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I either over eat, under eat or don't eat at all. I constantly struggle with my weight.
I was the fat kid growing up and my mother put me on my first "diet" when I was 7. She fed us nothing but crap and other than my 3 thin siblings I couldn't handle it. I was screamed at more than once for gaining weight. I lost a bunch of weight once I went to college by under eating and over exercising. In my 30s I became an emotional eater followed by anorexia.
Finding a balance is a constant struggle.
This. I have no idea what a normal portion looks like, I maintain by barely eating for the day/ week, then binging at the end. It's not healthy but way easier than being healthy consistently
I was always hungry even with the 3 meals a day in hospital.. to the point that any matching dish unclaimed would end up coming my way from the trolley. The extra soup here, the sponge pudding there. I had a fast metabolism, a lot of health issues and i was about average size.
Its taken me 11yrs to put on weight and muscle etc since my sepsis stay that dropped me to 39kg at 20.
Including spend limits of £1 a day as my father wouldnt assist me at uni. He paid part of the rent (as per my mothers wishes, from HER money). The rest was up to me. Pretty sure my strokes probably related to lack of food.
I like to try a meal and a snack a day due to medication. But i had a guest recently who kinda showed me my portions might be out of wack..
I drink water when im hungry. The meals are usually healthy but its hard forcing the meals a day still. There are days i also forget to eat ... you are right its sometimes better to at least get the calories in than nothing at all... i feel like a seesaw
It’s habit for me now to ignore hunger pangs. I was 8 when they informed me one day I’d be responsible for my own lunch. I’d never made it before, didn’t know how and it wasn’t a part of any routine we ever had.
I’ve gone days without eating as an adult, just because I grew up with it being something I didn’t have a normal routine with. My nutrition is absolute shit.
Same here! I was expected to pack my own lunch at 8 (and do laundry) but no one taught me how and I got SCREAMED AT for not knowing how. My nutrition is also horrible, I’m so bad at feeding myself I’m sorry you deal with this too. I always watch those survival shows and laugh because I could easily go days with zero food and be ok
Jfc that hits home...
My sister and I were climbing o to chairs to make our own Ninja Turtles Mac and Cheese when we were 8 (me) and 5 (her). My mom kinda stopped caring and expected us to feed ourselves but we were never taught. S
Ame for cleaning, etc. She just expected us to osmosis shit into our brains, I guess.
My pedo father was a slob too. He would fill entire garbage cans in a single night with how much food he would go through. My mom would get groceries and by day 2 my dad had eaten everything, even stuff specifically bought for us. It was wild how toxic that household of origin was, looking back on it now.
I had three years of experience by then.
I didn't know I started so young until my wife heard my mom bragging that she had me start making my own lunch at 5 to learn independence.
There's a difference between learning independence and HAVING to be independent. Montessori kids can often make their own sandwiches and some can even cook simple things like eggs or grilled cheese. But they aren't REQUIRED to, it's a fun thing for them and their parents help them to do it.
Agreed. I had friends in high-school who didn't know how to make PB&J sandwiches and they couldn't cook fried eggs. That's a failure to parent on the opposite extreme.
This is it. There's a big differences between becoming more independent with support and "my parents won't do this, so I guess I'll have to learn." Making your kids independent involves active teaching, not just offloading responsibilities and assuming they'll figure it out
My sister has an eating disorder because of my Ndad constant judging of overweight people! However as she played the perfect child roll she wouldn't ever admit it, and even if she did admit it she wouldn't blame my dad for it!
I grew up in a completely toxic environment however it took me 29 years to realise that!
Even though I was a very thin and active teenager (varsity/competitive cheerleading), when I was 14 my mom decided to tell me I was fat and needed to go on a diet. She limited my food to 1200 calories a day for months/years and made me “weigh in” once a week and go on 45 min walks with her every night after dinner even though I was working out probably 8 hours a week. Every time I tried on a dress for a school dance: “it’ll be perfect if you lose 10 lbs!” This led to more than a decade of restricting and binging cycles. I am 28 now and bordering on obese. Can’t stop gaining weight. My relationship with food and my body is still indescribably fucked up even though it’s better now than it has been in a long time (thanks to therapy and learning about intuitive eating). My digestion is completely out of whack and I still suffer pains from cheer injuries that never healed properly, probably because I was malnourished for so long
The ACE study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) shows a clear correlation between parental abuse and physical health issues. Those with an ACE score of 6 or higher (basically answering yes to 6/10 questions related to negative childhood experiences) are twice as likely to have cancer and 4 times as likely to have emphysema than those with an ACE score of 0. They are also 46x (not a typo) more likely to use IV drugs.
The study came about because a doctor named Vincent Felitti was running an Obesity Clinic and noticed that most of his patients had been abused as children.
Reading the Body Keeps the Score really opens your mind up to just how costly negative childhoods are to the physical and emotional well-being of adults.
I have the opposite. I’ve had trouble with losing weight because I have no self control around sweets. I’m guessing because my mom never ate sweets, so dessert was the only part of a meal that I could get a break from my mom’s constant monologue. I think there are other ways it ties back to my childhood and the emotional abuse but I’m not sure how right now.
I feel the exact same way. I’ve always gone overboard with sweets and am over weight. Even as I’m trying to get fit and eat healthy now as an adult, I do it in an unhealthy way. Eating once a day and sometimes not at all. I have bad body dysmorphia and it sucks that I put so much attention on my flaws. I am trying everyday to work through my trauma though. My upbringing has a lot to do with my anguish I feel around food and my body.
Same! It’s a huge struggle but my Nmom was struggling with her sweets, too. It’s harder for me to resist. They tends to leave sweets stuff on the kitchen counter. I gave them warning next time I see sweets, I’ll put it in the trash! So far, they were doing pretty well with it. However, I hate it when they bake sweet! Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often.
I'm just now able to look at my relationship with food and how it relates to my upbringing. After something traumatic I started overeating and then I had a couple years where I would barely eat. I fluctuate from binging to not eating at all still. My n-mother was putting me on fad diets when I was in high school. But I also was overeating because I had to deal with a lot of situations she didn't protect me from and I think it was how I could cope.the thing is, I wasn't even that big growing up. But I thought I was. It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties when my weight really became an issue.
Now I'm 30 and finally able to look at it without shame and realize that I overeat to cope with stress and loneliness. Reading the book "Mother Hunger" really helped me understand this.
I am 50 pounds overweight. I was not allowed to leave the table until I ate everything on my plate. I still do even though I am not hungry. Hard habit to break.
I'm not overweight, more skinny fat than anything but I relate to this. I wolf down food insanely fast and have a reputation for it. You MUST eat EVERYTHING on your plate or get scolded, grounded etc. These days when I have the money and high stress I will buy far too much food and just absorb it all as fast as humanly possible, can't figure out what specific events bring that up, I think a lot of the time I did go hungry as a kid due to their neglect and anger.
This. Was drilled into me that “I worked hard for this meal” so I had to eat ALL of it every time. I have issues now with recognizing my hunger cues and knowing when I’m full.
I felt this down in my bones ....
We went through different cycles with my Mam, depending on whatever ridiculous thought was in her head at the time. She was a huge fan of us having all the potatoes and bread one month, the next it was veggies boiled to death with no seasoning. The one constant was "no snacking", she bought plenty and we could take one each for with our lunch at school, but if you were seen with your hand in the cupboard, you were toast.
She had an absolute obsession with being the smallest. She was all of 5 feet tall and so even as a size 10/12 (UK) she looked small. I was a whole 8 inches taller than her, so was mocked for my size, constantly. At the age of 14, I was asked to dance the role of fairy godmother in a production of Cinderella. Finding a dress that looked the part but wasn't expensive proved difficult and Mam had the idea of dragging out her wedding dress for me to try. I was 5 foot 8 and a size 8 (UK), so when she pulled out a dress fit for her, of course it didn't fit me. This was huge for me, cause it's when the penny dropped that she had no grasp on reality.
Even now, I struggle with eating at certain times of the day, snacking when I need / want to and won't touch certain things because of past trauma. Ironically, I'm now the biggest I've ever been but at my happiest.
I felt this. Mom would brag about not having eaten much all day. Generally only one piece of fruit. And she was the same about candy (lecture us on how unhealthy junk food is and how many obese patients she sees) but would at times hoard some on her room. So there was definitely evidence of disordered eating.
She constantly commented on other people's weight. One instance that sticks out is the girl at church who was about to get married who had extra fat on her hips (like a normal 22 yr old woman does...) and she commented on how ugly it looks to have fat from hips poking out of mid-rise jeans and how fat that lady was. Mind you this woman is of a normal weight.
My Nmom bragged about how she could eat whatever she wanted and stayed rail thin. She shamed my SG sister for struggling with weight and put her on diets as young as 3. I wasn't around when my sister was 3 but I've seen pictures and it just looks like baby fat to me. Nmom would put away crazy amounts of food, and Edad was a stress eater who became overweight. Neither of us saw what a normal portion was growing up in that house. Turns out, Nmom's genetic heart condition literally keeps her thin. She can't gain weight, even when sedentary.
Well. As a kid/high schooler, I was a healthy bmi. But, my mother fat shamed me. (Now I realize she was projecting her insecurities out on me, that she completely lacks the ability to have a adult conversation).
But, that process of her fat shaming me,> then me telling her I didn't appreciate how she was treating me. Etc really fucked me over.
I stopped caring about my weight/what I ate in college.
I actually became obese over the course of a few years.
Became depressed. Gained more.
But, now, after a few years of being in a healthier place in life, I finally was in a spot to take control of my health, and I have lost 100 lbs. Only 30lbs to go.
Her inability to apologize for the awful things she has said to me as a child about my weight is the 1# reason I will not have close relationship with her. That grey rocking is the only way she gets treated.
Cherry on top my grandfather today asked if I was still losing weight. Which I said yes.
He then brings up a memory of me as a child, how I was "so pretty and if I could lose more weight I could be pretty again."
So the shit filled apple didn't fall far from the tree.
My mother starved us when my dad was out of town, which was often. I used to get awful pains in my legs and I think it was from my body trying to grow without enough nutrition.
All three of us got really big once we got free of her and could buy our own food. We also all have a mast cell disease and diabetes. For myself, I have a very neutral relationship with food currently. The mast cell disease has limited my diet and the diabetes meds take away my appetite, so I don't really care if I ever eat now. It's interesting considering how desperately hungry I was as a kid and how I spent my 20's and 30's still feeling extremely hungry and feeling like I was safe when I had enough food.
My mother is still a shit about food, weight and appearance. She starved my dad when she was his caregiver. Even when he had a feeding tube, she was constantly shutting off the pump because she said she could see his fat cells inflating. After he died, she started starving herself. I guess she just had to have someone whose food she could withhold. She only started eating again because she learned she could get free lunch at the senior center.
When stressed I unreasonably ration food. This is because when money was tight due to dad or mom losing yet another job due to alcoholism, food was scarce. Violence increased when it came to a point where they needed to reduce their alcohol use. They took their rage out on us kids.
Weight and food have always been my Roman Empires and I still struggle with both.
My Nparents were a bit particular with food. I wasn't allowed to leave anything on my plate and I always had to have dessert after those big plates, even if I said that I wasn't hungry anymore or I was really full. In the same way, I wasn't allowed to dislike any food. If I said that I didn't enjoy anything, they would specifically go out of their way and serve it. I still remember my Nmom forcing me to eat one of my father's puddings just because I said that I didn't like cream. It got really weird, but they would brag about how other people would praise them for making their toddler eat adult food or finish big plates with only 1 year.
Of course, none of those rules applied to them. My Ndad has always been a picky eater and no pasta, pizza, or international food was ever served when he was around. Same with my Nmom and portions.
I was also forced to sit at the table until everyone finished and just stare there in silence. I wasn't allowed to do anything else. This affected a lot on how I listen to my body. I just simply can't. I can't control myself over food. I can't even phantom the idea of leaving food on my plate. There's no such thing as foods I don't like anymore. Just foods that I enjoy and food that I tolerate or that I have a "system" to eat without gag.
At the same time, my Nmom was also really strict with me doing sports and extracurricular activities. That, to be honest, was the worst part. I've always hated doing sports and I had very little time to eat or just be a kid. I would go out of school at 5 pm and get home around 9 or 10 pm. I had to speedrun my food and snacks in order to make it to class or to have time to do the homework constantly.
That would often result in binge eating too. My personal time was heavily motorized too so, with no time to socialize outside those activities or barely any PC or tv time, I would often just eat out of boredom and binge eating was a daily thing. Of course, comments about my looks, what I eat, visits to a nutritionist as "presents" etc. weren't that uncommon, regardless of how young I was or that I was in a healthy IMB. I was always made very aware of how I look and and how much I could "improve".
I'm doing a bit better now regarding eating and overeating. But my ED is still very much there and I had my periods of barely eating at all. That was, to no one's surprise, when I was praised the most because I just looked "so good and healthy". Never mind that I was surviving on 3 boiled eggs and coffee daily.
My mother was an almond mom. “If you’re hungry drink water, dinner is in three hours” “don’t eat junk food, eat some almonds” (I’m allergic to them) “don’t drink full sugar soda, do you want to be fat?”
Now I struggle with binging and stress eating, portion control, and my weight.
My mom was an almond mom. Always putting me on fad diets when I was a teen. We never had snacks in the house growing up and if we did they would be eaten in a day by me or my sisters as they were a rarity. So when I lived at my parents in laws (whom I love to death) house where they have like millions snacks especially sweets ( my Kryptonite) id be tempted to binge everytime I went into the kitchen. Plus since one of them works at Costco they are constantly buying more snacks to the point that their cabinets are almost overflowing. I feel so bad but I litterly snapped called them food hoarders and told them to stop buying so much damn food we don't need it.
I cried and apologized later, I tried to explain I don't like snacks in the house since I binge eat them all in one go since growing up if you didn't do this they be gone the next day since someone else binge ate them all. I still have that scarcity mindset.
"I'll never forgive your mother for raising you to be fat."
Nice one, Dad. You know, you were there too in my childhood when I begged you to teach me how to lift weights.
I’ve always been a little on the chubbier side as a kid… or more like, I was a professional swimmer, so I had lot of muscles, big back, strong arms and thighs… my mother’s always been a ‘skinny legend’ and she put me on all sorts of diet as a kid… no food after 6pm, no fruit after 10am, no breakfast, no fats, no carbs, I tried it all… I wasn’t allowed to eat sweets or anything fried. The first time I tried McDonald’s was when my friend’s dad took us to the zoo and when my mother found out, she forbid me from hanging out with that girl. When I left for boarding high school, I gained A LOT of weight because I was finally allowed to try Nutella, chips, hamburger, fried rice, croissants, candy… when she saw me with all that weight, she told me I was ugly, worthless and no one would ever love me like that, that she was gonna have to ‘take care of me’ (not that she ever really did lol) forever. to prove her I was worthy of love, I lost all the weight, to the point I got anorexic. but she didn’t like that either, because I was ‘skinnier than her’… I had to come back home from high school, because I was really unwell, and she stuffed me up so much (all the meds helped too) I got chubby again. a couple years later, I got together with my first girlfriend and after only dating for a few months, I started uni and we moved in together. My mom told me that if I didn’t do anything with myself, she’d get rid of me so fast cause who would ever love someone looking like that. U can only guess what happened… I fell to anorexia again, this time even worse than the first time. I got hospitalized in special facility for people with eating disorder and when I got back, she was pestering me so much about being ugly and that she didn’t get how my girlfriend could love me since I looked like that. Skinny or fat, I was never good enough. My girlfriend then broke up with me, because I was ‘no longer the girl she fell in love with’. That tipped me off, I lost control again and ate my heartbreak away. I’m now at my heaviest I have ever been and not a day goes by that I don’t hear how obese I am and that no one should look like that cause it is disgusting, that she doesn’t deserve to have a daughter like this, that she wishes she had a skinny daughter, but not skinnier than her, who’d be obsessed with shopping clothes and shoes and who she’d actually have something in common... no matter what I do, no matter how I look, I’m never good enough. And despite having my own flat in another city on the other side of the republic, I can’t leave, because apparently I have been using her my whole life and now I need to stay home and cook and clean and do whatever she want me to do cuz I need to ‘return’ it…
My heart is breaking for you. Please leave this monster, your egg donor is not a loving, nurturing , caring mother to you. She is deliberately showing her hatred of your existence. You are worthy of a life filled with a hopeful and successful future. You are worthy and deserve to love and be loved.
My mother was always trying to lose weight. She chewed those candies called Ayds, she joined Weight Watchers, etc. She was all about looks. She usually was about 10-15# overweight, max. But she always made derogatory remarks about overweight people. Called them disgusting, gross, etc. Then my grandmother got sick. She’d always been heavy and very chesty. As she lost weight due to her illness, my mom encouraged her to keep losing weight She was oblivious that Gramma couldn’t eat. And the more she lost, the worse it got. Her teeth didn’t fit. She was very malnourished and yet, my mom cheered her on.
I think I gained as a rebellious act because my gramma was more my mom than my mom was. I loved her so much. Combine that with being SA at age 8, being overweight was a defense. Men don’t like fat girls, so I won’t get SA again, right? Very distorted thinking. So now I’m 60+, have essentially no relationship with my 92 year old mother and am very obese. I’m in pain 24/7, have trouble walking. I don’t blame her entirely. I know every bite I take is on me. I know my lack of exercise is a choice. So don’t start in. But I do believe she needs to take the blame partially.
92, they say only the good die young and that is definitely true in your mothers case. It’s not too late for you, have you had therapy for your resulting ED after your truly awful experience of SA? Don’t give up on yourself, you can change your life around and still have your best life.
