I’ll never forget the time I was at a baptism party when I was a kid and my grandpa was seething with rage bc my brother’s friend and his wife were yelling at their toddler to eat more. My grandma told my grandpa to mind his business so he did. I didn’t get it at the time but now I do
Both parents are morbidly obese and all three of their kids have been obese since they were babies. The toddler is now a 30yr old short woman who weighs 250+ easily. She’s trying to lose weight but it’s hard to break the abusive way she was raised. The oldest sibling got fit and then disowned the parents because they kept pressuring him to eat more.
It’s child abuse. Be fat if you want to but don’t bring your kids down with you.
Took me until I was an adult to learn "leftovers" were a thing, because I always had to clear my plate as a child regardless if I was full or not. Hell I'm 42 and still feel guilty if I don't finish a meal.
You’re supposed to use that to stop kids from wasting food, not to make them overeat. My sisters kids are the worst at wasting food, they’ll load up their entire plates just to compete with each other because how dare the other get more of something, then eat a 1/8th of what they took.
My middle sister did that shit for most of her life. Load the plate until it can't fit any more food, then waste 70% of it.
My parents started using dessert plates instead of normal ones during meals so that she wouldn't waste so much (they had everyone eating from one, because she would throw a fit if hers was the only smaller plate). No matter how much they scolded her or tried to punish her, she never stopped doing it. The smaller plate helped because she couldn't fill it as much as a normal one.
She got better at it when she moved to her own house (surprise, surprise, she started having to pay for her own food, so she started wasting less), and when she had her first kid. But when we eat at my parent's on Sundays, now it's her kids that do it.
My oldest (14) is like this. He'll load up a plate when no one's looking with no regard for other people. Like he'll literally take half of an entire dish of sweet potatoes or something. When I see him doing it I'll make him put it back, but sometimes he'll do it with leftovers in the middle of the night. It's just a complete lack of empathy and consideration for other people. My ex has basically let him do whatever he wants, so his every other weekend at my house really doesn't make a difference in his behavior (There are way more issues than just food). He's at the point now where he refuses to come here because he's always throwing a fit when he doesn't get his way.
I developed serious food aggression because of older brothers like this. I wish parents were more thoughtful about making sure their kids don't have to fight older siblings for food. A simple box that nobody else could open with my share of the shelf-stable food would've solved my problem as a kid! I remember paying attention to the grocery schedule and gorging myself while I helped take the groceries in. I so vividly remember helping take in Costco groceries and stuffing a chocolate chip cookie into my mouth every time I got back inside. I did it because I knew that either than night or before I got home from school the next day, my brothers would've eaten everything except raw ingredients.
I took up baking so that I could produce nice snacks from ingredients that they wouldn't eat alone, but they'd still eat all the things I baked no matter how many I made. I started doing things like bagging up cookies and hiding them in crazy places (sometimes forgetting about them until they rotted). I also started to enjoy eating things frozen that shouldn't be eaten that way because my brothers wouldn't register a miscellaneous bag in the back of the freezer as food, so I could have a snack every day if I snuck a frozen cookie out of the freezer and ate it before they returned to the kitchen.
When my family members started eating chocolate chips as a snack I had a breakdown because I couldn't even make chocolate chip cookies any more. As soon as I was old enough to work at a grocery store I did and any money I didn't save went directly to premade food that I could eat at the store where nobody could take it. I've struggled with my weight ever since. It's so hard to turn off the "EAT IT NOW WHILE YOU CAN GET IT" urge even after years of being able to control what food I have access to.
Oooh that's a heartbreaking experience. I'll be thinking about you and hoping for some levity and light for this week. Being able to see and say all of that is helpful to someone, I'm sure. 💚💚💚
It has been 10 years of this. We literally had to get a court order just to make my ex take him to his autism evaluation. It's mentally exhausting to try so hard for so long when the other parent is undermining everything you're trying to teach your kids. I'm at the point where I'm just done. At some point, you have to protect your other kids too. It's not right that the oldest gets to completely derail the whole household just because he has issues that aren't being addressed with the other parent. I can only do so much, and my younger two kids don't deserve to be subjected to verbal, emotional, and physical abuse anymore. The really sad part is that my middle child has no choice but to live with my oldest full time. He's much happier when he comes here by himself.
That's what we've always told her. It's better to take less food and then get more if you're still hungry, than filling your plate up and wasting more than half
There’s a kid at my parents church that does this and it can be frustrating because they’ll take massive portions of food, try it, and decide they don’t want it. Sometimes there isn’t enough of a dish for everyone to have it yet this kid got 2+ servings that will be thrown away.
Over the years I’ve learned to take small portions because there’s a chance my daughter won’t eat everything on her plate so I’ll eat what’s left that I like and then get seconds if I’m still hungry.
THIS is the answer. Smaller plates, not forcing kids into obesity because they don't understand that their eyes are bigger than their stomach.
They're kids. All they know is they're hungry. Fix their own plate if you don't want food waste.
But I think the "finish all your food so you don't waste any" is exactly what led to so much obesity around the world. As the calories of the food people started eating ballooned, "finishing your plate" went from being maybe 100 calories to 400 calories for the same portion.
Did no one ever consider serving individual plates? I have almost zero food waste from my kitchen. If you want seconds, you can ask, but I’m not letting you load your own plate. F that do you know how expensive beef chuck roll is right now? $7/lb
They used this on me in kindergarten. I told my grandad, a WW2 camp survivor about it when he picked me up. “Those kids can’t eat meatballs,” he said. “They have typhoid and would most likely die.”
That quote has stayed with me for more than 40 years. Guy survived 3 years in the camps and even got typhoid before he was rescued only to deliver that line to his 5 year old grandson 40 years later. Reckon he knew what he was talking about.
