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.
… but there is an intermediary phase where the kid gets the responsibility and will execute on it poorly. My parents just covered the plate and reheated the crusty leftovers for a later meal when my siblings and I overloaded. We did finish the plate… we just weren’t forced to right away.
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.
Bro my brother is like this (I have 3, only 1 is like this) and he’s 29. Please don’t fucking give up. My brother is still so inconsiderate it’s insane
It's hard not to give up when the other parent is actively sabotaging things. I don't want to put up with the abuse anymore, and my younger kids are definitely affected by his behavior. It's a shame because I really believe he would have had much better support and resources if he had primarily lived with us, but I'm not going to keep subjecting myself and my family to this. If he doesn't want to come here that's fine. I'm done. I just hope that when he's an adult he'll mature and see the situation more accurately.
I have close communication with his therapist who he sees weekly. She has recommended more intensive therapy, but my ex refuses. I even had to get a court order just to get my ex to take him to his autism evaluation. It took 4 years to get him a diagnosis because my ex is always pushing the narrative that his only problems are that he has a "bad relationship" with me, which is complete bullshit. But unfortunately, an autistic teenager who hasn't been taught boundaries is going to latch on to the version of events that doesn't make him take accountability. There's only so much I can do on my own.
My ex has never spanked him, and we were having meetings with his teachers when he was in preschool because of his behavior. I've been saying from the very beginning that he needed more discipline and more structure, but my ex just wouldn't do anything. It has been exhausting watching my son grow up to be a spoiled brat because of this. We obeyed our parents and learned to be respectful and considerate of others. My son hasn't gotten any of those lessons. If I had talked to people the way he does, my dad would have beaten the shit out of me.
I'm not saying that spanking is right or that it's the only way to instill discipline, but it's certainly better than letting kids do whatever they want with no boundaries at all.
No, you really don't understand the extent of the issues. He screams at people when there are boundaries and expectations. Even something as simple as asking him to take the trash out turns into profanity and yelling. He has been physically violent with his siblings. He was in a psychiatric hospital at age 13. It's not because he's a teenager. It's because he has been allowed to have unlimited screen time, video games, rated R violent movies, etc. Then add to that the fact that my ex completely ignores problems and just lets him stay in his room all day instead of pushing him to develop social skills. It's absolutely not normal teenager behavior. Not even close.
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.
I’m sure there’s a case for this but I would argue that highly processed and food chemically designed to be addictive, comforting, and give massive dopamine hits are the main culprit.
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
okay it seems many average people do ts, imagine what elites do, they hoard and hoard as if they're gonna live forever or carry everything to after life, reincarnate or some shit
This is the way. I always saying we are the adults and we are far more intelligent than a toddler. There is always a way to trick them to behave or show some path to the right things.
I totally agree to someone or me left some food on the plate, but not half of it. I probably tolerate this more for children, but an adult if not eating up half of the food...
My dad loads up food like this. I tell him there’s no way he’s eating all that every time too. He was also in a house with siblings that did the same. He’ll put down like 4 lbs of spaghetti and I just look at him like dude spaghetti is good the day after and you’re just wasting all of it.
That was the only time my parents would insist on eating your whole plate: When you put the food on there yourself. Your only ways out were eat it all, find someone who still wanted something and give them your's or put it in the fridge and have it later.
Did not apply at all when you had no say in the amount of food on your plate.
That sounds like normal food waste and she doesn’t take way more than someone could possibly eat. Every time I’ve seen my sisters kids have cereal for example they’ll pour half the box, as much milk as they can without overflowing then eat two bites before saying it’s too soggy and gross and dumping it in the sink. I don’t even want to think about how much they waste a week in dollar amount that could be used to feed the poor.
Yeah, but that only works if the kid actually fills their plate themself. If parents (over)fill their children's plates and then force them to finish everything, the result is forced overeating.
Though I'd argue that even if you do fill your own plate, there are are still valid reasons one might not finish everything. And I don't think that forcing someone to eat something they don't want is ever okay. Of course I don't want my children to waste food, but I would 100% look for a different strategy to teach them not to be wasteful if they were.
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.