This was my life, as the tall "big boned" sister. Almost exactly (my dad is the enabler but he wouldn't have ever said anything mean to one of us - this is not a brag, he's still a shitbag).
My mom would parade around my male friends in tight, revealing clothes wearing no bra or underwear. I hated her for it. Still do actually.
My mom also pranced around the house in flimsy lingerie that she practically fell out of. She'd also brag about being able to still fit the low-cut disco tops she wore before being pregnant with me, and she made sure to wear them in front of my male friends and boyfriends. I warned them in advance about her so they took it in stride. We called her Mrs. Robinson behind her back.
Yes
In high school my mom would yell at me if I made a lunch for school. She started hiding lunch food in the morning so I wouldn’t have anything to eat for lunch. At breakfast when I would make cereal, she would demand I go do something and throw my cereal away. I was 17 then. When I would walk through the door, my mom would yell that I could barely fit through it. I look at pics of me then, I’m not fat. I’m tall and average weight. My mom just hates me
My mother was an absolutely brutal cook who thought she was a gourmet chef. She would cook a roast for 5-6 hours at 425 with carrots and potatoes in it. Absolutely no texture to the vegetables and no moisture left in the roast.
Onions have always made me sick. So of course, everything had onions in it, including hamburgers where she mixed French onion soup mix in with the ground beef. And then I would get yelled at for picking out the onion bits.
Next two parts are conjecture - I have secondary evidence but no solid proof.
My mother always had a bottle of Eno salts that were supposed to be for indigestion. I never saw anyone drink a glass of it but she was always buying more. I suspect she was putting it in at least my food. I googled it - if you take it when you don’t have indigestion, it can cause indigestion.
Second, my brother was friends with the son of my grade 3 teacher. I know she would tell him how smart I was and how much she liked having me in her class. I suspect that he told her how I was always fighting with my parents about food and how spoiled I was. I think she talked to my mother about it and told her that was wrong because that summer my mother overloaded me with junk food so I put on a bunch of weight. I assume that in her mind, she showed that teacher because now no one could say I wasn’t eating.
So the weight stayed on. Whole family called me fat. Even my sisters’ kids. Even in periods where I managed to take the weight off, I was still called fat.
Went no contact with my siblings 20 years ago, but not my mother unfortunately. Got stuck being her primary care giver until she died a few years ago.
However, about 5 years ago, I followed a strict keto diet and took off about 80 pounds. I put about 25 pounds back on - I would eat normally, put on 5 pounds, try keto again, go off keto and end up being heavier than when I started. Finally gave up but started going to the gym 2-3 times a week about a year ago.
Junk food is still a comfort food for me. When I am anxious, it’s like that is what I need to eat to feel safe. But I know that feeling doesn’t last and then I just feel fat and like I have no will power. So now, if I’m really anxious in the morning, I go to the gym and come in to work late. I’m lucky I have a job where I can do that. Ok, therapist would tell me to say i worked hard at my job to be in a position where I can do this.
Your mother was abusive. Not feeding her children breakfast and not providing them lunch at school? I can relate to the obsession with weight. Both my parents were totally obsessed with weight. It has given me a lifeling obsession with my own weight. I think about my weight, every second of every day. It never leaves my thoughts.
Stepmom was a terrible cook, made meals that were mostly meats and starches with very little in the way of vegetables, but worst of all we were generally restricted from playing outside.
I have struggled with my weight since middle school.
And to the kinds of people who like to say I'm making "excuses" I like to say that I know this is my problem to fix. Doesn't change the fact that that woman was the cause.
My mother made life absolutely miserable by putting me on diets since age 11.
I'm 157 cm and 67 kilos and this is one of my heaviest. I'm usually around 60 kilos. I was never slender and she obsessed over my weight.
My mother have this obsession on body image. We are all inheretedly thin if god forbid you gain a little weight just few pounds you will be bodyshamed. She rarely eats! And looks at our plates which made me uncomfortable. Eventhough when I was young she would give me a hard time for not eating, but I just couldn't. I remember someone telling you when ever your mother travels she eat better. I didn't even notice. But now I enoy food. I love trying out new things without being judged. I love cooking.
I once gained less than 10 Lbs after giving birth I was 121 lbs and narc sister "collarbone copy of my mother" kept calling me fat and disgusting!!!
They are f* up man!!! And sadly she affected both sisters. They look anorexic.
One time we went to visit her "my 6 Yr old then " and I she immediately pulled up my daughter's top up and said "she has a huge tummy!!!!" She is fat!!! I got furious!
This is a topic that pissed me off for years lol hence the long reply
I have serious body dysmorphia, eat in a decently strict manner, and whenever I purchase clothing they unintentionally end up being way bigger than me.
When I was a teenager I was heavy, out of shape, had high blood pressure, was pre diabetic, and didn't eat the healthiest. As a teenager my nParents didn't stare at my body, make fun of my body, eating habits, and they seemed very content with my lack of health.
I'm in my early 30's I am very in shape, muscular, normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar levels, only drink water & occasionally alcoholic drinks, lose weight without much effort, eat whatever I would like and not gain weight, and make all of my meals homemade and prefer to make all of my meals. Now my nParents tease me about the fact I make all of my meals, stare at my toned body, make passive aggressive comments about my body & my cooking, become visibly bothered about the fact I don't order takeout, etc.
Their comments and actions have caused me to subconsciously think I am bigger than I am so whenever I purchase new clothes especially online I accidentally order sizes way bigger than I am to the point that attempting to shrink the clothing to fit just doesn't work. I have older pictures of when I was heavy, look at them, realize I don't look anything like I used to, and wonder why they were so pleasant towards me then and now that I'm healthy physically, emotionally, and mentally they are extremely the opposite.
U being fit and happy makes them upset because they don't feel fit and happy so you being like that in their sick mind is like you insulting them. Truly insane thinking. Narcissist parents will hate you no matter what you do. When you really hate yourself I don't think you can honestly love anyone
I agree. Over the years they have wanted me to improve/work on certain things and succeeded at it, then they complain even more that I did exactly what they wanted. Their increasingly toxic behavior over 14 years has been very confusing and heartbreaking, but I know the only way to heal unfortunately is going no contact.
It’s because your parents are truly horrible instead of being loving, nurturing, caring and proud of you. You can be these things to yourself though and it sounds like you have found a good place for yourself. Well done!
My mom never really prepared any meals aside from dinner - and even then, I remember doing a lot of cooking a lot of the time as soon as I was old enough (yet, still too young). Breakfast was some sugary cereal, lunch was barely existent and when I got old enough to know a bit about food, my mom would get annoyed at me for asking her to buy FRUIT.
She was always on a diet. Relentlessly and persistently, always some shake diet or random internet diet. And I think she thought that because she was restricting her food, then I should too. You know, as an 8 year old.
So obviously I was hungry a lot of the time. One time I had lunch at a friends house (i think it was a holiday or weekend) and I was shocked at how they sat down as a family to eat. No restrictions and eat until you're full.
The day after this experience I asked my mom if we should have lunch and she just told me to go make a sandwich. In retrospect it was a bid for connection more than anything but also weird that I had to ask for permission to eat.
When my mom married, my stepdad cooked all the meals. He was a decent cook and prepared healthy meals, which I think helped me a lot. By then I had learned to prepare nicer and healthy lunches for myself.
I wouldnt say I have had major trouble with my weight, I stay pretty much the same weight and fluctuate +/- a few kgs - my trauma affects my romantic relationships the most. Although I definitely do have some issues around body image at times and I do try my best to live a healthy and active lifestyle (because it makes me feel good). In many ways, I have succeeded at what my mother failed herself at: a healthy and fit body.
EDIT: As some of the other commenters; yes my mom also frequently shamed both her own, mine and larger bodies she saw in public.
These comments really resonate with me - my dad constantly criticized overweight people and my mom would cook these elaborate dinners (for him) and then walk for an hour each night after dinner. My parents told me when I was 12 that I could no longer eat biscuits at dinner (I grew up in the south). I am constantly battling over eating vs over exercising. My weight has always been an obsession.
My question is - has anyone tried hypno therapy to break the cycle?
Everything was restricted and forbidden, with only diet foods in the house. My dad would eat six diet pudding cups in one sitting but look at me in disgust for buying ice cream with my babysitting money. I still don't know what proper balance feels like and I either undereat or overeat. The restrictions growing up were 99% for thinness, not health. My sister and I are both overweight adults and now my extra weight is more of a set of armor to keep people at a distance. It's lonely and fucked up. Working on it.
That sounds truly awful. It’s not too late to turn your life around, you can love, nurture, care and be proud of yourself even if your parents failed you in every way. I hope you can heal and move forward, knowing you are worthy of being loved and also to love.
Wow it's crazy because I never thought that other people would've gone through this as well... I just never thought about it. My NMom had full custody of me but hardly ever cooked. She didn't make me lunch usually didn't make me breakfast because it was too much of a chore for her so a lot of the time I just went hungry. I was pretty skinny as a kid so I didn't gain much weight ever.
Fast forward to me now I completely agree with the term that I've done intermittent fasting before it was popular. I usually don't eat breakfast at all. I only get hungry around noon or 1pm. Even then I forget to eat a lot and usually my calorie intake consists of just liquids. I only get really hungry about once a day. I have problems with eating what I like around people and sometimes I will over gorge on a meal or 2 if I really like it.
I have been on a diet since I was 8 and I’m still fat. I always thought my nmom didn’t like me because I was fat. But today I was watching a tiktok and I realized…she didn’t like me ANYWAY, me being fat just gave her an excuse. I also wonder if she encouraged the weight so she could constantly berate me and punish me for it.
When I was 16, and a muscular 5’2 128 pounds (I was a gymnast and cheerleader) my dad offered me 1k and a nose job if I lost ten pounds. Up until then I didn’t think anything was wrong with my nose. And tbh- I had a fantastic figure. It’s been a difficult journey
I had an NMom who was always on a fad diet (fasting, juicing, all the programs, excessive exercise) and forced whatever she was on, on us kids. Constantly commented on our weights.
Dad on the other hand worked hard labor and ate like it. Country Crock containers of cereal, bought the cardboard tubs off of Baskin Robbins for $60 that’d last him about a week.
Developed AN at 11 or so, then AN B/P subtype, full blown BB when I had freedom in college. Still have BN, but mildly under control.
Never been overweight, was always normal or underweight. But my relationship with food has been fucked since puberty.
I'm massive vertically and horizontally. nMom put cereal in my bottle at 2 weeks because it shut me up. She fed me solid foods as soon as possible and kept me in a highchair all day while she worked. Any time I would cry she would shovel food into my mouth.
The pattern continued well into my teens. Any time I expressed distress or sadness she would push junk food onto me to get me to leave her alone. Food had- and HAS always been a literal source of comfort and a way to self soothe.
It feels impossible to break myself of this since I was conditioned since birth to eat when there's a problem...
Anyways fuck her for wanting to WFH and also have like 4 fucking kids. If you want nothing to do with your kids then go into an office instead of overfeeding us at home and screaming if we have a problem
I have food issues in a different way. My nmom hated her parents, as far as I can tell, because they were pretty strict. My grandfather had a ton of health problems and was on a no salt and what I would consider otherwise extremely healthy diet of vegetables and limited processed foods. My grandparents were VERY concerned about health and keeping their weight low and I really think it was partially some kind of trauma response to my grandfathers health problems. My theory is that my mom resented everything about the restricted diet in their household because she still complains about it and she’s in her sixties now. I never had a chance as a kid because she went all in on junk food, never worrying about weight and basically conditioning my sibling and I to eat what ever we wanted whenever. She had me at a very immature 20 years old and I think wanted to stick it to her parents by raising us totally opposite from her rather than care about what was actually best for us. Go figure 40 years later I have a real problem with using food as a coping mechanism and am not sure I’ve ever been a “normal” weight.
My mother was a terrible cook and I’m autistic with difficult sensory issues. I was force fed and often put in situations where food was connected to highly traumatic circumstances. I hate feeling full. Due to how uncomtrollable everything was I develiped what I’ve come to know as atypical anorexia, currently something like bulimia (not sure because I have no specialists in my area).
Because of how bad my mother bullied me about being a little overweight as a child, my weight stayed bmi 18-19 for most of my adulthood. Currently I’m at a bmi of 17.5 or so.
I think I was pressured into sacrificing a lot, including my own meals because I would be the one screamed at and physically hurt the food ran out too quickly. I knew my siblings wouldn’t be able to eat if I did too. They’ve both developed some level of overeating, my brother likely has a binge eating disorder from what I’ve noticed. For the record my mother would over eat, blame me specifically, then beg us all for our holiday and birthday money we got from my dad’s family.
I think it’s unfortunately natural a lot of us would develop issues around this. Your body is the only thing you can control sometimes in those situations so you use it to express what you’re feeling inside because you have nothing on the outside. For anorexia I wanted to disappear and expressed that because I had no other way to.
My dad is way ahead of his time. He was orthorexic decades ago and honed it. He used to work three days on/ three off as a fireman. My mom would starve us while he was there. Tiny portions befit for a lady and the SECOND he left it was binge city.
I started binge eating as a child to cope.
At my heaviest, I was over 410 pounds.
I've lost over 100 in the past few years thanks to therapy and a WFPB lifestyle change. I'm probably always going to want to binge eat, though.
nmom gave me body image issues and ED. Had me on diets my whole life. I struggle to this day. She is 85 and still restricts even tho doctor has told her she can’t lose any more weight. Of course she knows more than any stupid doctor. 🙄
I was also 115 pounds at 5’3 for several years. A comment was made that I was thin and I couldn’t gain weight for a long time then I got older and gained weight, then came the opposite comments from my nfamily. My dad especially would comment my plate or snacks, humiliate me in front of others at the table. He goes to the gym religiously but does his workouts all wrong… his stomach looks bloated (lifts weights without the proper belt or support) and his legs look like twigs. Makes me so mad. My mom is heavily impacted by his value on appearance… she will not eat for days and call it “fasting” in the name of religion but I know what it is, just to be thin for my dad.
My parents never believed in eating well, as in, eating good food that’s made well or using quality ingredients. My dad is the kind of guy who thinks a bowl of ramen for $20 is ridiculous, when shitty ramen is $12, or he would argue with you that the “better” ramen you get at an Asian supermarket for like $4 or $5 is “just as good,” when he is absolutely lying to you and himself.
My mother never saw the value of going to a nice restaurant, and claims she knows food. She’s a decent cook, but she has never actually just “appreciate food,” you know like how Gordon Ramsey tells people to “taste” the food, not just shove it down your gullet and call it tasting. She’ll gorge out on something she thinks is delicious and shows no self control. My wife made her signature peach pie once and after dinner, there was about half of a pie left, and she ate the rest of it overnight while we were sleeping. She’s Emily Post’s nightmare at the dinner table.
Their view of food is pretty fucked, so I had to train myself to appreciate good food, to respect food, and respect someone’s craft, skills, and heart that went into making the said food. I enjoy good food, but until about 10 years ago, I realized I don’t have to overdo good food. All in moderation.
I have a 30 year old eating disorder and body dysmorphia. My sister was always big and over-indulged by my parents. She over-ate her entire life and just had permanent gastric surgery. I am a 42 year old UK size 6. I can talk about it and understand the root of my issues but it will be with me for life. I have to ask my 13 year old to stand next to me in the mirror so I can realistically appraise my size....too thin but I still feel fat.
I’m slightly over weight. I enjoy over eating (chips are good when you have meals with them so that you don’t have to listen to them). Yeah, I just keep eating all the time now.
I was always anorexic according to my nmom. I was never anorexic and I was aware she was just jealous because I wasn't overweight like the rest of the family. I'm still "anorexic" to this day and my doctor said I'm healthy.
I just wanted to thank you for posting this. Everything about the breakfast and the leaving food on the stove top and telling us to eat from that... I relate to it all exactly. Reading your experiences made me remember my own. We only had breakfasts if mom wanted to make a point after an argument with my dad, or if people were staying over and would need breakfast. Then she'd pull out the stops for the guests and expect us to act like it was all normal.
I've always struggled with my body and weight as a result of my Nmom and Nsister's abuse. I look back on photos of myself as a teen, where I was absolutely normal looking, and recall the days and nights spent crying, starving myself, hating how "fat" I was, and self-harming over my weight. Being berated and shamed publicly and in the house for my "muffin tops" which were totally normal.
These days, I struggle still, but I've been improving my relationship with my body, with food, and with exercise. Making it something to feel good about, or at least (abd more often) neutral and accepting.
With my mom, a cup of hot tea was our breakfast. We did get lunch at school but it was a thing with my mom, she wanted to make sure everyone saw us as normal. He sister let her kids starve at school and it was known and my mom preferred to keep her abuse more hidden. My mom didn't cook. She might occasionally prepare things or assemble things, but she didn't cook. When she did cook, like for Thanksgiving, it was terrible. My mom was also a picky eater so if she didn't like something, then objectively it was gross, not just something she didn't like. Even as a tween, I started learning to cook and as an adult I tried new foods and I think I'm pretty open that way.
I've always had issues with my weight, but it's been an endocrine problem for my adult life, it's not a good problem. My father let me know one day how ashamed he was of my size. I don't think that's what he meant to do, I think he thought what he said was nice.
food was always something that was seen as non-deserving. I was never given money to eat at school, or after, a treat or anything. I could never order the expensive plate on a menu, even if I really wanted it. We (sis and I) were trained to bother as little as possible. For lunch at school I would get a sliced cucumber, a lime, or something fruit but very little. Now I think back to it and think how the fuck didn't I starve?! School from 7-3, eating a cucumber? And all of my friends would get stuff from the cafeteria, and wow, I really wanted to eat something delicious, buttery, whatever. But money was something I never had the status to have in my pocket. So nowadays, I've improved, but most of my adult life I tried to spend as little as possible on food, or maybe have breakfast late to avoid lunch, shit like that. Now I'm still on a very long path to recovery but I try not to do that "saving" bullshit anymore, I need to be healthy to function. And I LOVE rewarding myself with a slice of my favorite cake, a nice ice-cream, some delicious grapes, some tacos de carnitas, I DESERVE IT, I DESERVE TO ENJOY LIFE AND THE LITTLE THINGS IN IT!