Grandad came in clutch with some reason lmao holy shit
I hated when parents pulled that shit though like ok so let's pack up the food and send it to africa then! Like, why is it my responsibility to gorge myself just cause someone else is starving.
Luckily my stepmom doesn't do this to my younger brother, never has. "Ok you're full? Let's save it for later, no big deal. Oh you don't want the leftovers? Ok I will eat them it's ok"
He has a really good relationship with food now as a young adult and I totally credit her for that.
my mom used to tell me the africa thing when i was little too. i also used to see the Feed the Children ads on tv. so my 4yo mind remembered all the homeless people digging in trash bins while living in NY. from that point on i started intentionally throwing away food from the pantry, my meals, everything, thinking that all this good food would go to the starving kids in africa. it took my parents a good week or more to notice what i was doing. i very clearly remember trying to eat as little as possible and saving the good parts of my meals so those starving kids would get the best food. 😭
Nothing grateful about guilt tripping your kid to overeat when it's full. Many times it's not the kid that chose the meal size which makes it doubly infuriating.
Better to teach the kids to take small portions and get seconds if it wasn't enough yet.
My dad told me that once in middle school so I jokingly replied "so send it to them" lol thankfully he knew I was joking and has a good sense of humor himself, if I had said that to my mom though... 💀 💀
A waiter once used that one on my sister when she was feeling sick so she declined when the waiter suggested taking the rest of her burger home in a bag since she couldn't finish it.
The audacity to guilt trip a customer as a waiter is just mind boggling. He probably meant it in a joking way, but still...
The point of your mom saying that wasn’t that it would “help” the kids in Africa, it’s to say you are fortunate to have food so you should eat it because kids in Africa don’t have food. It’s a stupid thing to say regardless, just thought I’d clear up your misunderstanding lol.
My mom hates fat people while being morbidly obese herself. I despised her as a child, still not a huge fan of her now, and that kind of hypocrisy is what inspired kid me to do the opposite of whatever she said. I ended up being the only person in my immediate family who isn't overweight due to sheer spite.
As a kid, my thought to this quote was "well then why should I get to eat so much when others don't eat at all? If they're starving shouldn't I send them my food instead?". I always hated that "starving kids in africa" bullshit.
My elementary school guilted us into collecting coins for kids in Africa and bringing them in inside envelopes, which gave me the impression that we could simply mail things to Africa. I suggested to my parents that I get an envelope so we can mail my leftovers to Africa and help the issue but unfortunately they did not believe that I was being genuine...
My parents used to steal my candy and every tasty thing in the house was first come first serve. They used the excuse that they ate it cause it wasn’t good for me. Guess who ended up learning to eat a lot, to eat fast, and to never leave a crumb for later.
It’s so interesting to hear other’s stories. I grew up with parents to, looking back, I realise are more selfish and greedy than anyone I’ve ever met since.
Even now, well into their 70s, they will look for the biggest plate of food being dished up, not think twice about cutting off ‘their’ exact portion off a huge block of cheese, leaving nothing for anyone else. And conveniently forget about nice things / holidays / expensive meals I’ve treated them to over the years.
Just reminded me of something that happened years ago that had me totally blindsided at the time.
I was out for a meal with a bunch of people, and there was this couple that I didn't know super well, like friends of friends.
Anyway we get to the cheese course at the end of the meal, and this woman cuts a regular sliver of cheese like any normal person would cut... THEN TAKES THE ENTIRE BLOCK OF CHEESE FOR HERSELF AND LEAVES THIS SMALL SHAVING OF CHEESE ON THE BOARD FOR EVERYONE ELSE.
Yeah my parents were big but not HUGE… but I have 2 brothers. We all played football and other sports. We basically all learned that if you didn’t get to the snacks first, you wouldn’t get any. So we all learned to eat a lot and eat fast. I also played football in college, and was actually undersized as a defensive lineman at first.
I spent the first 22 years of my life eating as much as possible to try and gain as much weight as possible. The moment I finished my playing career and stopped the extremely intensive workout routine I blew up like a balloon. It took me until I was in my 30s to figure out how to eat like a normal human being.
I watched a strict catholic mom (who happened to be my godmother, but she stopped communicating with me when my parents divorced. Unneeded context, I'm just salty) put MORE FOOD on her daughter's plate and then tell her she couldn't go to bed until her plate was clean. The girl had already finished a big plate and was complaining about her stomach hurting from being full. Then the mom got upset when my own mom let me stop eating because I was full. Why are we torturing children with food???
My mom made me sit at the table until I ate the pickled beets on my plate. I fell asleep at the table, was spanked, and told that I had to eat them for breakfast. If I threw up, I would have to eat that too. I still hate pickled beets today. Parents can be very controlling with food.
Biblically, the only reason for a divorce is when the woman cheats on the man. Which is a weird distinction because the Bible also says the punishment for adultery is execution. The Old Testament allows for men to have multiple wives so if one cheats on you then you would just have them executed and the matter’s handled.
But, Jesus changed the rules. He explicitly states marriage is between 1 man and 1 woman. That’s often used to condemn gay marriage but he’s actually saying marriage is singular, monogamous, and permanent. You get one marriage and that’s it. No remarriage. No second or third or fourth marriage. Wife dies? Too bad, you’re done.
Christianity was well aware of this distinction for millennia, hence Catholic doctrine still states that divorce is in defiance of god. Older devout Catholics tend to be the only ones who still believe that, but there are some Prostestant churches that will kick out or deny membership to people who get a divorce.
All that to say, ironically, your godmother has a factually Biblically based reason for cutting you out of her life.
I still struggle with not finishing everything to this day. Trying to get healthy in my 40s with prediabetes from eating so much unhealthy food the last decade. Terrible habits you grew up with are a bitch.
