adult life but for told he was pre diabetic so he’s changed his lifestyle and dropped several stones in weight.

All the time.
Glad to know it isn't just my mum and even though she is approaching 80 she is still the same, constantly going on about her appearance. It's really sad and frankly boring after hearing it for 40+ years. She gets annoyed with me as I have banned her talking/commenting about appearances around my DC. I don't think I realised how vain and forever unhappy with her appearance she is/was until I was in my 30's
I can remember cottage cheese and cracker breads were a regular lunch for her and her moaning constantly about how disgusting they were.

This resonates massively. I was born in 1973.
I cannot recall my mother ever eating a normal, balanced diet. She drank strong black coffee, gin and slimline, and smoked 40 cigs a day.
For occasional sustenance, she would eat 1 Ryvita, a spoonful of cottage cheese, and half a tomato.
I genuinely cannot remember her eating anything different to that.

My mother was obsessed with weight - not just her own, but everyone else's too.
I grew up on a sparse diet, as my mother was terrified I'd end up fat.
I can remember feeling hungry, and being offered celery - my mother told me that the effort eating it burned more calories.

When I left home at 18, and started taking responsibility for my own food intake, I was absolutely clueless. I remember going to Spar late at night and buying a box of Cocopops, a loaf of white bread, and some jam and peanut butter.

Within a couple of months, I'd put on a lot of weight which, of course, my mother passed negative comment on.
The only way I knew how to lose weight was to start eating Ryvita/cottage cheese/half a tomato 🤦‍♀️

I'm 51 now, and have had a lifetime of disordered eating. I have fluctuated between under nourished, underweight, and obese.
Despite being a relatively intelligent person, sensible weight control seems to be entirely outside of my grasp.

I stopped seeing my mother 3 years ago but, up until then, she was still commenting on my waistline.

Born 1973. I was always told I was “sturdy” and had “hockey legs” and “highland man’s knees”. I remember me and my mum doing a mad diet when I was about 13 - it was mainly eggs with things like a piece of steamed fish, and grapefruits, and you were supposed to drop a huge amount of weight over three days.

My mum is in her 70s now, pushing 80, and I no longer eat with her because she constantly goes on about how can I manage such massive portions - eg having a sandwich AND soup for lunch. She will refuse to order food and say she will just have “a wee tastie” of mine instead, even if it’s something people don’t usually share, like a jacket potato, rather than a slice of cake which would be normal to get two forks for.

I’m a size 12 now, up from a 10, and in perimenopause. I’ve always had a very flat tummy/small waist, but big arse, but now I don’t have a flat tummy any more. I feel so much shame in my body. Objectively I can see that I look fine, healthy, fit, normal - but it is hard to be objective!

Yes. I was born in 86 and every time my mum sees me she asks me if I've lost weight.... I've been a size 8-10 my entire adult life and my weight has hardly ever changed but she continues to ask this question anyway for some odd reason. She has very disordered eating herself and I always remember her grabbing her stomach and looking disgusted with herself. It's sad really.

ALL THE TIME, Mum has been on some half arsed diet or another since 1974. When I was little the only food in the house was Ryvita and cottage cheese, and I’ve never been able to look at cabbage since the obsessive diet soup days. She can tell you exactly how many calories are in half a banana and how it will take her to burn it off. Even now if we go out somewhere she will constantly talk and make bitchy comments about the size/weight of every woman around us.

As a result I don’t own any scales, and I have no idea how much my DD (21) or I weigh. We are much happier for it!

I was born in 1986 and I'm lucky to say that my parents were really positive and never mentioned weight unhealthily. My dad was overweight for a few years but he lost it healthily and never really mentioned his diet around us. They were really fixated on us finishing 3 meals a day and that was it.

I still developed anorexia in my late teens/early 20s though. My parents were really concerned about that because I had always been slim and trying to lose weight was not a good decision for me whatsoever. I was under this impression that I was incredibly chubby and that was not from my parents.

I'm completely recovered now and both my parents are healthy weights - not skinny, but not fat either. Honestly, they both did and still do eat normally. Although they never raised me as a snack family and I think it's carried on honestly! In my head, it is always just the three meals with a sweet treat at the end. That routine has fallen out of my head recently though. My dad went through a binge eating phase when I was very little but I don't remember a lot.

Born in 62. Parents never commented on weight. Only one child at my school overweight as were her parents and brother.
Nobody commented though as the world then just didn't seem as obsessed by weight/looks.

I was born mid-70s and I'd never thought about it before, but I don't recall weight ever being mentioned at any time throughout my childhood. I don't remember it being something people thought about much at all. I think there was much less interest in looks, generally, compared to nowadays. No one in my family was overweight, but no one was interested in diets or looks particularly either.

Same here.

Not 70's child but young child for most of the 80's onwards.

Weight wasn't an issue. The whole family was probably erring on the side of underweight or borderline (3 meals a day but no snacks). If there was a 'larger person' in the class, there was just one. Not nice to refer anyone in that way but that's how it was. Virtually everyone we knew and at school was normal, or underweight.

Born in the 60s. My mum was obsessed by weight, constantly needing to 'lose five pounds'. I had an idea as a child that all grown women consumed was Complan, never food. She used to make remarks about other women's size if we were out together, to the point where I told her if she made one more comment about someone else's bum I would hop aboard the next bus - going anywhere - and leave her. She's still obsessed, wears children's size 12 now. Never stops complaining about her older sister who eats notmal.healthy portions three times a day. This has been a constant refrain as long as I remember. Both sisters are very advanced in age. Definitely a case of disordered eating.

She had an obstetrician when pg who used to pinch her at her monthly visits to make sure she wasn't gaining too much weight (or so he said) and she was very happy to leave the maternity hospital wearing her normal summer clothes, having weighed in a few pounds lighter than she had been at her first pre natal checkup. She thought the sun shone forth from that doctor's arse.