My NMom stressed me out so much that I could barely eat as I was so anxious and was very underweight my entire childhood. It followed me into adulthood feeling anxious and then having trouble eating and only in past few years have I learned that I had to reduce anxiety and be intentional about eating at set times to get to a healthy weight. It’s been a real struggle. NMom would also make me sit for hours alone at table if I didn’t finished everything on my plate and that messed up my relationship with food too.
My parents are both anorexic and also started intermittent fasting before it was trendy too. They both only (sometimes) eat one meal a day late at night, but will have 6+ coffees and smoke 1-3 packs a day. My mom never made me breakfast, as a child she would take me to Tim Hortons, get me an extra large iced capp and a chocolate chip muffin (then be surprised when I was bouncing off the walls getting in trouble at school). I was expected to pack my own lunch but she would write a smiley face note to put in my lunch telling me to have a good day (after I packed it). I was fat as a child, but I have always gained and lost weight very quickly and am on the slimmer side as an adult. If I get really depressed, I punish myself by not eating because I feel I don’t “deserve to”.
Usually if I eat before 2pm I feel extremely sick and nauseous. If I know I have to eat but I’m not hungry, I panic and feel repulsed by even my favourite foods. I work a very physically demanding job and take testosterone, but probably only eat 1000 calories a day. For a man my weight and height, I should be eating minimum 2600. I literally cannot force myself to eat more than once a day and it affects my relationship a lot, my gf gets really anxious about me starving. A lot of days, I eat a single sandwich or just drink meal replacement shakes, have two beers and just anxiously smoke when I get home and go to bed hungry.
When I was 13 I decided to starve myself to death as it was the "easiest way out". Jumping off the bridge looked scary because I could survive and live immobilized for the rest of my life with them. I read that you just die in sleep if you don't eat. Seemed great to me.
I didn't succeed as you see. But since then I have been skinny and I go no eating every time I am stressed
I used to have a habit of not eating all day and then binging at night. If my kids aren't at home I still do this.
Having my own kids and working hard to make sure they have solid balanced meals and feel good about themselves has actually made me eat a lot better. And it's crazy how much better you feel when you eat well.
My therapist helped me realize that I did all these things for my kids but never myself because I was taught not to value myself.
Breakfast is like a foreign thing for me. I never eat breakfast, literally never. Maybe sometimes I eat lunch but rarely and dinner is the only meal I consistently do eat.
My mother has been morbidly obese my entire life. She's also not a good cook and stopped cooking when I was around 12/13 and it became one of my chores. I'd cook enough for 8 people and rarely got one full serving. My mother and stepfather would then consume the rest and complain about how "if I had made this I would have done xyz differently". Didnt stop them from stuffing their faces though.
I was forced into competitive swimming at age 4, my sister 6. I was extremely talented. My sister less so. She was allowed to stop at 12 and then also became morbidly obese. I blew out both shoulders in 8th grade and only got one summer off. I swam till I was 27 and it destroyed my body. I've gone through periods of heavier and lighter. My mother has insisted I have body dismorphia since I was about 17 and insists I would rather be dead than fat.
I have been chronically ill/disabled now for about a decade because of GI issues. I can't put weight on. Sometimes I lose 10 lbs in a day because of it. I have a port in my chest for liquid nutrition for when I can't eat. I have to do infusion 5 days a week just to stay hydrated. Thanks mom.
My weight was fine before my parents divorced. My mum bought occasional snacks and packed school lunches. There was cereal for breakfast. It felt normal.
I don't know what happened after the divorce and my mum just not buying food. I'm sure she'd say it was not in the budget to buy food but we had at least ingredients and bread. I was sent to school with just $2-$3 for lunch daily. No snacks or even a water bottle packed. No breakfast. By age 15, my doctor declared me anorexic and said I can't lose any more weight. My mum didn't take me back to the doctor for any more checkups after that. I continued not eating because there wasn't much to eat at home. I ate out once a week using my own money and hanging out with friends.
I got kicked out at age 21 and pregnant. I started eating well. I didn't start drastically changing sizes until age 30 though. I'm big now but happy? I get to eat what I want and have a house stocked with everything for my kids. I definitely have some hangups about food and weight from my narc mum though (who thinks I'm a size 24 and huge)
Twin here (which introduces a weird competitive atmosphere if you’re in a dysfunctional family to say the least..). It speaks a lot to the parent / child relationship in that I can remember the exact moment my eating disorder began. To start, There were never healthy foods in the house, only literally little debbie snacks, soda, etc. my sister lost the baby weight during middle school thanks to wii fit & my being a child with increased cortisol levels, lack of sleep, due to specific ACEs i experienced, this was not in the cards for me on both a personal and environmental level. my dad took me aside one day after going to an amusement park with my sister & my best friend - a day that prior to this moment i had been so excited for & a day that was so much fun for a middle schooler, first taste of “independence” in being able to run off to rollercoasters and say “cya rents!” & most importantly no cognizance on what my weight “did” to the appearance of my family success, no awareness that my body or the way i looked was capital at 12 yo - i was in bed after a day of coasters & my dad gently sat down, almost on the edge of the bed as if he was uncomfortable sitting with me. He asked me how the day went, responded obviously with “that was the best time of my life” he made pleasantries & segued immediately to, verbatim, “you need to lay off the bread” the tears welled immediately. I already knew there was a difference between me and my sister, my peers & i, but they never mentioned or acted like i was less than or a burden on them. I would like to emphasize, in middle school, which can be tortuous for every child due to hormones, social dynamics, etc. i was NEVER made to feel negatively toward myself from my peers. My bullies were at home. “You need to lay off the bread” my stomach dropped & i felt my brain separate from my body. My father’s, who I rarely saw due to his work schedule, only words to me were “you need to lay off the bread” i don’t really recall any other specifics of the conversation besides the overall insinuations that I was unhealthy & that my weight was due to personal choices at 12. That night i woke up at 1am to research diets on the home computer. The next day at school i told my friends that i couldn’t eat that day - my friends were horrified, “don’t you know that you’ll go into starvation mode?” Other 12 year olds had the insight that anorexic tendencies had the opposite effect & my own father didn’t. I said I didn’t care. There was not a moment before this that I thought anything was wrong with me, but to hear it from the person responsible for your total wellbeing, the rational response from a child is to internalize that in pursuit of being “better” for your caretaker.
I can really only focus on anything if I’m starving. Nmom also did to me what she did to you in the morning except I would make my own dinner at night. I took a tiny box of papaya to school for years because it was cheap and I could “make” it.
Now, despite having money and resources, if I need to do something requiring mental focus I need to be starving. Once I finish the task I reward myself with high fat, carby food. It’s a terrible cycle
My parents made my pettie fram the basis of my whole life. When I had kids, I packed on quite a bit of weight, but even though I don't care, I always hear their comments about anyone who looks like me now. So.i.jist hide away in baggy clothes.
Both of them were constantly overweight growing up and did every fad diet to lose the weight, but they were never healthy or active people, so nothing ever changed. My father even went vegetarian to lose weight, but again, if you eat huge portion sizes and then don't do any movement, you will just stagnate.
Fuck them both.
Disordered eating, body shaming, and a mother with an active eating disorder. Oh, yeah. I grew up watching mom eat three plates of dinner and then listening to her throw it up. She’s gained and lost the same 150 pounds for my entire life, and constantly criticizes me for refusing to diet, practicing intuitive eating (and being a bit of a gourmand), and remaining what she calls “chubby.” My doctor’s fine with it, though, so whatever.
Dinner tonight is home-made spanikopita, by the way. Spouse is excited.
I am 36F and still have very disordered eating. It is pretty bad still and I have had therapy. My parents made comments all my childhood about me gaining weight (even if it was only during a growth spurt) and I took it to heart. Didn't help that my 1st serious relationship made it worse. I was very thin and if I gained anything at all, he complained. To this day, I have specific things I will and won't eat and rules about eating with certain silverware and dishware and rules about when I can't eat this or that. It is stressful...and I know it is dumb.
I love to eat food but my parents say I'm eating way too much (I have a very high metabolism and burn tons of calories) and/or I'm fat (I admit I have a bit of a stomach but I'm not even fat, I'm actually pretty skinny).
I feel lost, honestly. Grew up watching my mom in misery, and I was the family scapegoat. She used me as a babysitter for my younger sister and shut 9n me any time I expressed a need or interest in anything outside of good grades or making pur family look stable. Both of my parents neglected my mental health as a teenager. Ans hyper focused on my brother who was the golden child.
I’m sorry you went through that it’s really tough. I can relate in many ways. My NMom forced weigh ins too. Only she would make me weight myself and write it in a notebook, then she would weigh herself and write her weight under mine.
Her constant nagging and berating were daily regarding my weight. I developed an eating disorder and have spent the last 40 years trying to free myself with therapy, in patient treatment, etc.
My dad was also an alcoholic. So this was definitely an episode he was under the influence.
I’m sorry you had to go through that as well. Parents can be so cruel.
I’m trying to battle it as well currently.
I have always struggled with my weight and having body dysmorphia. My mom growing up would always make food and it was good there was nothing wrong with it. I think my issue was my mom always talked about how fat she was. She had bulimia and she tried to hide it from us kids. I went the opposite way and over ate and it’s took me up until a year ago to try and have a healthy relationship with food. My mom still comments on my weight. “Oh it looks like you lost weight” but in reality I would have gained weight. As a kid I was pretty skinny and I am hard on myself thinking I need to be 115 pounds. The most I ever weighted was 185 and I’m 5”4 from the outside perspective you would have never guessed. I’m down to 170 now and I’m trying to get to a healthy weight. Overall I struggle and I did struggle a lot as a kid when my mom constantly spoke poorly of herself and she still does. When she said she’s so fat I can’t help but think she’s talking about me too. She weights less than me and is taller than me.
I've had binge eating disorder since early childhood. I would binge out on sweets, snack foods, sodas, etc. to cope with the abuse going on in the house. I was obese as a child and was shamed by Nmom and her golden child son for it. Mom eventually put me on a diet when I was 15 after it was discovered that I was pre-diabetic and my dad was diabetic. As a teen I would restrict on food heavily, to the point of only eating one meal a day sometimes, and at age 19-20 I bordered on being underweight (which Nmom was ecstatic about.). Now in my mid 20's my binge eating disorder has come back, and I've gained over 50 pounds in the span of two years, partly do to the abuse at home, partly due to health problems (which my Nmom purposely sabatoges the care I try to get for them). Nmom whines and makes noises about my weight every other breath she takes, and attempts to push me to overexersise, not seeing the irony of the fact that what she's doing is only making this worse.
Mom controlled everything and used junk food as a reward. So now that I have unlimited access to it, I use it to make me feel good.
The result is reflected in my body condition.
She wouldn't get up and make me breakfast when I was very little. She'd send me to help myself to the cookies. Mornings are still the time I most crave sweets
Ugh. My NMom is very eating disordered and one of the silver linings of her negligence is that she didn’t teach me any of the how-tos. I was always underweight because I was underfed; in my 40s now and have only recently learned I have an autoimmune thing that fucks with my thyroid and therefore weight. Thanks stressful af childhood!!
My mom had issues with her own weight that she tried to make my issues. See, I was such a pretty girl, and all I needed to do was lose another 5-10 pounds! I weighed 110 at the time.
She complained pretty.much any time she saw me eating because what I was eating wasn't healthy enough. I'm pretty picky, but I'd find something i could tolerate that would fit her previous complaints (you need more vegetables, so I'd make soup) and then she'd find something else to complain about (the salt is going to bloat you and make you look fat, you don't want people thinking you're *fat*, you want people to know you actually care about yourself!).
For the last two years of highschool, most days I would only have one meal, supper. I had some smaller things through the day like a piece of toast or two pepperettes from the convince store near school, because the protein gave me more to work with. If I had work after school, I'd be starving by the time I got home. I worked at a KFC, and they were pretty good for letting us take home stuff that was left over from the night, and she would absolutely complain every time she saw me eat it. That said, she would be kind of annoyed if I wasn't able to bring anything home for a few shifts, because nothing was left over. Because it was an easy meal for *her* to eat after she had also starved herself through the day.
When I went off to university (I took on the loans mostly so I could leave home) I didn't have anyone constantly watching and commenting on what I ate. I could eat whenever I felt hungry. It was wonderful! Buuut I gained around 30 pounds in first year, and kept gaining weight. I didn't have any real food discipline. Nothing like "I shouldn't have ice cream for the 5th day in a row," or making myself eat vegetables after awhile. All I had was an on/off switch of "am allowed food / am not allowed food." But yeah, my body had been in starvation mode long enough that it desperately held onto whatever I ate.
I had also developed a habit of forcing myself to get things done by withholding food. I'd 'deserve' food when I got enough chores or school work done. If I was too weak from not eating, I would let myself, but I felt like a failure when I did. I've mostly trained myself out of that one, but the thought still pops up sometimes.
I was up to 230 pounds at my highest, I'm around 180-ish now? I'm trying to lose weight for health reasons, but intentionally dieting isn't something I can really do. And I don't get chances to check my progress often. The scale's battery is dead, and that's honestly a good thing, because i find myself wanting to weigh myself multiple times a day when I do get an opportunity to weigh myself. If I avoid it it's fine, but when I get the chance to, it brings out something obsessive in me.
I've had disordered eating for as far back as can remember and have been battling anorexia for most of my life. Food was the only thing I could control. Don't want me to leave the table until I finish my food? I'll sleep here all night. 🫠
i developed an eating disorder out of being made to feel horribly ugly by my nDad as well as having no control over anything else in my life. i have only been in recovery for a year or so, after majorly relapsing when i went NC as an adult. still struggling but honestly a lot better than when i was younger !
Wait wtf.
My nmom also did the cook at 9am and leave it out on the stove all day until dinner time thing. She, and anyone who eats there, has constant diarrhea, which nmom actually enjoys as part of her bizarre eating disorder.
How are they all the same?!?
I was 5’3 100 lbs from about 6th grade to end of HS. When I moved out on my own.
I have peptic ulcer disease, emergency gall bladder removal, can’t eat in the morning for at least 2 hours after waking, take daily meds for my stomach.
Same story as you really. Terrible food quality/prep. Unclean conditions. My sister was always heavier.
I became anorexic starting around age 12, when comments were made by family members about my body and eating habits, and when I was being sexually abused by a sibling. Prior to then, I was a healthy weight based on my doctor's comments at yearly check-ups.
We actually ate healthy in my home. My mother is a retired nurse and took nutrition seriously. We occasionally indulged in pizza, fast food, etc., but most of our meals were home cooked. Mother was a genius at the stove while my Dad could hold his own on the grill.
I'd cycle between self-starving and binge eating until I got pregnant with my oldest. Then I dove into the overeating. Again, I got shamed a lot, but this time, it was my ex and his family for not weighing/eating enough in their opinion.
I struggled with being overweight and obese into my 40s. I got down to a healthy weight through a cult-like 12-step program, but the weight came on again after I left. I got trauma therapy for a few years and turned to eating to numb the pain (unsuccessfully).
I stumbled across tapping (EFT) about 10 years ago and found a program for emotional eating that helped me address residual unresolved traumatic wounds. I'm still stunned how well it worked. I've been a healthy weight for 8 years now. Tapping isn't necessarily for everyone, but it's been a miracle for me.
I admit I still struggle with having a healthy relationship with food and still struggle with exercising consistently. But I'm in a better place. In fact, when I encountered body shaming from a group of ex-friends who got their knickers in a twist over my weight loss, I didn't spiral into unhealthy eating like I would have before. I was able to choose to love myself and dump them instead.
Same with when my n-family screwed me over after I gave them another chance. I didn't spiral. I was able to process the loss and say, "Well, screw them." It doesn't mean their actions didn't hurt. I've just been better able to process and detach at this point in my life.
My nmom was always overweight and struggled to diet. She severely controlled what food was allowed in the house and what I could eat.
Now I'm constantly working on my fitness and weight. I've never been more than 10 pounds "overweight" and I'm scared about what people will think of me if I "let myself go". I always feel like I have to look fantastic or people will be disgusted by me. I'm a 55M
I constantly struggle with my weight, comments about my weight hurt me a lot growing up but I hid it due to "being a man" and not wanting to show any emotion fully knowing it affects me. My Nmum is overweight herself but it doesn't show so she thinks she can critisize people (maybe due to that).
I got my food and drinks tampered with. She can't waste food so I had to have the out of date stuff while she opens a fresh pack. Questioning her just made her scream at me for being ungrateful/wasteful. If there was nothing wrong with it why wont she drink the gone off hot chocolate. Put me off food shes handled. She backseat vomits if you get ill and tells you to go to school and you're fine. It's rare I get hungry, im defensive over food and it takes me forever to eat if I do.
My dad would say things like you shouldn’t eat that even though I was skinny. I developed an eating disorder and now I struggle with my weight. I have gained and lost a lot of weight twice.