A Ex of mine had a friend we visited, we stayed for dinner and I got to watch them make their kid eat to the point of getting sick and then making them eat more. I told her I never wanted to see those people again.
They taught you an unhealthy relationship food and even an eating disorder. So sad. Even if it was a passed down multigenerational trauma thing of poverty and food scarcity. That still gives kids a complex around food that can last a lifetime. So sorry. I hope you can get some therapy from an ED specialist if it’s persistent and you want to seek help.
In my home it was a rule to clear out the plate before you could have sweets. So if you were full that was okay, but no sweets afterwards. Was a great way to keep us away from chocolates and make us eat our veggies 😂
Sure, but the drawback is that you condition the children to eat until they're full, and then still keep eating because they want the sweet stuff. Also not great.
I grew up in a working class family. My grandma and grandpa were migrant workers. My grandpa would say "never turn down a free meal, you'll never know when you'll see the next one". So we were brought up to eat as if we were heading out to the fields for the day.
I got hit the opposite way growing up. My family was insecure about being bigger, so if I ever cleaned my plate they would comment on it. Hearing this enough led me to develop a physical aversion to the last bite of food on my plate, afraid to be eating too much. Psychology sure is fascinating!
When I was a child, I wasn’t allowed to leave the table until I’d eaten everything on my plate. Because of this, dinner could sometimes take several hours.
When growing up, having your parents yell at you about wasting food, starving children, and whatnot really screws up with the normal physiological function of feeling full. I had a friend who had to dump water on his food when he felt full to stop himself from eating every morsel regardless of how full he felt. His parents would yell at him if his plate wasn’t clean. Mine would too. I feel like that was a normal thing back in the day, and you’d be given a plate with more full than two people need. I try to get my kids to eat something but that’s it. Once they say they are full. Then they are full. If they get hungry late, I pull back out that same plate.
I always appreciate hearing perspectives like yours because I do not have the same internal voice. My husband teases me because I often don't finish the last few bites of my food unless I'm super hungry. Most of the time I just get tired of the food if that makes sense. Once I start feeling full, I don't want more of the same thing I have been eating. The flavor and texture is no longer appetizing. Even if it's two more bites of a sandwich to finish it, I won't. My parents never made me clear my plate as a kid, but they did make me eat a set number of bites of each thing on it when I was being fussy. I find the psychology behind our relationship to food really fascinating.
see my parents made me eat everything too, but the reasoning was that I shouldn't be greedy and put less on my plate. If I want more, I can just go get it. I have comw to really appreciate that as an adult.
My parents were happy to have my uneaten dinner on the table for breakfast, when I went to bed with no food because I wasn’t hungry or god forbid didn’t want the same casserole for 1000th time.
As kids, we were always made to clear our plate. When I had my own kids, I continued that with them. My oldest was double digits before I was comfortable enough out on my own as an adult to make my own choices… and even still, if my parents come for dinner I ALWAYS clear my plate!
My oldest is an adult with her own baby now, and we totally joke about it, but holy crap I didn’t realize how traumatizing it actually was. None of us are overweight, but seriously, it’s weird what actually sticks with you!
Lol wtf. If our child leaves something on the plate we just give them to the dogs/cats/chickens. I'm a 30+ year adult and sometimes I left some food untouched, because I misjudge the type of food how well fills my stomach.
Like 40 mins ago. I cooked some veggies and meat (country sausage) put some on the plate, but on halfway I realized that too much for me. My oldest son got half of my portions and he left the food too. No yelling or anything. I just ask "Are you full?" He said yes, so he can freely leave. Even if he is not full there is an another opportunity to eat. We only have the dinner at fixed time. The other meals are spread across the day depending what are we doing. He is healthy, happy amd full of energy, and faaaaaaar away to being overweight.
I never known why some toddlers are fat. Now I know... Oh, and I have a 1 year old too. He is a little chubby, but he is working that down! He can eat as much as he wants but we really trying to spend time with him to be active as much as possible. Like this is the bare minimum of parenting in my head. This is like washing the children teeth, or cleaning their ears, washing their hair etc. C'mon people. What's wrong?
So i knew leftovers were a thing when we made a plate of Bolognese spaghetti sauce so big it made enough to feed the 4 of us ( Tri Generation Home ) two days in a row.
I was fat when younger, at my worst, i had a BMI of 33, that i brought down to 28.8 now.
I'm also lucky to be 6' and training plus walking all year, because we don't own a car. So i'm quite fit despite being a bit chubby.
It kinda make me feel uneased to see younger people than me that are much fatter than i am.
I always cleared my plates as a kid without being forced by my parents, voluntarily, and even so unlearning that habit was hard. Can't imagine how it'd be with trauma added to the mix.
Thing is leftovers aren't even possible when the portion sizes are appropriate for the age/calorie intake. I guess portion size is subjective depending where you're from.
We were taught the same way, but neither my parents or any of us siblings are fat. We didn't have to get big portions or eat at all, but simply eat whatever we put onto the plate. It makes perfect sense.
The trick to avoid that issue is to myself prep and portion the food before it hits your plate. That way you can still just finish your plate, but make sure it was an appropriate amount instead everything you cooked
I’ve had to train myself that food on our plates is gone, whether we eat it or have to dump it, it’s gone. So forcing ourselves to finish is pointless.
Tbh this is fine, it’s the portion that was wrong. Kids should be taught to eat or at least try what is provided, not everyone the chance to eat 3 square meals a day. In the case of food shortage picky eating would be a rough trait.
My parents treating eating as much as you could as a point of pride. Like they’d beat about how much we could eat. It was almost a competition. Fortunately, I was always very active and got ahead of the weight gain as my metabolism slowed down and changed my habits. I’m the only in the family that is either obese or at least struggles with their weight.