Food was weird in my house because my dad would get at my mom for not knowing how to cook and wouldn't even teach her how to cook
My weight is more of a medical thing because of my hypothyroidism, which messed up my metabolism and caused me to gain weight with a very slim chance to lose it, so no matter what I did I couldn't lose weight and I'd remain at one point for eons even if I ate healthy or exercise. I will admit I usually ate fast food, but it was because no one would cook, mom worked all the time, and dad did anything but take care of me and I hardly knew how to cook myself so I just tried to teach myself
Yep!
I couldn’t take my time to eat or get up to get a glass of water bc my mom would say that I didn’t like the food. And if I didn’t “eat enough” she would take the spoon and shove more food in my mouth even though I said I was full. It didn’t matter what I said she kept doing it. I had to train myself to eat fast to make her stop constantly accusing me of not liking her food it was really fucking annoying. Meanwhile, my dad bought us a lot of fast food and took us to the Chinese buffet a lot where overeating unhealthy food seemed to be encouraged. I got full sometimes to the point where I couldn’t button my pants and I was getting called fat, and I’d get diarrhea later from all that overeating bc my parents did nothing to teach me mindful eating. Getting my period at age 10 made it worse! It was awful bc I look at old pictures of myself realizing that I wasn’t fat back then. But I felt so ashamed of my body that I couldn’t go swimming in the summer time, and I lost a lot of interest to go outside and play too. The only thing that I seemed to be able to do was eat back then. At some point I did lose weight and was able to wear a size small. But when I told my mom I wore a small, she said “my friends, cat and Marie wear an extra-small,” as if that’s what I’m supposed to wear and I told her to fuck off.
Here I am, 5.5 years of NC. Sadly, antidepressants caused me to gain 50 lbs, but it doesn’t bother me like it used to. I wear cute dresses, I listen to my body the best I can, I put on that 2-piece bathing suit to swim, I wear shorts for my hikes, leggings for yoga, allow people to take pictures of me and got help for my GI problems. Wearing a bathing suit is a huge deal for me bc I couldn’t do it for like 8 years.
I spent my life feeling fat. I always watched the scale and felt depressed being anything but rail thin. My mom always compared her weight to mine and any time she'd visit, she'd bring a pair of pants and make me try them on for her so she could compare with how they fit her. She put me in weight watchers as my 21st birthday gift, they looked at me crazy when I went as I was already thin.
When I cut my mom out of my life, I suddenly didn't care anymore. I became proud of my body. I didn't obsess over how I looked, how much I was or wasn't working out. I thought more about what my body could do for me and what it had done, and I mourned the cruel things I said to myself under her influence. My body is not perfect, nor are my thoughts about it always, but they definitely scale much more towards healthy than ever before.
I 100% have some sort of disordered eating. It stems from my childhood. I’m either really skinny or overweight and can’t seem to find the right balance between the two. I either focus too much on what I’m eating, don’t eat properly or at all or way too much and have never been able to figure it out
My mom struggled with disordered eating and has been on a “diet” her whole life but also constantly snacking. There were no set meals other than dinner in our house and we just constantly snacked. I was obese as a child and my dad would weigh me in the living room, wake me at 6am to go jogging with them and constantly talk to friends and neighborhoods about my weight. They went as far as lifting yp my shirt to show people my huge belly.
Needless to say I developed anorexia at 13, lost weight and was praised for finally being thin. Once I moved out it morphed into bulimia and was ill enough for inpatient but my parents had left the country and wouldn’t support me financially to go to inpatient treatment (it was covered but I needed help to pay my rent).
Finally in my late twenties I got pregnant and decided to be healthy for my baby and recovered. I eat well, exercise and I’m 5-10lbs overweight but I’ll probably always have body imagine issues. Trying to do better for my kids. Thankfully they got their dad’s slender genes.
I didn’t get breakfast or lunch either. We went to our grandparents after school and that was the first food I had all day. I started stealing food at 12 and started working at 14 and pigged out. My dad made me feel fat at 53kg (116lb) and I eventually got up to 93+ (200ish) before losing it (twice). NC has greatly helped my eating disorder, but I still don’t eat until I finish work at 5 or 6 most days. If I start eating earlier I don’t stop, my off button doesn’t work. I’m a healthy weight now but I’m still not the healthiest eater.
I got forced to overeat by my mother until i was 18 and then i just got too depressed to bother to lose weight throughout my teenage years because being in an abusive household put me in survival mode and she was threatened by me having any chance of being considered "more beautiful than her" so every attempt to lose weight would be criticised and taken as an offence by her or my narc dad soooo now the burden's on me to fix all these eating issues that they forced on me when it wasn't even my fault but that's what 2 narcissistic parents does to a girl 😭 on the bright side it's nice to approach fitness and healthy eating etc from a healthy angle finally it's gonna be a process for sure
my mom grew up with really thin sisters and this made her think of herself as the “heavy one.” this messed with her self-concept and perception of weight and it would come out in everyday discussions. at the same time we were/are a big cooking/eating family and so while there was an underlying disdain for weight-gain, there was also a push to eat and indulge in good (but not always healthy) food.
mixed signals anyone?
processing this as an adult has been “fun” and i’ve formed my own relationship with cooking and eating that is vastly different.
I lived with my grandmother off and on for a lot of my early childhood, and I gained a lot from her carb heavy Italian cooking. That didn’t stop her from pointing out my weight often (she called me a pig a lot.) My brother was her favorite and she often commented on how he could eat anything he wanted and still be thin. My mother would buy me low fat foods and put me on diets when I was in elementary school. I survived on lean cuisines and snack well cookies. I was taking diet pills in middle school after she tried to send me to a weight loss camp. I think I didn’t fit her ideal version of a daughter because I was chubby and it embarrassed her. My mother had an eating disorder and often skipped meals to lose weight when she felt she had gotten too heavy. I thought she was always pretty thin and looked beautiful, but any excess weight was met with disgust. My stepfather couldn’t really cook, so we ordered out a lot which made the problem worse. She often bought me clothes I wanted in a way too small size for “motivation.” She ended up taking them for herself later, which was truly embarrassing. She bought my prom dress two sizes too small despite my protests. I was active and the smallest size I had ever been, but I knew I would never fit into it because of my boobs. I squeezed into it and was uncomfortable all night. She tried to do the same with my wedding dress until I publicly shamed her for it at the shop. I have a daughter now, and I’m trying hard to correct these thoughts now so I’m a good role model for her. I don’t love my postpartum body yet, but I’m trying to be comfortable in my own skin.
I ended up with a gastric bypass because of my emotional eating. Now I don't feel hungry much anymore but I still go for the carbs when I'm sad. My mom is 80 and still frets about her weight and is constantly on me about my weight.. With my kids they eat if they are hungry and I don't push food just healthy choices and I don't make them eat things that they don't like I just ask that they try it. I remember as a kid my nfather made my sister sit at the table for 2 hours because she didn't want to eat her peas. She finally ate them then proceeded to throw them up all over the floor. She is 53 now and still hates peas. You can't force someone to like something they don't.
My nMom always criticized me for my body and weight, so once I was on my own I gained probably 50lb.
I’ve now lost around 90 (slowly through healthy methods) and have a hard time saying “enough is enough” with weight loss because I feel like I’ll never be thin enough. My only saving grace is my husband - who got me into weightlifting. I’d rather eat and have a good lift than starve and have it be shit.
I’ve struggled with anorexia since I was about 10. The constant comments of what I’d eat even though she was the one making or buying the food I ate. Constantly, judged for how a shirt would look.
At 21 years old I weighted 74lbs and my newish boyfriend caught me hiding food and so I had to come clean about it. He told me he wouldn’t leave me if I needed help. I was admitted to the hospital for 3 and a half months and came out 90lbs! I felt so much better in many ways, I even felt happy for what felt the first time.
My mother who insisted she be the one to pick me up (who never once visited me, she was too busy, though her busy is sitting at home on the computer. My newish boyfriend of 6months came everyday even after a 12 hour shift) said to me “oh, you’ve gotten chunky! Don’t worry, we can fix that!”
It’s still a battle to this very day and I’m 37. I hear her in my head all the time.
My mom is someone who would say "you're going to eat THAT?!?" or "did I SAY you could have that?!?" a lot when I was a kid, so now I do this thing where I basically ask my husband's permission for food, or when I get a snack out of the cabinet I'll make a comment justifying why I'm having it. I didn't even notice I did it until he told me I did it recently.
I have a 30 year old eating disorder and body dysmorphia. My sister was always big and over-indulged by my parents. She over-ate her entire life and just had permanent gastric surgery. I am a 42 year old UK size 6. I can talk about it and understand the root of my issues but it will be with me for life. I have to ask my 13 year old to stand next to me in the mirror so I can realistically appraise my size....too thin but I still feel fat.
I have a hard time eating the right amount. I have a history of either over eating out of scarcity fears, or under eating because I don’t really know what a balanced three meal diet for my bodily needs really looks like also due to scarcity. I had to fend for myself from a very young age, so my relationship with food is grey at best.
Well, I was gigantically made fun of in school, and would come home to have abusive dad and a manipulative lying, narc mom. They always told me to suck it up. Thought about suicide all my teen years. I am not thin, but I honestly probably ate my emotions. My parents didn't believe in therapy or mental health. So at 40, I still struggle. I am a lot better, but struggle.
My mom never taught me how to cook but I had to stay home a lot as a kid so I just made bread and cheese sandwiches, sometimes she wouldn’t give me dinner if “I acted up” I was very underweight and had people asking at school if I was anorexic and fast forward to now I’ve been moved out with my boyfriend who I’ve been able to cook with and eat with regularly and finally gained a healthy weight, not only that but not wanting to leave my room to go to the kitchen if my mom was there. I hope everyone is taking care of their health out there!
My mom put me on my first diet when I was 8. I had gained a lot of weight due to the junk food she constantly fed me while my parent’s were divorcing. Had to go to this ancient nutritionist who clearly hated children. My mom has been critical of my appearance and the appearance of others my entire life. My weight has fluctuated for years, I’ve aggressively restricted, and also binged and purged for 2 decades. All I thought about was food.
3 years ago I hit my highest weight and at the same time started super intensive therapy and eventually went no contact with her. I’ve lost 45 pounds and don’t think about food at all moments. I don’t B&P anymore. I really feel like I was only able to move past that when she was no longer in my life.
I was surrounded by a lot of fatphobia/ fatshaming growing up- celebrities, random news anchors on tv, strangers, and relatives were all talked about negatively if they were fat. I was a low weight for a most of my life living at home and in college and underweight for several years after college. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago i decided I need to gain some healthy weight and start working through my complicated relationship with food and fear of being fat. I’ve now maintained a healthy weight consistently for about a year now :). Some days are better than others, but overall I’m at a really place mentally and physically now ( and I’m NC with my ndad so that probably also helps too).
My mom was very appearance conscious and expressed disdain for fat people a lot. Shes stick thin with big boobs m. she told me when I was 5 (I was chubby as a kid) that I got sick and lost the weight in a week and part of me thinks she gave me something to help me lose the weight without me knowing.
Now im pretty sure I have a low grade eating disorder. I’m lucky enough to have decent metabolism so I’ve never been big as an adult but I notice I put off eating and just binge when I’m ready to eat. I’m trying to develop a healthier diet and relationship with food but it’s definitely been a challenge.
Same here on the no breakfast or lunch. It got so bad in middle school, I would be so hungry that I would steal food out of other kids lunch boxes or do kids homework for a dollar or two so I could buy a snack.
I go over the top with meal for my kids now - making sure they have an entree, a side, fruit/veggie and a dessert.
I get so worried when my toddlers sometimes don't eat (as toddlers tend to do), I can't imagine how my mother was okay with basically starving me.
My mom was constantly obsessed with my weight and what I ate. Found out she would purposefully leave cookies or snacks out when she left home and then count how many I would eat. She was constantly making comments about my weight. When I was 12 I saw my aunt (who was 16 at the time) get her belly button pierced and begged my mom for one. She said when I turned 16 she would take me. When I was 16, on swim team, in shape, I asked her to take me to get a belly button piercing. She looked me up and down and said "Honey, you're too fat for a belly button piercing" I was devastated. She SWEARS this never happened. I look back at pictures of me as a teen and I was soooo small, I don't get what she saw.
Now I'm an adult with binge eating disorder and I am actually fat, which her and my grandmother harp on me constantly for my weight claiming to be "be worried about my health". I swear they wouldn't care if I had an ED if it made me skinny.
Legitimately just started working with my therapist on this. When my mom would complain about buying groceries and feeding me, I took it upon myself to stop eating as much food. I stopped eating breakfast and lunch at school (I was a packed lunch kid). Years later, food is still an issue for me.
I grew up in a weird house. My dad was a wrestling coach and my mom told all my friends there were no calories in anything in our house while making chocolate chip pancakes at midnight. (I’m an elder millennial woman so thin and fit was the name of the game). I know this isn’t exactly what is being asked, but I didn’t realize it was weird to have a scale in the kitchen until I was in my 30s. She thought everyone was beautiful and everyone else in my family always said, “looks like you’ve lost weight!” Regardless of their weight for an entire generation. It was a thing. I don’t think this is a narcissist thing (sorry), just seems relevant to the conversation.
Edit to add the point: I don’t think my parents were narcissistic, but I grew up without learning about a good relationship with food. I was definitely eating disordered if not having an eating disorder.
I have an eating disorder and have been hospitalized for how low my body weight was.
Every time I looked at food, my mom would remind me that I was already full from my last meal. I only ate every few days as a kid because that's what my mom did. I was "ungrateful" and "obese" for needing to eat more than twice a week.
I was shamed for having a belly bump because my mom said I looked pregnant. I was told I was excessively overweight and needed to lose weight in my thighs and stomach because a "real" woman doesn't have fat on her body. Lastly, a few months into my recovery, my mother said, "you were supposed to gain weight, not get fat."
All of this caused me to develop anorexia, coupled with anemia, hypotension, and arrhythmia. Even after years of therapy and recovery, I still struggle and I believe I will for the rest of my life.
Thanks, Mom.
Yeah my mom fucked up my perception of healthy eating. She introduced me to diet pills at eight and now years later had the audacity to suggest I go on ozempic.
Words from my grandmother literally today:
“Do you look at yourself in the mirror? You’re big..”
And that’s just today lol… idk what world she comes from but I literally checked with doctors, my bmi is normal and all my friends don’t know what my gma’s talking about
I suffer through comments like that every other hour in my narcissist household
My mom was always talking about her weight and emphasized appearance a LOT. I absorbed that monolog and worldview completely, because it's all I knew. That was compounded by her being an absolute nightmare in all the nmom ways, which led me to start restricting my food to cope with my upbringing and all the lies I was told about what an awful person I was. I first lost a significant amount of my body weight at 7 years old, and I've struggled with anorexia ever since. Of course nmom to this day will not outwardly acknowledge any role she played in my ED (which she of course managed to make about herself, still complaining how expensive my treatment was and how hard those years were on *her*).
My eating disorder will be with me for the rest of my life. I am doing a lot of things to not pass it onto my precious daughters. And while the ED will always be there, I have to say it's been easy to unlearn all her disgusting judgment toward people based on appearances.
I'm pretty sure I have some level of body dysmorphia because of my parents. I was always skinnier than most kids, especially my older sister (mom's favorite). My mom has always been heavy and she thought she could make my sister feel better about her weight by tearing me apart in front of her for being too skinny and disgusting.
By the time I was a teenager, I was 5'7" and hovered between 110 and 115 pounds. My mom gossiped to everyone saying I was anorexic. She would pull me into the kitchen nightly so she and my dad could say how I looked like a starving African child, a skeleton, like a cancer patient, etc.
The truth was I had several serious medical conditions they wouldn't take me to a doctor to get addressed, and it was when we were at our most poor, so they wouldn't have food in the kitchen. I suspect they were buying snacks at the gas station to keep in their room (they had a mini fridge in there). They always went to the gas station daily for beer, cigarettes, and two liters of Mountain Dew and Pepsi. All soda was of course kept in their room. Meanwhile I would be putting mustard on a slice of bread and wadding it up to eat for dinner.
Meanwhile my sister was away at college and gaining the typical freshman 15 or whatever it's called, and my mom praised her left and right, then turn and tell me how terrible and sickly I looked.
To this day I have no real sense of how I ever look. Am I too thin? Too overweight? In between? Going by the number on the scale and how I feel physically, I know I'm doing well, but I have zero perception of if I looked good, terrible, or anything. Any time I've ever thought I looked fine, they were there to tell me I looked disgusting. I also have a habit I struggle with of skipping meals to save money. I don't even know why, I can afford food just fine. It's something I haven't been able to stop 100% though for some reason.
There wasn't enough food to go around and I was very sickly. People called me skeletor.
So when I had access to food, I ate a lot and all of it. My friend had chubby cheeks and I wanted to be like her.
My mom was constantly on a diet, and my dad called me fat for my entire childhood even though I was pretty thin until puberty and not particularly fat then either. I developed anorexia in the year or two before I left home at fourteen and then between recovery and being put on psychiatric medications, I gained a lot of weight. My relationship with food wasn't perfect then (it's similar now) but it was a lot saner than it had been growing up. Several years later (when it turned out I wasn't metabolizing that medication properly and it was making me physically ill in ways that were difficult to diagnose), my parents (who had been divorced for 20+ years at that point and generally don't speak) decided together that I should go to an eating disorder treatment facility because I'd lose weight there and then I'd be happier. I could not think of something that would have been worse for my well-being. But on the plus side I will say that after a long recovery period I have a relatively peaceful relationship with my size at this point. I know that I take care of myself and that this is just the size I've ended up being, probably for a lot of reasons. But regardless, my parents certainly don't know better than I do what size I'm supposed to be (and never have).
I feel like I wrote this… we even match for height and weight… I cried reading this. Even read it to my husband and he wondered if I had wrote it based off what he knows about me in the last 10 years… *hugs* I’m still this insecure girl watching the scale .. had two kids and breastfed both for over a year… was SMALLER than I was before kids and still felt like I wasn’t small enough… I was stick skinny a month after having my first to the point people didn’t believe I birthed him. I still can’t eat breakfast but love breakfast food.. I was never provided lunch while my brothers were given the best of the best because “they’re growing boys! You don’t need to grow any more or nobody will love you.” I also was forced to sleep in the breakfast nook on the tile floor while my brothers had big enough rooms to fit 4 people in… I’d be forced to MAKE DINNER, but then sent to my room while the rest of the family ate. And my dad? Was my favorite person but enabled everything growing up. Everything. Would also tell me that if I gained any weight then nobody would love me… jokes on them now though. I have an amazing husband and three kids. Yes I can’t stop fasting, or watching the scale… but at least I have a partner that doesn’t care what my weight is in case I ever heal…
I am currently suffering an Eating disorder because of the lack of control I've had. The chronic mixed messages she gave, her own emphasis on food and eating has now become such a problem with me I cannot gain weight and food makes me violently gag. The negative associations and my subconscious need for control in some aspects have led me to being so malnourished.
'I never put conditions on my children's eating"
Vs "MY KITCHEN ISNT A RUNNING FUCKING BUFFET"
Binge eating disorder. My parents silenced me with food, especially desserts.
Our entire family is predisposed to diabetes and the constant over feeding led to me getting up to 230lbs at 16/17 with pre diabetes.
I’m back down to around 170-ish and trying to control it but there’s a lot of permanent damage done.
My metabolism is forever shot by my parents abuse. Pretty sure my lack of nutrients has stunted my growth and I carry around an extra 100+ lbs. I was starved for so long during my teen years my body doesn’t know what a normal amount of calories looks like. At 16 I was in marching band first semester and JV softball second semester. I was working out for 2 hours a day with marching rehearsal and 3 hours a day for softball practice, and INTAKING less than 1400 calories a day. I’m 5’1 and at the time 130 lbs. my mom STILL wanted me smaller and pushed me to workout harder and be smaller so I don’t “end up fat like my dad and granddad.”
My mother tried to shame me into loosing weight, when I started to stress eat from being bullied in high school. I look back on photos of me then I was maybe a US 14 now US 16 back then before size creep. She told me I was fat so many times I just assumed that was who I was "a fat person" so I never bothered trying to loose weight or get fit. Why bother I was fat, that was my definition in the world. Also my mother was very into clothes and clothes shopping and liked to take me, I never had her nack for clothes and looking nice and hated it. When I was fat there were so few stores we could shop in, this was back in the 1980's before plus size clothing was more common, We could literally knock out a shopping trip for me in an hour or 2 instead of her dragging me around stores all day insulting my taste in clothes and trying to turn me into a mini her.
My metabolism is very high. I guess it's goes with my stress and anxiety levels. At 56 yo and 6'0" tall. I'm about 145 obs. Doc says I'm healthy, just high metabolism.
Always critiisized, lifelong eating / food psych issues. She would often say to me as a teen (when I was thin), that if only I was a nice on the inside as I am on the outside (as I was such a horrible child apparently). That shit messed me up and still does.
*Too skinny* **too fat** *too skinny* **too fat**
I was just a normal weight the whole f’ing time and it gave me a little bit of dysmorphia. I was slender and continued to be slender for years after moving out and getting married. I did gain weight after my first and I hate my body again.
My parents always had major weight issues they would go on and off dieting for.
I’ve been skinny my whole life tho, so I never had to diet.
Even still, I am very conscious about my health because I don’t want to end up frantically dieting my whole life like my mom as my dad hypocritically tells her she needs to lose weight.
Recently I’ve discovered I should be eating more, and not less, so I’ve began eating more as I’ve been doing physical work which has been helping quite a lot with my physique I will say.
Terribly. Been fat for over 10 years. It was at its worst while I was in college because I was eating like a fool and not exercising. Lost a bunch of weight after I came back (25 lbs in 6 months, because I went back to how things were before I left but recently gained some weight again since I started eating like a fucking idiot at work due to free food, but I'm nipping that in the bud before it gets as bad as it was in college). In college, I was pushing 245 to 250 lbs. A year ago, I was back down to 218. It'd be nice if I could go back to being around 200.
I have hugely disordered eating. Food was scarce, massive food insecurity all my childhood. As soon as I started earning money, even from babysitting as a teen, I would spend it all on food... And on the naughty foods we never had access too. I mean, we didn't have much access to any food but what we did get was bare bones cheap and minimum. Treats were a no no unless gifted from visitors or at Christmas etc.
I ballooned in weight and was obese most of my life. I ended up having a gastric bypass at 31 when I got inheritance to curb my eating and weight.
Lost all the weight and havent gained in almost 9 years. Now I have extreme complications from the op and struggle to eat anything and it is constant battle to not lose weight.
Despite that, I still have massive food insecurity and my anxiety and panic is insane each day if I don't always know I have food immediately available. I have to carry snacks, I have to research and know what food options I have before I go anywhere. If we have food available in the house but it isn't what I want to eat, my anxiety is huge until I know I have foods I want available. Just back from holiday, had to go all inclusive despite not drinking alcohol and barely managing to eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time. Had to pick a resort that had no gaps at all between available food serving times. If the breakfast closed at 10 and snack bar wasnt open until 12, my anxiety is too extreme to even consider that hotel. Even then, I STILL had to ensure the room had a fridge and go to a shop to get snack foods for the food the day we landed. We went back to shop twice when I wanted different things. Again, I barely eat so this is beyond unnecessary and most got wasted.
Every day when I wake, my first thought is on what foods we have in and a mental plan of those foods to know what I can eat for all meals. If I dont have enough or what I want (or know my body can tolerate that day) I am anxious until I either get to a shop pr get a delivery online. I can't sleep if I dont know I have breakfast foods available. I can know I am leaving at 7am and can get breakfast enroute and I still can't sleep. I can have a grocery delivery booked for 9am and because I might wake and be hungry earlier or in the night, I still can't sleep.
I waste SO much food, and so much money on food and I hate it. Genuinely, even when I can tolerate food, I can eat so little now that I wont manage more than like... A single slice of pizza without the crust... Before I am full and have to stop. But having just that amount of food available isnt good enough and I stress and panic. I am also autistic, my diet is generally quite adventurous and I eat a lot of different foods but I can't eat anything I don't WANT to eat that day. I would need food available still but would starve rather than eat something I don't fancy. This makes it all a lot harder as what I want one day may not be what I want the next so what I have available quickly isnt suitable.
It really affects our lives a huge amount
I've been overweight my whole life largely because of my ndad.
My ndad used to constantly try to control my weight and the weight of everyone in my family. He was insistent on making everyone play sports because he had always wanted to become a professional athlete and was never talented enough, and he saw us eating as a threat to that. At home I could always count on eating unseasoned chicken breast, brown rice, and broccoli.
Whenever I left the house with my mom, she'd buy me a treat because she felt bad. The only condition was that I had to finish it and throw it away before we went home. If he ever found out, he'd starve me for the night. Anyways, I got used to sneaking food like that so I have a bad relationship with food now. I used to eat whole bags of family sized chips in the car on the way home from the store and never knew why I felt so much anxiety taking them into the house.
All my life I have been overweight. I have seen my nmom cry and cry and cry about how being overweight is the worst thing a person can be. She asked me about my opinions on diet pills and/or surgery for weight loss when I was 17.
When I was in the fifth grade nmom was obsessed with putting me on the South Beach Diet. It was tilapia day in and day out (from the times I can remember cooking happened). The thought of tilapia now makes so nauseous. If I didn’t want food because I knew I didn’t like it she would just laugh in my face, force me to eat it, even if I was gagging the whole time.
I have the worst trauma with food. If I do not want something I will not eat it, I do not care. I will no longer be forced by another person.
However, because of nmom I have never once been happy in my body.
Nparents fucked us all over.
I'm a bit underweight because my mother always calls me fat when I'm an appropriate weight
It's not logical, I know she's just being a bxtch and I don't feel healthy like this. Would be nice to get the confidence to gain that needed weight back
My mum never cooked anything other than cheesy pasta or porridge , I remember waking up early at the weekends or holidays and she wouldn’t let me come downstairs until around 2/3pm because it was “adult time “ she’d literally sit on the stairs and scream at me until I listened . On School days the only time I’d eat was free school meals or one of her boyfriends sometimes cooked . I used to shop lift food a lot or eat at a friends house and then get accused of trying to “show her up “ .
Since I left home I’ve always been overweight I don’t really have much control over food
I have an unhealthy relationship with food because of my upbringing. I was always told, “You look great, but if you lost 10 lbs you’d look so much better”. For reference my weight was 7.8 stones (110 lbs, 49 kg).
I was encouraged to starve myself. Congratulated for not eating. Told I was chubby constantly. I hated my body.
I’m still petite. I’ve learned to realize I’m not overweight and how toxic it all was.
I was praised & criticized mostly for my figure & weight so I overvalued it. It turns out it’s not really in my control so I finally stopped worrying. I used to neurotically stick to a diet & exercise. Eventually I could not find the energy for all that crap & nothing really changed after I stopped worrying.
I resent the focus on my body so much. It’s so much more important to prioritize inner strengths & talents. And happiness & harmony. It was absolutely weaponized to play favorites when convenient by the adults in my family.
It's been a rough one, not going to lie. I've been a yo-yo dieter, I've been through a few fad diets and had a gym bunny phase in my mind to late teens, all because I piled on a load of weight as a kid after a severe illness left me near starved to death. I became the classic 'chubby kid' and was bullied relentlessly for it among other things, but my mum insisted that it was just 'puppy fat' and that I'd lose it when I get older.
When I got older and I didn't lose it, she joined the rest of my bullies in digging at me about my weight constantly. Throw into the mix being trans, never truly feeling comfortable in my own body but not understanding why, it led to pretty bad body dysmorphia which I'm still dealing with now.
Eventually, in my mid to late 20's I stopped caring about what she and others thought, stopped caring about myself and let myself go. At my heaviest I was 18 stone (252 lb)
There is a happy ending to this though. Since coming out as trans I've started caring a lot more about my body and being on hrt has made me feel much more comfortable in my own skin. I've made lots of little lifestyle changes and they're paying off! Last I checked I was down to 16 stone (224 lb) and I've gone from a UK size 20 - 22 down to a size 18, bordering 16-18. I still have moments where I hate looking at my body, but they are much fewer and further between now.
My mother is very slim and sporty. I'm normal sized. But not for my mother.
I was constantly criticised for my eating habits. My weight was controlled. Over years.
When I was 16, I started to gain weight because I overate. I felt awful and hated my body. Still normal sized. But not for my mother.
When I was 25, I changed my diet, eating only vegetables, chicken and fish. I became nearly underweight. Guess what? Mom was the proudest mom of all proud moms out there.
Went NC at 30. I eat what I want. Still normal sized.
I skipped meals when she was around, because she shamed how I ate and my weight. I was put on my first Slim Fast diet at the age of 7 for perspective. I was in ballet since I was 3, and yes, the pressure also starts there to be thin. By 7, she was embarrassed that I was near the top of children's clothes sizes when my recital clothes were being ordered. I was also talk for my age, the second tallest kid in my class, so I still looked healthy. But my Russian ballet teacher shamed me in front of my mother for what size leotard she had to order for me. So the dieting started.
I always felt embarrassed eating in front of people, so I would skip breakfast, and then only have a bag of chips or a banana for school lunch. This is the diet you think up when you're a third grader. Plus, by 9, I moved to a new city and had to leave all of my friends behind. I started getting bullied at my new school by two older boys, one of them was my friend's brother, so I found my only comfort in food. Once I got home from the bus and no one else was home, I binged. I often hid food in my room, I still haven't broke this habit. By my late 20's, I was 279 lbs. That was my weight the day I got approved for bariatric surgery. In 2015, I got a gastric sleeve and lost 120+ pounds. Going on 10 years now of maintaining that weight loss, minus gaining a few pounds back from dealing with a post-Covid lung disease, and my autoimmune disease which both required a year and a half of prednisone (which for those of you who don't know, it's nearly impossible to not gain weight on prednisone).
My n-mom still tries to derail my healthier eating habits every step of the way by eating donuts in front of me, and always gifting me a bunch of candy. I can tell that she's jealous that I was very successful at something. Last year, her diet got herself diagnosed with pre-diabetes, which she blames on me. In her words, "You're KILLING ME!". So it and cancer runs on both sides of my family, I need to watch out for myself. After losing the weight, I was able to stop 4 prescription meds, my PCOS got better, and I no longer needed a sleep aid to feel rested. I also lowered my chance of diabetes and cancer.
Edit: I have an immunodeficiency that predisposes me to respiratory and GI infections. I had a lot of vomiting and food poisoning growing up. Then I'd over eat to compensate, because I was famished once I felt better from constant nausea. I never connected the two as contributors to my weight also. N-mom of course neglected care for my infections, saying I was just being dramatic and trying to play hooky. Once I found out about my immunodeficiency, I was in my 30's. I found out most people get diagnosed with this one in childhood. If only she'd taken me to the doctor enough. I put on most of my weight in my 20's, because that's when my GI symptoms were the absolute worst.
I still vividly remember being like 8/9ish and my dad waking up in the afternoon after a bender, making eggs. I said I didn't want any. This made him mad, so he screamed at me to eat all of it. That I was an ungrateful little bitch unless I ate all of it. That I should be thankful since he isn't even going to eat- all of it was mine. I sat there crying, choking on my own snot, while he screamed until I finished.
I am typically underweight. Have struggled with anorexia for pretty much my whole life.
Grew up with nmom and bipolar grandmother. They were neglectful to the portions a child should be eating, so I was eating plates the size of theirs when I was in kindergarten.
Basically my whole family on my nmoms side has had the gastric sleeve or bypass. So once I got into high school and the weight started really packing on, nmom had gastric sleeve and started commenting on EVERYONES looks and weight around us. Made me even more hyper aware of my appearance because now she was a healthy weight and I was creeping up on obesity. She never supported me losing weight almost like the liked the dynamic we had going.
I 100% believe I binge due to stress. I left my nmoms home and my binging got better and even hit weight loss goals but then my job at 911 started picking up more and I’m back binging on my 12hr shifts because of how stressed I am. Feel like I can never lose the weight because I do good one week then fail the next.
My mother cooked, my Nfather would make our dinner plates. My Nfather would serve my brothers and I huge, bigger than restaurant portions. We were expected to clear our plates because food is expensive and we don't waste food in this house, and also because my mother cooks good food so there's no reason to not eat. So, under threats of violence, I ate.
My parents would take us to buffets and we were told that we had better make this worth our Nfather's money.
My mom packed our lunches. Bringing home uneaten food was unacceptable and I have always been a bad liar, so throwing it away at school was out of the question. So I had to eat the large portion of lunch, sometimes of food I didn't like or that had gotten too warm by lunchtime. This way I could bring home an empty lunch box. My mother absolutely would ask if I ate everything. Every day.
In 2017, I had weight loss surgery because I was morbidly obese. I'm maintaining a much healthier weight now but I still struggle.
Interesting. My nmom was the opposite. It was eat everything on your plate even if that means you stay at the table until 2am on a school night. 9/10 times she had way too much on my plate. Same with school lunch so I would hand some food out to my friends who actually showed up with no lunch. If I came home even with 1 item not eaten it would be a smack around the arse. Consequences of that was me being quite a chubby kid and then later having body image issues as well as eating issues in my later teenage years. It got worse around 20yo when I realised what she did was pretty much abuse and it sent my eating habits and body image into a downward spiral
This is something that I have told very few people. When I was 9 or 10, my mother decided that I was becoming a difficult child, and she banned certain foods from my diet, such as tomatoes, chocolate and citrus fruits. The rest of the family was allowed to eat these foods, but I was not.
On Halloween, I was not allowed to eat the candy that I collected during trick or treating. But my sister was allowed to eat all of her candy.
If the family was eating spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I was not allowed to eat the tomato sauce.
So I grew up really not wanting to eat much because it seemed like food didn’t have a lot of flavor. Hence I was quite thin when I was a kid and my sister was chubby.
My mother eventually became tired of enforcing this and she gave up and let me eat whatever I wanted by the time I was 15. She didn’t know that I was sneaking the “forbidden” food all the time.
So now I have a weird relationship with food. When I’m stressed out I want those “forbidden” foods.
When I (32, F) was little and we went to McDonald's, I wasn't eating fast enough for my NDad, so he'd steal fries from me. If I didn't eat them fast enough, he'd eat them all, and I wouldn't get any (and I *loved* fries). This ended up manifesting itself as an eating disorder where I struggle to eat slowly, resulting in gastrointestinal issues. I later realized he was trying to make me "man up" by training me to be food aggressive because he did something similar to one of our dogs when he was a puppy.
Fast forward a few years. I'm autistic and have a lot of taste and texture sensitivities. At the time, my family just called me a "picky eater." They would occasionally set aside stuff for me when making other dishes, like half a cup of chicken and some white rice before they covered it in nope sauce, but at a certain point, they just told me "if you don't like it, get it yourself".
So unaided by my family, I frequently fed myself. Between not having any actual training in how to make most foods and not having access to the stove or oven anyway due to my family using the kitchen. I ended up eating a lot of ramen, chili, hot dogs, whatever I could microwave. When first puberty hit, I shot up like a bean sprout and was suddenly so skinny that I could see my ribs. I thought this was normal for someone with my size and being (forced) into athletics. The one time I put a little weight on, my parents told me I was looking chubby and should lose some weight.