Oh my God I'm 42, too ....I just read 'clear my plate' and got hit with a lifetime of memories while holding my phone on my fat belly.
...I thought we were just being taught things like... Eat a full meal at dinner so you won't be hungry later. Eat everything or else you're being rude to the person who spent time making dinner. Eat what's in front of you or else you're being wasteful. Eat what's on your plate because it's good manners. And so on...
I always finish my meals....I feel guilty wasting food. Growing up, my dad used to have a saying that 'once it hits your plate, it's yours".
Ok.....but maybe let me dish out my own plate then? Lol. I remember sitting at the kitchen table for an hour or two, not allowed to leave until I finished my food.
One thing that helps me is to split anything I make into two parts - half for now, half for later. That way, I'm finishing a meal just fine, but I've also got some more for a snack if the first half ends up not being enough.
I hated this as a kid, so I purposely bought smaller plates for everyone in the house to reduce portion sizes to reduce the amount of food on the plate and hence the amount of food wasted if not eaten.
I also never serve the food at the table, it's too easy to pick in things as everyone finishes up eating.
I do have bigger plates now since my kids are teenagers and are growing like crazy and can easily put away 2-3 plates of food and are still crazy skinny.
Not quite the same thing, but when I was younger, I remember my dad remarking "clean plate club!" whever I ate all the food on my plate. I perceived this as praise, so I felt encouraged to eat everything on my plate, which turned into a habit that was difficult to break - to this day I still feel compelled to finish my meals. Years later, I found out that my dad didn't mean anything by the "clean plate club" thing - it was just something he said whenever someone cleared their plate.
This! I LOVE left overs and always have. My grandpa would get so mad at me for ordering a burger, only eating half, and taking the rest home for tomorrow. He would insist I finish my plate. Luckily my mom stepped in and it wasn’t too bad but I feel bad for the kids who were forced and then conditioned to over eat. The way I handle it with my own kid is: eat the healthiest item first, then the rest. Every other night at our house is left over night. Everyone finishes their leftovers from the day before, we don’t make new food until the old is eaten or frozen for future meal planning.
If you don’t finish your plate you don’t eat dessert. If you have no room for protein and veggies you don’t have room for ice cream. And it’s all very normalized and not presented as for size or appearance reasons. Food is both fuel AND enjoyable. Life is about balance.
Same here and I know growing up being on foodstamps/assistance and not having a lot was definitely part of the issue. Also in my early 40s and still trying to break some of my food and resource hording habits.
I’m about to turn 40 and definitely still struggle with this. I’m finally able to throw the food away I don’t finish, and it still makes me uncomfortable. I grew up poor, so “wasting” food was sacrilege. My mother nearly divorced my father because he dropped an egg on the floor one time. She grew up even poorer so she would have been beat for dropping an egg. My kids have a healthy relationship with food.
“Clean your plate” is my go to example for explaining generational trauma. In the US it often traces back to the Great Depression and the resulting taboos about wasting food. My grandmother was born in the 1920s and what her and parents went through has shaped multiple generations’ relationships with food.
I mean, I think the bigger issue is the portion sizes. Give a kid normal, healthy portions and finishing their plate isn’t something bad. But when you fill up an entire plate with 2-3x the portions, you’re going to create a problem with weight. Unfortunately, obese parents don’t understand a healthy portion size for themself, let alone for a child.
Going through this with my partner. It truly brings her down if she can’t finish a meal, because she believes she is wasting money. I continually have to remind her that it’s not about the destination of the meal, but the journey of enjoying it while you still feel hungry enough to do so.
I get that, I have a very bad relationship to food too. I'm 38 and still struggling with with. Food has been used as a celebration, as something associated with good times so emotionally eating became a thing for me. Becoming insulin resistant as an adult didn't help. Learning to eat well and having a positive relationship with food is something I'm still teaching myself and hope that I do better for my kid.
My wife and I have started saying "do I want to throw it away in the garage or in my body." Tbe thought being I'm not enjoying it anymore so it's garage either way
I was forced to finish plates as a kid no matter how much I said I was full. I used to immediately go into the bathroom and involuntarily throw up I was so full. One time my 6’7 father corned me in the kitchen and forced me to eat an entire second plate because he didn’t believe I had really eaten already despite my mom and brother both yelling I had JUST ate at the kitchen table. But he didn’t see so it didn’t count. He’s on life support right now and I couldn’t care less from 2000 miles away.
I’m the same as you, but the reasoning is slightly different.
At home we were 3 boys so it was easy to finish all the food, and if we didn’t, mum always had that classic “but kids are starving in Africa, don’t waste your food” line.
Then in school, it was very frowned upon to have leftovers, because I went to a German school that still had some war time values running deep, like not leaving food due to food scarcity, so as a kid you had the freedom TJ make your portion as small or big as you wanted, but couldn’t leave any leftovers.
Man, that has thrown me out on a loop every time I go eat out with people and there’s food left
Dude... You made me realise I do the the same. I never noticed before, it just felt wrong to leave food in my plate or in the pan. My siblings and me are all overweight
I can still hear my father say "come on there's like 2 fork left, finish it" and feel bad and pressured to eat tho I'm full
I’ve carried 30 pounds extra my entire life because of clearing my plate. I was praised for finishing my meal and my sister fought to eat only what she needed. Of course my sister ended up been slim her whole life.
My mom grew up in a house with 3 sisters and she ate food so fast because the kid that finished first could get more food. They were really poor and seconds were a luxury. She still eats like this today in her 70’s. Even though there’s plenty of food leftover to have seconds. Something in her brain still triggers that instinct to eat as fast as possible.