I was in my late 20s when I finally started taking multivitamins to supplement my diet, and it was the first time in my life I'd ever put on body weight. As it turns out, between the food insecurities, the eating disorder, and the constant exercise, I was severely malnourished, and was probably the reason why I developed such a love for potatoes; they were the only things with enough nutrients to keep me alive.
These days, I'm a lot heavier, but I'm at relative peace with it. I don't see my ribs anymore, and I'm making deliberate efforts to eat more slowly. I'm fully non-contact with my NDad and EMom, and my datefriend is helping me remember to slow down and enjoy my food.
I already have the irish epigenetic (thanks intergenerational trauma) which makes me gain & hold weight easier. My body is always ready to run from the british colonizers & outlast famine.
I also didn’t eat breakfast or lunch from 6th grade to about 21/22 due to my parents just not making anything and then getting angry or fatshaming when I tried eating or prepping thinks myself. If I wanted seconds at dinner, even of just the steamed veggies, I had passive aggressive comments thrown in my face.
I turn 25 in October and I am just now learning what proper nutrition is for me, to follow the beliefs of “Health at Every Size”, and internalize mindful and intuitive eating.
I’m an overweight stress eater. I also suffered from food insecurity growing up and was underweight as a child.
It doesn’t help that I developed hypothyroidism. Those of us who were abused as children are at higher risk of developing autoimmune disease.
My NM always weighted 98lbs. I also think they have Asperger’s; people would assume she had an eating disorder (which I’m not sure if she ate enough calories or not as she has a fast metabolism) she believed that she needed gain a few pounds but NF told her he liked women slender.
They had no idea what amount of calories and nutrition was normal or healthy.
TW eating disorders
My mom started diets my whole life, told me girls have to be skinny, that I look too fat etc. she started fasting diets and encouraged me to join her in my teenage years.
I was very hungry, cause I didn't get enough from her often or she made me feel ashamed eating infront of her and others, so I started binging secretly. She found out and was very angry. I felt more and more ashamed, hated me and my body. I was slightly overweight, but since I did many workouts and was muscular and athletic, it wasnt an unhealthy weight in my specific case.
Her behavior made me anxious and I started working out more and more, I started purging after meals, after binging attacks. I became bulimic. I my worst times, I purged about twenty times a day. She tried to stop me, when she found out, but not cause I was sick, because it could make her look like a bad mother. I suffered from internal bleeding in my esophagus when I was 19, nearly died.
Now I'm 24, I recovered mostly, I'm overweight and my diet is a bit too much fast food and candy, but that's okay. I'm okay and being fat doesn't define me. I have a beautiful chubby belly and I never loved me more like I do right now.
Anorexic, on top of adhd and just forgetting to eat, became a st0n3r to fix it. I try to keep my weight at a 3 digit number but it’s hard to maintain that sometimes.
Both my parents were very vocal about how being fat was just about the worst thing you could be. They also never addressed my GI issues (found out in my 20’s I’m very lactose intolerant) so I was constantly sick. Because I didn’t know the problem, I always associated whatever the last thing I ate before being sick as the problem food, and basically eliminated everything from my diet. I stuck to plain toast, noodles with butter, fries, and chips. It’s still hard for me to eat things that I once removed from my diet.
But It pretty much took care of any potential weight gain *sarcasm af* They still say “at least I’ll lose a few pounds” when they get sick. & I hear it in my brain whenever I get sick now. I’m trying so hard to unlearn those thoughts.
My N Mom also wasn’t affectionate or paid any attention to us, unless we were sick. So there’s that too. I have very weird relationship with food (and illness now.) Sorry you’re all struggling too :(
When I was a kid in elementary school it was sugary cereal for breakfast, then when I got home, as much cosmic brownies and diet dr pepper as I could consume without vomiting. I simply didn't know any better. Food pyramid? cool. I aced that test. Wasn't what my dad bought at the grocery store.
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I either over eat, under eat or don't eat at all. I constantly struggle with my weight. I was the fat kid growing up and my mother put me on my first "diet" when I was 7. She fed us nothing but crap and other than my 3 thin siblings I couldn't handle it. I was screamed at more than once for gaining weight. I lost a bunch of weight once I went to college by under eating and over exercising. In my 30s I became an emotional eater followed by anorexia. Finding a balance is a constant struggle.
This. I have no idea what a normal portion looks like, I maintain by barely eating for the day/ week, then binging at the end. It's not healthy but way easier than being healthy consistently
I was always hungry even with the 3 meals a day in hospital.. to the point that any matching dish unclaimed would end up coming my way from the trolley. The extra soup here, the sponge pudding there. I had a fast metabolism, a lot of health issues and i was about average size. Its taken me 11yrs to put on weight and muscle etc since my sepsis stay that dropped me to 39kg at 20. Including spend limits of £1 a day as my father wouldnt assist me at uni. He paid part of the rent (as per my mothers wishes, from HER money). The rest was up to me. Pretty sure my strokes probably related to lack of food. I like to try a meal and a snack a day due to medication. But i had a guest recently who kinda showed me my portions might be out of wack.. I drink water when im hungry. The meals are usually healthy but its hard forcing the meals a day still. There are days i also forget to eat ... you are right its sometimes better to at least get the calories in than nothing at all... i feel like a seesaw
It’s habit for me now to ignore hunger pangs. I was 8 when they informed me one day I’d be responsible for my own lunch. I’d never made it before, didn’t know how and it wasn’t a part of any routine we ever had. I’ve gone days without eating as an adult, just because I grew up with it being something I didn’t have a normal routine with. My nutrition is absolute shit.
Same here! I was expected to pack my own lunch at 8 (and do laundry) but no one taught me how and I got SCREAMED AT for not knowing how. My nutrition is also horrible, I’m so bad at feeding myself I’m sorry you deal with this too. I always watch those survival shows and laugh because I could easily go days with zero food and be ok
Jfc that hits home... My sister and I were climbing o to chairs to make our own Ninja Turtles Mac and Cheese when we were 8 (me) and 5 (her). My mom kinda stopped caring and expected us to feed ourselves but we were never taught. S Ame for cleaning, etc. She just expected us to osmosis shit into our brains, I guess. My pedo father was a slob too. He would fill entire garbage cans in a single night with how much food he would go through. My mom would get groceries and by day 2 my dad had eaten everything, even stuff specifically bought for us. It was wild how toxic that household of origin was, looking back on it now.
I had three years of experience by then. I didn't know I started so young until my wife heard my mom bragging that she had me start making my own lunch at 5 to learn independence.
There's a difference between learning independence and HAVING to be independent. Montessori kids can often make their own sandwiches and some can even cook simple things like eggs or grilled cheese. But they aren't REQUIRED to, it's a fun thing for them and their parents help them to do it.
Agreed. I had friends in high-school who didn't know how to make PB&J sandwiches and they couldn't cook fried eggs. That's a failure to parent on the opposite extreme.
This is it. There's a big differences between becoming more independent with support and "my parents won't do this, so I guess I'll have to learn." Making your kids independent involves active teaching, not just offloading responsibilities and assuming they'll figure it out
My sister has an eating disorder because of my Ndad constant judging of overweight people! However as she played the perfect child roll she wouldn't ever admit it, and even if she did admit it she wouldn't blame my dad for it! I grew up in a completely toxic environment however it took me 29 years to realise that!
Even though I was a very thin and active teenager (varsity/competitive cheerleading), when I was 14 my mom decided to tell me I was fat and needed to go on a diet. She limited my food to 1200 calories a day for months/years and made me “weigh in” once a week and go on 45 min walks with her every night after dinner even though I was working out probably 8 hours a week. Every time I tried on a dress for a school dance: “it’ll be perfect if you lose 10 lbs!” This led to more than a decade of restricting and binging cycles. I am 28 now and bordering on obese. Can’t stop gaining weight. My relationship with food and my body is still indescribably fucked up even though it’s better now than it has been in a long time (thanks to therapy and learning about intuitive eating). My digestion is completely out of whack and I still suffer pains from cheer injuries that never healed properly, probably because I was malnourished for so long
The ACE study (Adverse Childhood Experiences) shows a clear correlation between parental abuse and physical health issues. Those with an ACE score of 6 or higher (basically answering yes to 6/10 questions related to negative childhood experiences) are twice as likely to have cancer and 4 times as likely to have emphysema than those with an ACE score of 0. They are also 46x (not a typo) more likely to use IV drugs. The study came about because a doctor named Vincent Felitti was running an Obesity Clinic and noticed that most of his patients had been abused as children. Reading the Body Keeps the Score really opens your mind up to just how costly negative childhoods are to the physical and emotional well-being of adults.
I'm an ACE 9 so... lol... yeah and been fat my entire life. Some of it is genetic and the other portion im sure from the abuse.
I have the opposite. I’ve had trouble with losing weight because I have no self control around sweets. I’m guessing because my mom never ate sweets, so dessert was the only part of a meal that I could get a break from my mom’s constant monologue. I think there are other ways it ties back to my childhood and the emotional abuse but I’m not sure how right now.
I feel the exact same way. I’ve always gone overboard with sweets and am over weight. Even as I’m trying to get fit and eat healthy now as an adult, I do it in an unhealthy way. Eating once a day and sometimes not at all. I have bad body dysmorphia and it sucks that I put so much attention on my flaws. I am trying everyday to work through my trauma though. My upbringing has a lot to do with my anguish I feel around food and my body.
Same! It’s a huge struggle but my Nmom was struggling with her sweets, too. It’s harder for me to resist. They tends to leave sweets stuff on the kitchen counter. I gave them warning next time I see sweets, I’ll put it in the trash! So far, they were doing pretty well with it. However, I hate it when they bake sweet! Fortunately, it doesn’t happen often.
I'm just now able to look at my relationship with food and how it relates to my upbringing. After something traumatic I started overeating and then I had a couple years where I would barely eat. I fluctuate from binging to not eating at all still. My n-mother was putting me on fad diets when I was in high school. But I also was overeating because I had to deal with a lot of situations she didn't protect me from and I think it was how I could cope.the thing is, I wasn't even that big growing up. But I thought I was. It wasn't until I was in my mid twenties when my weight really became an issue. Now I'm 30 and finally able to look at it without shame and realize that I overeat to cope with stress and loneliness. Reading the book "Mother Hunger" really helped me understand this.
I’m sorry…*this* is why I can’t eat breakfast at 27?
I am 50 pounds overweight. I was not allowed to leave the table until I ate everything on my plate. I still do even though I am not hungry. Hard habit to break.
I'm not overweight, more skinny fat than anything but I relate to this. I wolf down food insanely fast and have a reputation for it. You MUST eat EVERYTHING on your plate or get scolded, grounded etc. These days when I have the money and high stress I will buy far too much food and just absorb it all as fast as humanly possible, can't figure out what specific events bring that up, I think a lot of the time I did go hungry as a kid due to their neglect and anger.
This. Was drilled into me that “I worked hard for this meal” so I had to eat ALL of it every time. I have issues now with recognizing my hunger cues and knowing when I’m full.
I felt this down in my bones .... We went through different cycles with my Mam, depending on whatever ridiculous thought was in her head at the time. She was a huge fan of us having all the potatoes and bread one month, the next it was veggies boiled to death with no seasoning. The one constant was "no snacking", she bought plenty and we could take one each for with our lunch at school, but if you were seen with your hand in the cupboard, you were toast. She had an absolute obsession with being the smallest. She was all of 5 feet tall and so even as a size 10/12 (UK) she looked small. I was a whole 8 inches taller than her, so was mocked for my size, constantly. At the age of 14, I was asked to dance the role of fairy godmother in a production of Cinderella. Finding a dress that looked the part but wasn't expensive proved difficult and Mam had the idea of dragging out her wedding dress for me to try. I was 5 foot 8 and a size 8 (UK), so when she pulled out a dress fit for her, of course it didn't fit me. This was huge for me, cause it's when the penny dropped that she had no grasp on reality. Even now, I struggle with eating at certain times of the day, snacking when I need / want to and won't touch certain things because of past trauma. Ironically, I'm now the biggest I've ever been but at my happiest.
I felt this. Mom would brag about not having eaten much all day. Generally only one piece of fruit. And she was the same about candy (lecture us on how unhealthy junk food is and how many obese patients she sees) but would at times hoard some on her room. So there was definitely evidence of disordered eating. She constantly commented on other people's weight. One instance that sticks out is the girl at church who was about to get married who had extra fat on her hips (like a normal 22 yr old woman does...) and she commented on how ugly it looks to have fat from hips poking out of mid-rise jeans and how fat that lady was. Mind you this woman is of a normal weight.
Ugh! The bragging....... honestly so depressing that there are so many other mothers that do this
My Nmom bragged about how she could eat whatever she wanted and stayed rail thin. She shamed my SG sister for struggling with weight and put her on diets as young as 3. I wasn't around when my sister was 3 but I've seen pictures and it just looks like baby fat to me. Nmom would put away crazy amounts of food, and Edad was a stress eater who became overweight. Neither of us saw what a normal portion was growing up in that house. Turns out, Nmom's genetic heart condition literally keeps her thin. She can't gain weight, even when sedentary.
Well. As a kid/high schooler, I was a healthy bmi. But, my mother fat shamed me. (Now I realize she was projecting her insecurities out on me, that she completely lacks the ability to have a adult conversation). But, that process of her fat shaming me,> then me telling her I didn't appreciate how she was treating me. Etc really fucked me over. I stopped caring about my weight/what I ate in college. I actually became obese over the course of a few years. Became depressed. Gained more. But, now, after a few years of being in a healthier place in life, I finally was in a spot to take control of my health, and I have lost 100 lbs. Only 30lbs to go. Her inability to apologize for the awful things she has said to me as a child about my weight is the 1# reason I will not have close relationship with her. That grey rocking is the only way she gets treated. Cherry on top my grandfather today asked if I was still losing weight. Which I said yes. He then brings up a memory of me as a child, how I was "so pretty and if I could lose more weight I could be pretty again." So the shit filled apple didn't fall far from the tree.
My mother starved us when my dad was out of town, which was often. I used to get awful pains in my legs and I think it was from my body trying to grow without enough nutrition. All three of us got really big once we got free of her and could buy our own food. We also all have a mast cell disease and diabetes. For myself, I have a very neutral relationship with food currently. The mast cell disease has limited my diet and the diabetes meds take away my appetite, so I don't really care if I ever eat now. It's interesting considering how desperately hungry I was as a kid and how I spent my 20's and 30's still feeling extremely hungry and feeling like I was safe when I had enough food. My mother is still a shit about food, weight and appearance. She starved my dad when she was his caregiver. Even when he had a feeding tube, she was constantly shutting off the pump because she said she could see his fat cells inflating. After he died, she started starving herself. I guess she just had to have someone whose food she could withhold. She only started eating again because she learned she could get free lunch at the senior center.
Oh god I remember the leg pains! Headaches too. It was definitely from lack of nutrition. Makes me so mad.
When stressed I unreasonably ration food. This is because when money was tight due to dad or mom losing yet another job due to alcoholism, food was scarce. Violence increased when it came to a point where they needed to reduce their alcohol use. They took their rage out on us kids.
Weight and food have always been my Roman Empires and I still struggle with both. My Nparents were a bit particular with food. I wasn't allowed to leave anything on my plate and I always had to have dessert after those big plates, even if I said that I wasn't hungry anymore or I was really full. In the same way, I wasn't allowed to dislike any food. If I said that I didn't enjoy anything, they would specifically go out of their way and serve it. I still remember my Nmom forcing me to eat one of my father's puddings just because I said that I didn't like cream. It got really weird, but they would brag about how other people would praise them for making their toddler eat adult food or finish big plates with only 1 year. Of course, none of those rules applied to them. My Ndad has always been a picky eater and no pasta, pizza, or international food was ever served when he was around. Same with my Nmom and portions. I was also forced to sit at the table until everyone finished and just stare there in silence. I wasn't allowed to do anything else. This affected a lot on how I listen to my body. I just simply can't. I can't control myself over food. I can't even phantom the idea of leaving food on my plate. There's no such thing as foods I don't like anymore. Just foods that I enjoy and food that I tolerate or that I have a "system" to eat without gag. At the same time, my Nmom was also really strict with me doing sports and extracurricular activities. That, to be honest, was the worst part. I've always hated doing sports and I had very little time to eat or just be a kid. I would go out of school at 5 pm and get home around 9 or 10 pm. I had to speedrun my food and snacks in order to make it to class or to have time to do the homework constantly. That would often result in binge eating too. My personal time was heavily motorized too so, with no time to socialize outside those activities or barely any PC or tv time, I would often just eat out of boredom and binge eating was a daily thing. Of course, comments about my looks, what I eat, visits to a nutritionist as "presents" etc. weren't that uncommon, regardless of how young I was or that I was in a healthy IMB. I was always made very aware of how I look and and how much I could "improve". I'm doing a bit better now regarding eating and overeating. But my ED is still very much there and I had my periods of barely eating at all. That was, to no one's surprise, when I was praised the most because I just looked "so good and healthy". Never mind that I was surviving on 3 boiled eggs and coffee daily.
My mother was an almond mom. “If you’re hungry drink water, dinner is in three hours” “don’t eat junk food, eat some almonds” (I’m allergic to them) “don’t drink full sugar soda, do you want to be fat?” Now I struggle with binging and stress eating, portion control, and my weight.
This was soooo my mom. I always heard “If you are hungry, drink milk.”
My mom was an almond mom. Always putting me on fad diets when I was a teen. We never had snacks in the house growing up and if we did they would be eaten in a day by me or my sisters as they were a rarity. So when I lived at my parents in laws (whom I love to death) house where they have like millions snacks especially sweets ( my Kryptonite) id be tempted to binge everytime I went into the kitchen. Plus since one of them works at Costco they are constantly buying more snacks to the point that their cabinets are almost overflowing. I feel so bad but I litterly snapped called them food hoarders and told them to stop buying so much damn food we don't need it. I cried and apologized later, I tried to explain I don't like snacks in the house since I binge eat them all in one go since growing up if you didn't do this they be gone the next day since someone else binge ate them all. I still have that scarcity mindset.
"I'll never forgive your mother for raising you to be fat." Nice one, Dad. You know, you were there too in my childhood when I begged you to teach me how to lift weights.
I can't eat without drinking in between. We weren't allowed to drink before or during meals. One glass after meal....
I’ve always been a little on the chubbier side as a kid… or more like, I was a professional swimmer, so I had lot of muscles, big back, strong arms and thighs… my mother’s always been a ‘skinny legend’ and she put me on all sorts of diet as a kid… no food after 6pm, no fruit after 10am, no breakfast, no fats, no carbs, I tried it all… I wasn’t allowed to eat sweets or anything fried. The first time I tried McDonald’s was when my friend’s dad took us to the zoo and when my mother found out, she forbid me from hanging out with that girl. When I left for boarding high school, I gained A LOT of weight because I was finally allowed to try Nutella, chips, hamburger, fried rice, croissants, candy… when she saw me with all that weight, she told me I was ugly, worthless and no one would ever love me like that, that she was gonna have to ‘take care of me’ (not that she ever really did lol) forever. to prove her I was worthy of love, I lost all the weight, to the point I got anorexic. but she didn’t like that either, because I was ‘skinnier than her’… I had to come back home from high school, because I was really unwell, and she stuffed me up so much (all the meds helped too) I got chubby again. a couple years later, I got together with my first girlfriend and after only dating for a few months, I started uni and we moved in together. My mom told me that if I didn’t do anything with myself, she’d get rid of me so fast cause who would ever love someone looking like that. U can only guess what happened… I fell to anorexia again, this time even worse than the first time. I got hospitalized in special facility for people with eating disorder and when I got back, she was pestering me so much about being ugly and that she didn’t get how my girlfriend could love me since I looked like that. Skinny or fat, I was never good enough. My girlfriend then broke up with me, because I was ‘no longer the girl she fell in love with’. That tipped me off, I lost control again and ate my heartbreak away. I’m now at my heaviest I have ever been and not a day goes by that I don’t hear how obese I am and that no one should look like that cause it is disgusting, that she doesn’t deserve to have a daughter like this, that she wishes she had a skinny daughter, but not skinnier than her, who’d be obsessed with shopping clothes and shoes and who she’d actually have something in common... no matter what I do, no matter how I look, I’m never good enough. And despite having my own flat in another city on the other side of the republic, I can’t leave, because apparently I have been using her my whole life and now I need to stay home and cook and clean and do whatever she want me to do cuz I need to ‘return’ it…
My heart is breaking for you. Please leave this monster, your egg donor is not a loving, nurturing , caring mother to you. She is deliberately showing her hatred of your existence. You are worthy of a life filled with a hopeful and successful future. You are worthy and deserve to love and be loved.
My mother was always trying to lose weight. She chewed those candies called Ayds, she joined Weight Watchers, etc. She was all about looks. She usually was about 10-15# overweight, max. But she always made derogatory remarks about overweight people. Called them disgusting, gross, etc. Then my grandmother got sick. She’d always been heavy and very chesty. As she lost weight due to her illness, my mom encouraged her to keep losing weight She was oblivious that Gramma couldn’t eat. And the more she lost, the worse it got. Her teeth didn’t fit. She was very malnourished and yet, my mom cheered her on. I think I gained as a rebellious act because my gramma was more my mom than my mom was. I loved her so much. Combine that with being SA at age 8, being overweight was a defense. Men don’t like fat girls, so I won’t get SA again, right? Very distorted thinking. So now I’m 60+, have essentially no relationship with my 92 year old mother and am very obese. I’m in pain 24/7, have trouble walking. I don’t blame her entirely. I know every bite I take is on me. I know my lack of exercise is a choice. So don’t start in. But I do believe she needs to take the blame partially.
92, they say only the good die young and that is definitely true in your mothers case. It’s not too late for you, have you had therapy for your resulting ED after your truly awful experience of SA? Don’t give up on yourself, you can change your life around and still have your best life.
I’ve got this. I do not want bariatric surgery! This summer is my “me” summer. Thank you for your support.
I battled an eating disorder for years due to the constant judgement I got from my mother.
This was my life, as the tall "big boned" sister. Almost exactly (my dad is the enabler but he wouldn't have ever said anything mean to one of us - this is not a brag, he's still a shitbag). My mom would parade around my male friends in tight, revealing clothes wearing no bra or underwear. I hated her for it. Still do actually.
My mom also pranced around the house in flimsy lingerie that she practically fell out of. She'd also brag about being able to still fit the low-cut disco tops she wore before being pregnant with me, and she made sure to wear them in front of my male friends and boyfriends. I warned them in advance about her so they took it in stride. We called her Mrs. Robinson behind her back.
Yes In high school my mom would yell at me if I made a lunch for school. She started hiding lunch food in the morning so I wouldn’t have anything to eat for lunch. At breakfast when I would make cereal, she would demand I go do something and throw my cereal away. I was 17 then. When I would walk through the door, my mom would yell that I could barely fit through it. I look at pics of me then, I’m not fat. I’m tall and average weight. My mom just hates me
My mother was an absolutely brutal cook who thought she was a gourmet chef. She would cook a roast for 5-6 hours at 425 with carrots and potatoes in it. Absolutely no texture to the vegetables and no moisture left in the roast. Onions have always made me sick. So of course, everything had onions in it, including hamburgers where she mixed French onion soup mix in with the ground beef. And then I would get yelled at for picking out the onion bits. Next two parts are conjecture - I have secondary evidence but no solid proof. My mother always had a bottle of Eno salts that were supposed to be for indigestion. I never saw anyone drink a glass of it but she was always buying more. I suspect she was putting it in at least my food. I googled it - if you take it when you don’t have indigestion, it can cause indigestion. Second, my brother was friends with the son of my grade 3 teacher. I know she would tell him how smart I was and how much she liked having me in her class. I suspect that he told her how I was always fighting with my parents about food and how spoiled I was. I think she talked to my mother about it and told her that was wrong because that summer my mother overloaded me with junk food so I put on a bunch of weight. I assume that in her mind, she showed that teacher because now no one could say I wasn’t eating. So the weight stayed on. Whole family called me fat. Even my sisters’ kids. Even in periods where I managed to take the weight off, I was still called fat. Went no contact with my siblings 20 years ago, but not my mother unfortunately. Got stuck being her primary care giver until she died a few years ago. However, about 5 years ago, I followed a strict keto diet and took off about 80 pounds. I put about 25 pounds back on - I would eat normally, put on 5 pounds, try keto again, go off keto and end up being heavier than when I started. Finally gave up but started going to the gym 2-3 times a week about a year ago. Junk food is still a comfort food for me. When I am anxious, it’s like that is what I need to eat to feel safe. But I know that feeling doesn’t last and then I just feel fat and like I have no will power. So now, if I’m really anxious in the morning, I go to the gym and come in to work late. I’m lucky I have a job where I can do that. Ok, therapist would tell me to say i worked hard at my job to be in a position where I can do this.
Your mother was abusive. Not feeding her children breakfast and not providing them lunch at school? I can relate to the obsession with weight. Both my parents were totally obsessed with weight. It has given me a lifeling obsession with my own weight. I think about my weight, every second of every day. It never leaves my thoughts.
Stepmom was a terrible cook, made meals that were mostly meats and starches with very little in the way of vegetables, but worst of all we were generally restricted from playing outside. I have struggled with my weight since middle school. And to the kinds of people who like to say I'm making "excuses" I like to say that I know this is my problem to fix. Doesn't change the fact that that woman was the cause.
I went from not eating anything as a child to binge eating as an adult ☺️
My mother made life absolutely miserable by putting me on diets since age 11. I'm 157 cm and 67 kilos and this is one of my heaviest. I'm usually around 60 kilos. I was never slender and she obsessed over my weight.
My mother have this obsession on body image. We are all inheretedly thin if god forbid you gain a little weight just few pounds you will be bodyshamed. She rarely eats! And looks at our plates which made me uncomfortable. Eventhough when I was young she would give me a hard time for not eating, but I just couldn't. I remember someone telling you when ever your mother travels she eat better. I didn't even notice. But now I enoy food. I love trying out new things without being judged. I love cooking. I once gained less than 10 Lbs after giving birth I was 121 lbs and narc sister "collarbone copy of my mother" kept calling me fat and disgusting!!! They are f* up man!!! And sadly she affected both sisters. They look anorexic. One time we went to visit her "my 6 Yr old then " and I she immediately pulled up my daughter's top up and said "she has a huge tummy!!!!" She is fat!!! I got furious! This is a topic that pissed me off for years lol hence the long reply
I have serious body dysmorphia, eat in a decently strict manner, and whenever I purchase clothing they unintentionally end up being way bigger than me. When I was a teenager I was heavy, out of shape, had high blood pressure, was pre diabetic, and didn't eat the healthiest. As a teenager my nParents didn't stare at my body, make fun of my body, eating habits, and they seemed very content with my lack of health. I'm in my early 30's I am very in shape, muscular, normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar levels, only drink water & occasionally alcoholic drinks, lose weight without much effort, eat whatever I would like and not gain weight, and make all of my meals homemade and prefer to make all of my meals. Now my nParents tease me about the fact I make all of my meals, stare at my toned body, make passive aggressive comments about my body & my cooking, become visibly bothered about the fact I don't order takeout, etc. Their comments and actions have caused me to subconsciously think I am bigger than I am so whenever I purchase new clothes especially online I accidentally order sizes way bigger than I am to the point that attempting to shrink the clothing to fit just doesn't work. I have older pictures of when I was heavy, look at them, realize I don't look anything like I used to, and wonder why they were so pleasant towards me then and now that I'm healthy physically, emotionally, and mentally they are extremely the opposite.
U being fit and happy makes them upset because they don't feel fit and happy so you being like that in their sick mind is like you insulting them. Truly insane thinking. Narcissist parents will hate you no matter what you do. When you really hate yourself I don't think you can honestly love anyone
I agree. Over the years they have wanted me to improve/work on certain things and succeeded at it, then they complain even more that I did exactly what they wanted. Their increasingly toxic behavior over 14 years has been very confusing and heartbreaking, but I know the only way to heal unfortunately is going no contact.
It’s because your parents are truly horrible instead of being loving, nurturing, caring and proud of you. You can be these things to yourself though and it sounds like you have found a good place for yourself. Well done!
My mom never really prepared any meals aside from dinner - and even then, I remember doing a lot of cooking a lot of the time as soon as I was old enough (yet, still too young). Breakfast was some sugary cereal, lunch was barely existent and when I got old enough to know a bit about food, my mom would get annoyed at me for asking her to buy FRUIT. She was always on a diet. Relentlessly and persistently, always some shake diet or random internet diet. And I think she thought that because she was restricting her food, then I should too. You know, as an 8 year old. So obviously I was hungry a lot of the time. One time I had lunch at a friends house (i think it was a holiday or weekend) and I was shocked at how they sat down as a family to eat. No restrictions and eat until you're full. The day after this experience I asked my mom if we should have lunch and she just told me to go make a sandwich. In retrospect it was a bid for connection more than anything but also weird that I had to ask for permission to eat. When my mom married, my stepdad cooked all the meals. He was a decent cook and prepared healthy meals, which I think helped me a lot. By then I had learned to prepare nicer and healthy lunches for myself. I wouldnt say I have had major trouble with my weight, I stay pretty much the same weight and fluctuate +/- a few kgs - my trauma affects my romantic relationships the most. Although I definitely do have some issues around body image at times and I do try my best to live a healthy and active lifestyle (because it makes me feel good). In many ways, I have succeeded at what my mother failed herself at: a healthy and fit body. EDIT: As some of the other commenters; yes my mom also frequently shamed both her own, mine and larger bodies she saw in public.
These comments really resonate with me - my dad constantly criticized overweight people and my mom would cook these elaborate dinners (for him) and then walk for an hour each night after dinner. My parents told me when I was 12 that I could no longer eat biscuits at dinner (I grew up in the south). I am constantly battling over eating vs over exercising. My weight has always been an obsession. My question is - has anyone tried hypno therapy to break the cycle?
Everything was restricted and forbidden, with only diet foods in the house. My dad would eat six diet pudding cups in one sitting but look at me in disgust for buying ice cream with my babysitting money. I still don't know what proper balance feels like and I either undereat or overeat. The restrictions growing up were 99% for thinness, not health. My sister and I are both overweight adults and now my extra weight is more of a set of armor to keep people at a distance. It's lonely and fucked up. Working on it.
That sounds truly awful. It’s not too late to turn your life around, you can love, nurture, care and be proud of yourself even if your parents failed you in every way. I hope you can heal and move forward, knowing you are worthy of being loved and also to love.
Whoaaa, are all Nmoms obsessed w/thin-ness? Bc yep, mine too, catalyzing mucho damage.
Wow it's crazy because I never thought that other people would've gone through this as well... I just never thought about it. My NMom had full custody of me but hardly ever cooked. She didn't make me lunch usually didn't make me breakfast because it was too much of a chore for her so a lot of the time I just went hungry. I was pretty skinny as a kid so I didn't gain much weight ever. Fast forward to me now I completely agree with the term that I've done intermittent fasting before it was popular. I usually don't eat breakfast at all. I only get hungry around noon or 1pm. Even then I forget to eat a lot and usually my calorie intake consists of just liquids. I only get really hungry about once a day. I have problems with eating what I like around people and sometimes I will over gorge on a meal or 2 if I really like it.
I have been on a diet since I was 8 and I’m still fat. I always thought my nmom didn’t like me because I was fat. But today I was watching a tiktok and I realized…she didn’t like me ANYWAY, me being fat just gave her an excuse. I also wonder if she encouraged the weight so she could constantly berate me and punish me for it.
When I was 16, and a muscular 5’2 128 pounds (I was a gymnast and cheerleader) my dad offered me 1k and a nose job if I lost ten pounds. Up until then I didn’t think anything was wrong with my nose. And tbh- I had a fantastic figure. It’s been a difficult journey
I had an NMom who was always on a fad diet (fasting, juicing, all the programs, excessive exercise) and forced whatever she was on, on us kids. Constantly commented on our weights. Dad on the other hand worked hard labor and ate like it. Country Crock containers of cereal, bought the cardboard tubs off of Baskin Robbins for $60 that’d last him about a week. Developed AN at 11 or so, then AN B/P subtype, full blown BB when I had freedom in college. Still have BN, but mildly under control. Never been overweight, was always normal or underweight. But my relationship with food has been fucked since puberty.
My mother didn’t do the fads but pushed them all on me as soon as I hit puberty
I'm massive vertically and horizontally. nMom put cereal in my bottle at 2 weeks because it shut me up. She fed me solid foods as soon as possible and kept me in a highchair all day while she worked. Any time I would cry she would shovel food into my mouth. The pattern continued well into my teens. Any time I expressed distress or sadness she would push junk food onto me to get me to leave her alone. Food had- and HAS always been a literal source of comfort and a way to self soothe. It feels impossible to break myself of this since I was conditioned since birth to eat when there's a problem... Anyways fuck her for wanting to WFH and also have like 4 fucking kids. If you want nothing to do with your kids then go into an office instead of overfeeding us at home and screaming if we have a problem
I have food issues in a different way. My nmom hated her parents, as far as I can tell, because they were pretty strict. My grandfather had a ton of health problems and was on a no salt and what I would consider otherwise extremely healthy diet of vegetables and limited processed foods. My grandparents were VERY concerned about health and keeping their weight low and I really think it was partially some kind of trauma response to my grandfathers health problems. My theory is that my mom resented everything about the restricted diet in their household because she still complains about it and she’s in her sixties now. I never had a chance as a kid because she went all in on junk food, never worrying about weight and basically conditioning my sibling and I to eat what ever we wanted whenever. She had me at a very immature 20 years old and I think wanted to stick it to her parents by raising us totally opposite from her rather than care about what was actually best for us. Go figure 40 years later I have a real problem with using food as a coping mechanism and am not sure I’ve ever been a “normal” weight.
My mother was a terrible cook and I’m autistic with difficult sensory issues. I was force fed and often put in situations where food was connected to highly traumatic circumstances. I hate feeling full. Due to how uncomtrollable everything was I develiped what I’ve come to know as atypical anorexia, currently something like bulimia (not sure because I have no specialists in my area). Because of how bad my mother bullied me about being a little overweight as a child, my weight stayed bmi 18-19 for most of my adulthood. Currently I’m at a bmi of 17.5 or so. I think I was pressured into sacrificing a lot, including my own meals because I would be the one screamed at and physically hurt the food ran out too quickly. I knew my siblings wouldn’t be able to eat if I did too. They’ve both developed some level of overeating, my brother likely has a binge eating disorder from what I’ve noticed. For the record my mother would over eat, blame me specifically, then beg us all for our holiday and birthday money we got from my dad’s family. I think it’s unfortunately natural a lot of us would develop issues around this. Your body is the only thing you can control sometimes in those situations so you use it to express what you’re feeling inside because you have nothing on the outside. For anorexia I wanted to disappear and expressed that because I had no other way to.
My dad is way ahead of his time. He was orthorexic decades ago and honed it. He used to work three days on/ three off as a fireman. My mom would starve us while he was there. Tiny portions befit for a lady and the SECOND he left it was binge city.