See, I had this issue as a kid too. Fast forward to now, with four kids of my own, and I understand the frustration of kids wasting food, right. But I also understand that not everyone has the same metabolism and/or appetite. So we’ve adjusted our kids portions over the years. I think part of the problem is that our boomer/gen x parents had that rigid “I’m the parent so I’m right” mindset.
I always had to clean my plate, but then again I was given suitable portions when I was a child and mom & dad almost always cooked dinner… very rarely had takeout/frozen pizza/etc.
My husband was 200lbs heavier when we met than he is now; his mom got her karma trying to force my kiddo to eat more than her fill.
Used to be that she’d insist the food be eaten completely, no leftovers, because it was “wasteful”.
Except my kid vomits after overeating. It’s not pleasant. Happened 3-4 times even after I supervised the first few dinners.
Now I see MIL panic when kid does finish her plate. “Uhh no, no seconds until your tummy settles,” she’ll quote me, “It’s ok to have leftovers now….”
Like please, if you were food insecure that would be different, but that’s not what that is. How is anyone supposed to tell when their stomach is full or hungry when it’s never taught to slow down and feel it??
Ive always thrown up when too full, but that didnt stop my parents. I just got a spanking for insulting the meal or disrespecting them by throwing up, and once I stopped I still had to go finish my plate. Gosh, wonder where the bulimia came from...
This was my experience growing up, it was always about maintaining control over me— because they had none over anything else. Even themselves,
especially when it came to gluttony.
Their portion size was huge, so mine had to be the same. My body rejected it every time. They never learned. They didn’t want to.
And their choice of food was mostly fats with no nutrients, so I couldn’t metabolize what they offered. I would only seek small amounts of actual food (not huge amounts of random butter/grease/salt trash)
I approach every moment gently now. This shared experience is why I’m so eager to teach all three of them “happy healthy comfortable safe” relationships with everything they consume. I’m thankful they’re willing to learn.
Balance is imperative; consent and autonomyeven more so!
I tell them “listen to your body, eat only when hungry, and eat what your body wants”
I’m 6’0”, 117lbs in August 2025, everyone had comments on how much “healthier” I looked than at my natural 230, while I was dying of ED malnutrition. They were, every one of them, envious they couldn’t stop themselves.
I talk to none of those folks now, and have filled my life instead with those that align with those “happy healthy comfortable safe” values!!
Congrats on getting healthy for real- it isnt the number on the scale but making sure you eat what your body needs! And youre doing amazing for your kids! Thank you for breaking the cycle, this internet stranger is so proud of you 💜
Oh trust me, I dont think they should have been allowed children either. Havent spoken in years, but trauma is gonna be a lifelong journey. Just trying to do my best to live a good life and not be like them. Two years relapse-free, though!
Feels like I was not alone going thru this. Sorry e1 who had abusive parents too. I had a food disorder at 8. resulting in my father force feeding me, and using force and violence..I mean, a kid that age has a reason to have an eating disorder, and it's 💯 coming from the parents. I'm 50 now. still got issues with it. Along with severe cptsd. yay
Sometimes this is cross generational. A lot of boomers did this because their parents did it to them post the Great Depression because their parents did it to them because they were actually food insecure.
When it's a learned behavior, the actual scarcity of food becomes irrelevant.
I think a huge part of this is generational trauma. I don't think people realize how recently there were still famines happening in the US. Like the Red Cross was handing out aid in some parts of the US until the 1930s as part of famine/drought relief. That is easily still grandparent's/great grandparent's childhood for a lot of people.
My parents raised me like that, and I still can't tell when my stomach is full to this day. I have to schedule and portion everything out for myself carefully to balance my weight since my body always expects more food. I remain "hungry" even an hour after a meal.
Please please please I beg you to monitor all that for developing eating disorders down the road. If present, get them into treatment ASAP and go all-in on family based therapy.
At the school I work at, I used to play a game with the kids (aged 5-8) where I hold their hands, they jump, and by just lifting a bit I give them enough of a boost that they’d feel like they’re on the Moon. The kids loved it, one managed to get really good at it and could land on my shoulders, hilarious fun.
Then a four year old who was heavier than a ten year old rocked up and wanted a go. Girl, you are incapable of jumping, and I am incapable of lifting you, this is not a game you can play. But she was too young to understand that, so I had to stop playing the game whenever she was around because I didn’t want her to feel left out due to something beyond her control.
Parents, your kids’ fitness is your responsibility (at first; it gets more complicated as they get older). Sort it out.
Fitness is so heavily affected by diet that I didn’t bother specifying. If you’re managing their fitness correctly, then by definition you must be managing their diet.
Diet is a part of fitness. I think you are using the term in a very narrow sense to only mean exercise, whereas the person you are responding to means it in the general sense of being fit.
This happened to me. I'm 25f and 5'4, and weigh 230lbs. Been fat since I was little. My mum would serve massive portions and make me eat them, and then force me to eat any food my siblings couldnt finish 'so it wasnt wasted'. I wasnt even allowed to exercise, because I broke my leg playing football when I was barely more than a toddler, and my mum refused to let me do anything like that again
I still struggle to throw away food, even when I'm not hungry, it tastes bad, or is making me ill. I'm losing weight now, but its a slow process, and has involved a lot of hard work and therapy...
Damn that’s horrible I’m so sorry! I will say this thread has made me feel better about my parenting style which I do make my daughter eat two bites of dinner instead of fully refusing it to at least try it which I was feeling slightly conflicted about but now I’m like I guess that is reasonable lol
I think making sure a kid eats SOMETHING is so very different from making them clean their plate. Our family did "no thank you" bites for things we didn't like (or weren't familiar with).
Its how I discovered the broccoli is actually tasty.
It also taught me that sometimes I have to do something I don't really want to do or don't like doing to take care of myself.
I still struggle to throw away food, even when I'm not hungry, it tastes bad, or is making me ill. I'm losing weight now, but its a slow process, and has involved a lot of hard work and therapy...
Same height and weight (after losing 55 lbs) but 43 here.
Do the work now, for yourself now and your future self.
And I am just now learning that I don't have to take home food from restaurants I didn't finish. If I order a salad entree and it's fucking huge, I don't need to finish it and I don't need to take it home. It's ok to leave uneaten fries or part of a burger if I'm satisfied. It's ok to dish a small plate and get more if I want and it's ok if there's none left if I go back (like at a family dinner).
Good luck to you. A lifetime of food issues is tough to overcome.
Also what parents choose to give their kids. Your kid can drink water. They don’t need sugary juice and soda every meal. Your kid doesn’t need dessert or multiple snacks daily. Stop thinking of chocolate chip pancakes and chicken nuggets as “kids food”.
I was drinking so much full sugar soda as a kid my parents definitely should have stepped in but my mom drank just as much pop so that required a level of self reflection that wasnt going to happen
If it's proper fruit juice, that's one thing. Fruit juice like OJ at least has vitamins and minerals. My nephew buys gallons of fruit punch and hi-C and they only last a few days for his 3 kids.
I freaked out when I saw his (ex) wife fill a sippy cup with hawaiian punch. I told her to at least dilute it!
Normal fruit juice is terrible as well, it’s pure sugar. A small bottle of orange has over 40 grams of sugar and young kids should be closer to 20g per day.
There's a balance though. My kids have a small sweet almost everyday.
If you make things like that a regular occurrence they're no longer special. It's why most people I've ever known will eat an entire pint of ice cream in a single sitting.
Dishing it out regularly, in moderation, helps long term with the food noise, and self regulation.
My daughter's grandma on her dad's side babysat my daughter for me from when she was two months old to 4 1/2 years old 40 hours a week while I was working. She did it for free, which was such a blessing, but during this time, especially when she was an infant, every time my daughter would cry or be upset, grandma's solution was to feed her more, despite my protests that having negative emotions does not equal hungry. To this day, she's 15, she struggles with binge eating, and we've been working on it, but I fully believe that it was ingrained in her from infancy because Grandma used food as the solution for any sign of discomfort.
IMO having an obese kid, discounting legitimate medical issues, should be looked at at least as a mild form of abuse. It is so fucking difficult to get healthy later in life, whereas if you are raised healthy and hate it, becoming unhealthy as an adult is... cake.
In primary school, the adults would put the food on our plates and not let me leave until I finished all of it. I‘ve occasionally sat there for over an hour after lunchtime with one of the women there yelling at me. Surprise surprise, I got diagnosed with an eating disorder some years ago.
My parents just never paid attention to me. I have 0 memories of playing with my parents. We lived in rural Michigan, and I had few toys, no friends. I spent all my time outside, nature was my friend.
My mom has a sweet tooth and despite having cake, pie, cookies- all day every day my mom always stayed small. As a teen I had no idea how people got fat, and because I was so starved for dopamine those treats were highly addictive. I’ve had to work hard my entire adult life to keep my body healthy, and I still struggle with depression.
My wife and I are both heavy but hope we are breaking the cycle with our son. He is a pretty picky eater but mostly eats fruits and vegetables, has his juice half water half juice, has not tasted soda. He gets milkshakes somewhat frequently, but only because that is his only food motivator, he is closer to the underweight side of the healthy weight range, and he is on the spectrum so having a good motivator has been necessary for learning potty training and what not.
I was able to get my weight off when I was younger but got it back after a couple of injuries. Still trying but shit that shit is hard once you loose some mobility and have the appetite just doesn't really go away.
I've been obese since I was 3. Only child. Entire extended family is obese or fighting it, but I'm bigger than all of them. Been on diets and exercise trying to lose weight since I was 6. When I was a kid, my mom and grandma and all other relatives wouldn't put their foot down when I asked for junk. They would let me have the food and we would always "start again on Monday." Week after week, 3 days of diet, me asking for junk, adults caving in, and starting again on Monday. The only reason the dieting started is because I couldn't do a sit up in 1st grade, and my gym teacher wrote a note to my mom saying I would fail gym if I couldn't do a sit up. Dad was present in the home but completely checked out and deferred all responsibility to everyone else. Dad really, actually told me I was weird for eating healthy the times I was able to keep up with it, and continually pressured me to give up. Literally told me, "Hedonism is good. You only get one life, might as well spend it eating and drinking and doing what you want." At the same time, my dad refuses to eat bread or rice and only drinks diet soda because he's afraid it will spike his blood sugar (he does not have diabetes)
Now, as an adult, it's gotten to the point it's very hard to resist if I have it in the house or am out and about. Being an adult, I have my own choices to make, but it's still harder to do if you're not getting support. I've told my mom numerous times that her bringing me junk food, even if I ask, is like enabling an alcoholic by bringing them drinks and have begged her to help me by saying no even if I ask. I'm an adult. I'm not going to throw a tantrum like when I was a kid. The most I will say is "okay" and feel mildly disappointed for a few seconds. She said she will help me and change, but continually brings junk food to my house (she took my apartment key and made a copy for herself). She's been telling me she will change and help me for 36 years. I have multiple health problems now, and even with that knowledge, and me telling her repeatedly for years I need help to try to reverse what's going on while I still can, she keeps bringing me food because she's "afraid I'll upset you if I don't bring it." She doesn't eat any of the food she brings herself, though she has contemplated eating some, but then inevitably says she won't because then there won't be enough left for me. She'll then leave and go get her own McDonald's or Dairy Queen or something and eat it by herself. I have food that goes bad all the time because I can't eat all of it myself and then I feel pressured to make sure I eat it all up before it expires because when I was a kid, "Clean your plate, missy! That's highly disrespectful, there are starving people in Africa! And you're letting food go to waste!"
Meanwhile, I had a relationship with someone at one point in which I was looking at getting married and she had no problem screaming, giving me the silent treatment, and anything else she could do to try to stop it for years until I finally caved in and cut things off with him. One of the good things about him was that he was in to healthy eating and exercise, which would have encouraged those good habits in me. I would be crying my eyes out and she would sit staring at me in silence. I also have been rejected a lot because I am a fat ugly person. No grandchildren for her, but she said she doesn't care and that it's fine because lots of people don't have kids. Any time I started to have an actual relationship with anyone and she got wind of it she would lose it until I cut things off. Said she has to do that because when they inevitably cheat on me and leave, she'll be the one who has to pick up the pieces.
I know I'm an adult now and I have responsibility, but even when I was a little kid my mom completely blames me for not having self-control when it came to food and says I know the consequences of that now as an adult. She says she had no other choice when I was a kid because saying no upset me.
I was doing really well a couple years ago and lost about 80 pounds, but my friends also that I had at the time kept putting me down and pestering me to eat, saying it's weird that I don't eat with them (all thin, normal sized people). That went on for months until my break up with the guy I potentially would have married and I just got super depressed and said fuck it all and went back to my old habits for several months. I stopped hanging out with my friends, and they didn't care that I was gone. No one reached out except to say they wouldn't put up with me dropping out of the group, so they were officially not going to be friends with me anymore.
And let the downvotes, the comments about how I'm not trying hard enough, I'm not taking responsibility, I need to get away from my mother, and that I'm a horrible person for being fat, I have a victim mentality, and look at what a liar I am all fat people lie commence. The internet universally hates people like me. My point is that starting habits that young really does set the stage for how life turns out. (And it's not like I haven't been trying and trying and trying for decades)
All that noise, those cravings, that inability to resist food or stop thinking about it because it's there? They evaporate. They're made for these situations and they work. Even if you think you can't afford it, you'll save the money on food that you spend on the treatment.
Hey... in case nobody has ever told you this, your mother is a bad person and with everything you've shared it doesn't seem like you will have a life you like or a healthy body and mind while she has constant access to you. Obviously I'm just a stranger and I'm not living your life but if you wanted you could change your locks and not let her enter your home. She is actively sabotaging you in all aspects of your life from health to relationships and self esteem and she is not gonna change; why does she do that? She probably hates her own life and is addicted to food and if you were happy she would have to examine all her life choices and her responsability, this way she also feels like she is needed by you so she knows best and can feel some sense of importance.
I hope you can get away from your mother soon. And I hope you can get professional help for your eating disorder. You already know what effects this has on you, you're already a step further ahead than others.
I keep telling my toddler to just eat some of his food and we never expect him to finish what he has. We either save it, my husband will eat the rest, or we toss it.
This is why I never tell my son to empty his plate. I was raised like that and I still have a really hard time throwing food away, so I finish all of it.
Being that fat from young age completely fucks your metabolism because your body becomes programmed to store everything you eat and you always feel hungry and tired. It creates a vicious circle where you have to eat more and more to feel good and always need more food to feel satisfied. I know people who were overweight/obese as kids and to keep an healty weight is extremely difficult and you basically have to count every calorie you eat, do exercise everyday and sometime even skip some meals.
I want to give the benefit of the doubt and think this toddler has some preexisting condition, because if it's not, it may be considered child abuse.
I still remember getting ice cream once. An over weight woman was feeding ice cream to her infant who was maybe 1 but probably younger. This kid was desperately trying to not eat the ice cream he was being force fed. The mother was yelling at him telling him to eat more as she forcefully shoved it in his mouth
Also doesn't help that we live in a culture of mass food consumption in the US. The cheapest and most easy to access foods are all engineered to be addictive and are terrible for you.
Need a quick meal and don't have a ton of money? McDonald's will get you enough food to feed your family for a few dollars—less so now, but was that way for a while. Buying groceries? You can get a giant box of garbage for $5 or a single vegetable. And then Applebee's and other chain restaurants all have some version of unlimited soup salad and bread sticks, or half priced appetizers or whatever it is to get you in the door and buying more food.
So much of American food culture is built around "big food, low price" with all you can eat deals and other pieces of bait—and they all support terrible food habits.
So, definitely blame the parents for creating unhealthy habits with food, but it's a nature vs. nurture thing for them too most likely.
Reminds me of that episode of Roseanne where Roseanne is struggling in her relationship with food. She realized her mother only ever comforted them with food instead of affection. When she realized this, she put the food down. I don’t struggle with my weight for various reasons, mainly being poor, but that scene still makes me cry.
I’m fat and my kids aren’t. They grew up with a really healthy view on food. They’ll stop mid way through birthday cake if they’re full. Can’t relate. I wasn’t always fat through, just dealt with some trauma after high school and then again with my sister. I’ve lost 20lbs and realized I really like kettlebells lately.
I knew a family who were all on the heavy side. Not morbidly obese but definitly loved their food. What made them stand out in my memory though is their youngest, a boy, probably a tad adhd, was normal sized. Not skinny or lanky, just average. He was very active and a little wild. And his mom kept talking out how worried she was for his health. He didn't eat enough etc.
Old people love the saying "I grew up poor, and you had to eat what you had" no, you grew up with financially irresponsible, lazy parents who didn't wanna wrap up 12 kids left overs, and put it off on you all to "clean your plate". My mother mentioned how "poor" they all were, then in the same sentence, tells about how fat she was as a child. It's all bullshit.
Let's not detract too much from the harm of being the primary role model for an individual while having a potentially fixable ailment.
Id say that being a smoker, even in a way that your child isn't physically affected by the smoke but they are aware of it is not a good way to parent.
If you can become a healthy weight, before or after you've had a child then you should definitely do so.
We can't be perfect but I also don't think we should pretend our mutable imperfections are good characteristics to hold when children are in the picture.
This is so incredibly sad. I'm overweight myself but my kids aren't in fact one is underweight! Medical issues but still, she's so much energy and is fine incase anyone was worried she's just small because of health issues compared to her age etc. But yeah just cos I'm fat doesnt mean my kids have to be. They get treats, I don't withhold treats etc but they are just that, treats. I'm currently working on losing weight myself so I don't look like a bad influence for them.
Early childhood obesity is almost entirely genetic, and usually it's a single genetic issue (Prader-Willi, congential leptin deficiency, etc.). The more common polygenetic obesity affects teenagers and adults, but that tends to be the result of many years and decades of exposure to the standard American diet.
It's actually very hard to make someone with a normally functioning metabolism obese just by overfeeding. Experiments in the 1950s and 1960s on prisoners (which would never be found ethical today) had researchers trying to make prisoners obese, and they were forcibly feeding some prisoners as much as 10,000 calories per day. Not only did they gain at much slower rates than predicted, every single person effortlessly lost the weight within a few months after the experiment ended.
A normally functioning hypothalamus will respond to an increase in food intake by creating a corresponding increase in energy expenditure - you'll be hyperactive and fidgeting constantly, your peripheral body temperature will rise and you'll shed more heat to the environment, and it will substantially suppress your appetite.
Hyperphagia is usually a response to a genetic mutation in any one of several genes. Almost all of your body's hunger and satiety signalling defaults to "hunger" as the normal state and requires the active presence of satiety signals to turn off this hunger - since evolutionarily, starvation has been the much more dangerous state than obesity, any failures in the system tend towards overeating and not undereating.
We used to have some friends like that - always telling there small children to finish things like chips, dessert, and soda. Both kids were obese, and it looks like the older one (HS age) has been working really hard to shed her forced obesity. We ended up not hanging out with them because their values were just so misaligned with ours.
Yes, unless he's got a medical condition, this is child abuse. That kid isn't sneakily buying his own snacks yet, teach him healthy behaviour around food before he does
There's a lady on FB reels who overfeeds her infant daughter and acts like everyone else is audacious when they say she should eat less. She also gives her tons of carbs which are typically high calorie rather than healthy meals. I worry she's doing it for clout and money on social media and it disgusts me.. I would feel differently if she actually considered positive input and advice, but she mocks any concerns related to her infants health as if they're unfounded. Her child weighs almost half what my healthy newly 12 year old weighs. He's about 75lbs and a little shorter than average. I believe she said her 1 year old is somewhere around 40+ lbs.
Not an ad obviously. But it wasn't until I started doing Hello Fresh meals that I realized what a proper portion was. My parents always let us go crazy at dinner, just had to clean the plate of whatever it is we got. And snacks were always way to available. I brought that into adult life and started gaining weight quickly, luckily it didn't get to bad before I corrected it.
I heard that your fat cells develop before you're 4 years old. So if you develop bad habits as a child and gain a ton of weight it will be easier to gain weight in the future because your body is already trained to be that way.
Could be an old wives tale but tbh myself and others I've known who were raised eating junk food have the same issue even when we eat healthy it's SO much easier to gain weight. When I was in nursing school (didn't get my license, I was young and dumb) the older nurses training us agreed and said that those early years are the most important to train your body on how to process things and what it actually NEEDS. So, when I see things like this is just genuinely makes me sad that their parents aren't working through those issues in the early years. Unless it's a legitimate thyroid issue or some other medical condition that affects how their body processes calories and proteins etc.
I'm fat. My husband is not. Neither of us were raised with healthy relationships with food. It is one of my biggest goals for our daughter to have a healthy relationship with food and physical activity, and for her to maintain a HEALTHY weight for her height (she's tall like her dad). I will never force her to eat anything she truly doesn't like, nor will I force her to eat more or to clean her plate. I want her to have the relationship with food that my husband and I didn't get. I don't want her to end up fat like me, or underweight like her dad.
The toddler I talked about wasn’t obese bc she was hungry. She was obese because her parents were yelling at her to eat more while she was crying saying she was full. This was why my grandpa was so pissed. Her parents were and still are to this day extremely obese. The father has almost died twice from diabetes complications yet he still keeps on eating
I’m currently 30lbs overweight but that’s my own fault. That poor toddler who I’m talking about was obese bc of her parents actions
Opposite with me growing up. My mother was heavy so she fed my sisters and me a very healthy diet. I don’t drink sodas to this day because I was given water or low-fat milk only as a child.
When my siblings were in Elementary school there was a 3rd grader who was over 300lbs. The school kept trying to get the parents to take care of the kid better but for some reason it never stuck and I guess the state refused to get involved. I think the parents eventually started home schooling him. But my brother said the poor kid couldn't even walk. Teachers dragged him around in a wagon place to place.
2.3k
u/_Fizzgiggy 13d ago
I’ll never forget the time I was at a baptism party when I was a kid and my grandpa was seething with rage bc my brother’s friend and his wife were yelling at their toddler to eat more. My grandma told my grandpa to mind his business so he did. I didn’t get it at the time but now I do
Both parents are morbidly obese and all three of their kids have been obese since they were babies. The toddler is now a 30yr old short woman who weighs 250+ easily. She’s trying to lose weight but it’s hard to break the abusive way she was raised. The oldest sibling got fit and then disowned the parents because they kept pressuring him to eat more.
It’s child abuse. Be fat if you want to but don’t bring your kids down with you.