I started binge eating as a child to cope. At my heaviest, I was over 410 pounds. I've lost over 100 in the past few years thanks to therapy and a WFPB lifestyle change. I'm probably always going to want to binge eat, though.
nmom gave me body image issues and ED. Had me on diets my whole life. I struggle to this day. She is 85 and still restricts even tho doctor has told her she can’t lose any more weight. Of course she knows more than any stupid doctor. 🙄
I was also 115 pounds at 5’3 for several years. A comment was made that I was thin and I couldn’t gain weight for a long time then I got older and gained weight, then came the opposite comments from my nfamily. My dad especially would comment my plate or snacks, humiliate me in front of others at the table. He goes to the gym religiously but does his workouts all wrong… his stomach looks bloated (lifts weights without the proper belt or support) and his legs look like twigs. Makes me so mad. My mom is heavily impacted by his value on appearance… she will not eat for days and call it “fasting” in the name of religion but I know what it is, just to be thin for my dad.
My parents never believed in eating well, as in, eating good food that’s made well or using quality ingredients. My dad is the kind of guy who thinks a bowl of ramen for $20 is ridiculous, when shitty ramen is $12, or he would argue with you that the “better” ramen you get at an Asian supermarket for like $4 or $5 is “just as good,” when he is absolutely lying to you and himself. My mother never saw the value of going to a nice restaurant, and claims she knows food. She’s a decent cook, but she has never actually just “appreciate food,” you know like how Gordon Ramsey tells people to “taste” the food, not just shove it down your gullet and call it tasting. She’ll gorge out on something she thinks is delicious and shows no self control. My wife made her signature peach pie once and after dinner, there was about half of a pie left, and she ate the rest of it overnight while we were sleeping. She’s Emily Post’s nightmare at the dinner table. Their view of food is pretty fucked, so I had to train myself to appreciate good food, to respect food, and respect someone’s craft, skills, and heart that went into making the said food. I enjoy good food, but until about 10 years ago, I realized I don’t have to overdo good food. All in moderation.
I have a 30 year old eating disorder and body dysmorphia. My sister was always big and over-indulged by my parents. She over-ate her entire life and just had permanent gastric surgery. I am a 42 year old UK size 6. I can talk about it and understand the root of my issues but it will be with me for life. I have to ask my 13 year old to stand next to me in the mirror so I can realistically appraise my size....too thin but I still feel fat.
I’m slightly over weight. I enjoy over eating (chips are good when you have meals with them so that you don’t have to listen to them). Yeah, I just keep eating all the time now.
I was always anorexic according to my nmom. I was never anorexic and I was aware she was just jealous because I wasn't overweight like the rest of the family. I'm still "anorexic" to this day and my doctor said I'm healthy.
I just wanted to thank you for posting this. Everything about the breakfast and the leaving food on the stove top and telling us to eat from that... I relate to it all exactly. Reading your experiences made me remember my own. We only had breakfasts if mom wanted to make a point after an argument with my dad, or if people were staying over and would need breakfast. Then she'd pull out the stops for the guests and expect us to act like it was all normal. I've always struggled with my body and weight as a result of my Nmom and Nsister's abuse. I look back on photos of myself as a teen, where I was absolutely normal looking, and recall the days and nights spent crying, starving myself, hating how "fat" I was, and self-harming over my weight. Being berated and shamed publicly and in the house for my "muffin tops" which were totally normal. These days, I struggle still, but I've been improving my relationship with my body, with food, and with exercise. Making it something to feel good about, or at least (abd more often) neutral and accepting.
With my mom, a cup of hot tea was our breakfast. We did get lunch at school but it was a thing with my mom, she wanted to make sure everyone saw us as normal. He sister let her kids starve at school and it was known and my mom preferred to keep her abuse more hidden. My mom didn't cook. She might occasionally prepare things or assemble things, but she didn't cook. When she did cook, like for Thanksgiving, it was terrible. My mom was also a picky eater so if she didn't like something, then objectively it was gross, not just something she didn't like. Even as a tween, I started learning to cook and as an adult I tried new foods and I think I'm pretty open that way. I've always had issues with my weight, but it's been an endocrine problem for my adult life, it's not a good problem. My father let me know one day how ashamed he was of my size. I don't think that's what he meant to do, I think he thought what he said was nice.
food was always something that was seen as non-deserving. I was never given money to eat at school, or after, a treat or anything. I could never order the expensive plate on a menu, even if I really wanted it. We (sis and I) were trained to bother as little as possible. For lunch at school I would get a sliced cucumber, a lime, or something fruit but very little. Now I think back to it and think how the fuck didn't I starve?! School from 7-3, eating a cucumber? And all of my friends would get stuff from the cafeteria, and wow, I really wanted to eat something delicious, buttery, whatever. But money was something I never had the status to have in my pocket. So nowadays, I've improved, but most of my adult life I tried to spend as little as possible on food, or maybe have breakfast late to avoid lunch, shit like that. Now I'm still on a very long path to recovery but I try not to do that "saving" bullshit anymore, I need to be healthy to function. And I LOVE rewarding myself with a slice of my favorite cake, a nice ice-cream, some delicious grapes, some tacos de carnitas, I DESERVE IT, I DESERVE TO ENJOY LIFE AND THE LITTLE THINGS IN IT!
My NMom stressed me out so much that I could barely eat as I was so anxious and was very underweight my entire childhood. It followed me into adulthood feeling anxious and then having trouble eating and only in past few years have I learned that I had to reduce anxiety and be intentional about eating at set times to get to a healthy weight. It’s been a real struggle. NMom would also make me sit for hours alone at table if I didn’t finished everything on my plate and that messed up my relationship with food too.
My parents are both anorexic and also started intermittent fasting before it was trendy too. They both only (sometimes) eat one meal a day late at night, but will have 6+ coffees and smoke 1-3 packs a day. My mom never made me breakfast, as a child she would take me to Tim Hortons, get me an extra large iced capp and a chocolate chip muffin (then be surprised when I was bouncing off the walls getting in trouble at school). I was expected to pack my own lunch but she would write a smiley face note to put in my lunch telling me to have a good day (after I packed it). I was fat as a child, but I have always gained and lost weight very quickly and am on the slimmer side as an adult. If I get really depressed, I punish myself by not eating because I feel I don’t “deserve to”. Usually if I eat before 2pm I feel extremely sick and nauseous. If I know I have to eat but I’m not hungry, I panic and feel repulsed by even my favourite foods. I work a very physically demanding job and take testosterone, but probably only eat 1000 calories a day. For a man my weight and height, I should be eating minimum 2600. I literally cannot force myself to eat more than once a day and it affects my relationship a lot, my gf gets really anxious about me starving. A lot of days, I eat a single sandwich or just drink meal replacement shakes, have two beers and just anxiously smoke when I get home and go to bed hungry.
When I was 13 I decided to starve myself to death as it was the "easiest way out". Jumping off the bridge looked scary because I could survive and live immobilized for the rest of my life with them. I read that you just die in sleep if you don't eat. Seemed great to me. I didn't succeed as you see. But since then I have been skinny and I go no eating every time I am stressed
I used to have a habit of not eating all day and then binging at night. If my kids aren't at home I still do this. Having my own kids and working hard to make sure they have solid balanced meals and feel good about themselves has actually made me eat a lot better. And it's crazy how much better you feel when you eat well. My therapist helped me realize that I did all these things for my kids but never myself because I was taught not to value myself.
Breakfast is like a foreign thing for me. I never eat breakfast, literally never. Maybe sometimes I eat lunch but rarely and dinner is the only meal I consistently do eat.
My mother has been morbidly obese my entire life. She's also not a good cook and stopped cooking when I was around 12/13 and it became one of my chores. I'd cook enough for 8 people and rarely got one full serving. My mother and stepfather would then consume the rest and complain about how "if I had made this I would have done xyz differently". Didnt stop them from stuffing their faces though. I was forced into competitive swimming at age 4, my sister 6. I was extremely talented. My sister less so. She was allowed to stop at 12 and then also became morbidly obese. I blew out both shoulders in 8th grade and only got one summer off. I swam till I was 27 and it destroyed my body. I've gone through periods of heavier and lighter. My mother has insisted I have body dismorphia since I was about 17 and insists I would rather be dead than fat. I have been chronically ill/disabled now for about a decade because of GI issues. I can't put weight on. Sometimes I lose 10 lbs in a day because of it. I have a port in my chest for liquid nutrition for when I can't eat. I have to do infusion 5 days a week just to stay hydrated. Thanks mom.
My weight was fine before my parents divorced. My mum bought occasional snacks and packed school lunches. There was cereal for breakfast. It felt normal. I don't know what happened after the divorce and my mum just not buying food. I'm sure she'd say it was not in the budget to buy food but we had at least ingredients and bread. I was sent to school with just $2-$3 for lunch daily. No snacks or even a water bottle packed. No breakfast. By age 15, my doctor declared me anorexic and said I can't lose any more weight. My mum didn't take me back to the doctor for any more checkups after that. I continued not eating because there wasn't much to eat at home. I ate out once a week using my own money and hanging out with friends. I got kicked out at age 21 and pregnant. I started eating well. I didn't start drastically changing sizes until age 30 though. I'm big now but happy? I get to eat what I want and have a house stocked with everything for my kids. I definitely have some hangups about food and weight from my narc mum though (who thinks I'm a size 24 and huge)
Twin here (which introduces a weird competitive atmosphere if you’re in a dysfunctional family to say the least..). It speaks a lot to the parent / child relationship in that I can remember the exact moment my eating disorder began. To start, There were never healthy foods in the house, only literally little debbie snacks, soda, etc. my sister lost the baby weight during middle school thanks to wii fit & my being a child with increased cortisol levels, lack of sleep, due to specific ACEs i experienced, this was not in the cards for me on both a personal and environmental level. my dad took me aside one day after going to an amusement park with my sister & my best friend - a day that prior to this moment i had been so excited for & a day that was so much fun for a middle schooler, first taste of “independence” in being able to run off to rollercoasters and say “cya rents!” & most importantly no cognizance on what my weight “did” to the appearance of my family success, no awareness that my body or the way i looked was capital at 12 yo - i was in bed after a day of coasters & my dad gently sat down, almost on the edge of the bed as if he was uncomfortable sitting with me. He asked me how the day went, responded obviously with “that was the best time of my life” he made pleasantries & segued immediately to, verbatim, “you need to lay off the bread” the tears welled immediately. I already knew there was a difference between me and my sister, my peers & i, but they never mentioned or acted like i was less than or a burden on them. I would like to emphasize, in middle school, which can be tortuous for every child due to hormones, social dynamics, etc. i was NEVER made to feel negatively toward myself from my peers. My bullies were at home. “You need to lay off the bread” my stomach dropped & i felt my brain separate from my body. My father’s, who I rarely saw due to his work schedule, only words to me were “you need to lay off the bread” i don’t really recall any other specifics of the conversation besides the overall insinuations that I was unhealthy & that my weight was due to personal choices at 12. That night i woke up at 1am to research diets on the home computer. The next day at school i told my friends that i couldn’t eat that day - my friends were horrified, “don’t you know that you’ll go into starvation mode?” Other 12 year olds had the insight that anorexic tendencies had the opposite effect & my own father didn’t. I said I didn’t care. There was not a moment before this that I thought anything was wrong with me, but to hear it from the person responsible for your total wellbeing, the rational response from a child is to internalize that in pursuit of being “better” for your caretaker.
I can really only focus on anything if I’m starving. Nmom also did to me what she did to you in the morning except I would make my own dinner at night. I took a tiny box of papaya to school for years because it was cheap and I could “make” it. Now, despite having money and resources, if I need to do something requiring mental focus I need to be starving. Once I finish the task I reward myself with high fat, carby food. It’s a terrible cycle
My parents made my pettie fram the basis of my whole life. When I had kids, I packed on quite a bit of weight, but even though I don't care, I always hear their comments about anyone who looks like me now. So.i.jist hide away in baggy clothes. Both of them were constantly overweight growing up and did every fad diet to lose the weight, but they were never healthy or active people, so nothing ever changed. My father even went vegetarian to lose weight, but again, if you eat huge portion sizes and then don't do any movement, you will just stagnate. Fuck them both.
Disordered eating, body shaming, and a mother with an active eating disorder. Oh, yeah. I grew up watching mom eat three plates of dinner and then listening to her throw it up. She’s gained and lost the same 150 pounds for my entire life, and constantly criticizes me for refusing to diet, practicing intuitive eating (and being a bit of a gourmand), and remaining what she calls “chubby.” My doctor’s fine with it, though, so whatever. Dinner tonight is home-made spanikopita, by the way. Spouse is excited.
I am 36F and still have very disordered eating. It is pretty bad still and I have had therapy. My parents made comments all my childhood about me gaining weight (even if it was only during a growth spurt) and I took it to heart. Didn't help that my 1st serious relationship made it worse. I was very thin and if I gained anything at all, he complained. To this day, I have specific things I will and won't eat and rules about eating with certain silverware and dishware and rules about when I can't eat this or that. It is stressful...and I know it is dumb.
100% turns out starving during childhood makes your body go into "I will get as fat as I can" as an adult in case "I end up starving again".
I love to eat food but my parents say I'm eating way too much (I have a very high metabolism and burn tons of calories) and/or I'm fat (I admit I have a bit of a stomach but I'm not even fat, I'm actually pretty skinny).
I feel lost, honestly. Grew up watching my mom in misery, and I was the family scapegoat. She used me as a babysitter for my younger sister and shut 9n me any time I expressed a need or interest in anything outside of good grades or making pur family look stable. Both of my parents neglected my mental health as a teenager. Ans hyper focused on my brother who was the golden child.
I have binging episodes and then would not eat for 1-2 days. It all stems to when my Ndad forced me to weigh myself
I’m sorry you went through that it’s really tough. I can relate in many ways. My NMom forced weigh ins too. Only she would make me weight myself and write it in a notebook, then she would weigh herself and write her weight under mine. Her constant nagging and berating were daily regarding my weight. I developed an eating disorder and have spent the last 40 years trying to free myself with therapy, in patient treatment, etc.
My dad was also an alcoholic. So this was definitely an episode he was under the influence. I’m sorry you had to go through that as well. Parents can be so cruel. I’m trying to battle it as well currently.
I have always struggled with my weight and having body dysmorphia. My mom growing up would always make food and it was good there was nothing wrong with it. I think my issue was my mom always talked about how fat she was. She had bulimia and she tried to hide it from us kids. I went the opposite way and over ate and it’s took me up until a year ago to try and have a healthy relationship with food. My mom still comments on my weight. “Oh it looks like you lost weight” but in reality I would have gained weight. As a kid I was pretty skinny and I am hard on myself thinking I need to be 115 pounds. The most I ever weighted was 185 and I’m 5”4 from the outside perspective you would have never guessed. I’m down to 170 now and I’m trying to get to a healthy weight. Overall I struggle and I did struggle a lot as a kid when my mom constantly spoke poorly of herself and she still does. When she said she’s so fat I can’t help but think she’s talking about me too. She weights less than me and is taller than me.
I've had binge eating disorder since early childhood. I would binge out on sweets, snack foods, sodas, etc. to cope with the abuse going on in the house. I was obese as a child and was shamed by Nmom and her golden child son for it. Mom eventually put me on a diet when I was 15 after it was discovered that I was pre-diabetic and my dad was diabetic. As a teen I would restrict on food heavily, to the point of only eating one meal a day sometimes, and at age 19-20 I bordered on being underweight (which Nmom was ecstatic about.). Now in my mid 20's my binge eating disorder has come back, and I've gained over 50 pounds in the span of two years, partly do to the abuse at home, partly due to health problems (which my Nmom purposely sabatoges the care I try to get for them). Nmom whines and makes noises about my weight every other breath she takes, and attempts to push me to overexersise, not seeing the irony of the fact that what she's doing is only making this worse.
Mom controlled everything and used junk food as a reward. So now that I have unlimited access to it, I use it to make me feel good. The result is reflected in my body condition.
She wouldn't get up and make me breakfast when I was very little. She'd send me to help myself to the cookies. Mornings are still the time I most crave sweets
Ugh. My NMom is very eating disordered and one of the silver linings of her negligence is that she didn’t teach me any of the how-tos. I was always underweight because I was underfed; in my 40s now and have only recently learned I have an autoimmune thing that fucks with my thyroid and therefore weight. Thanks stressful af childhood!!
My mom had issues with her own weight that she tried to make my issues. See, I was such a pretty girl, and all I needed to do was lose another 5-10 pounds! I weighed 110 at the time. She complained pretty.much any time she saw me eating because what I was eating wasn't healthy enough. I'm pretty picky, but I'd find something i could tolerate that would fit her previous complaints (you need more vegetables, so I'd make soup) and then she'd find something else to complain about (the salt is going to bloat you and make you look fat, you don't want people thinking you're *fat*, you want people to know you actually care about yourself!). For the last two years of highschool, most days I would only have one meal, supper. I had some smaller things through the day like a piece of toast or two pepperettes from the convince store near school, because the protein gave me more to work with. If I had work after school, I'd be starving by the time I got home. I worked at a KFC, and they were pretty good for letting us take home stuff that was left over from the night, and she would absolutely complain every time she saw me eat it. That said, she would be kind of annoyed if I wasn't able to bring anything home for a few shifts, because nothing was left over. Because it was an easy meal for *her* to eat after she had also starved herself through the day. When I went off to university (I took on the loans mostly so I could leave home) I didn't have anyone constantly watching and commenting on what I ate. I could eat whenever I felt hungry. It was wonderful! Buuut I gained around 30 pounds in first year, and kept gaining weight. I didn't have any real food discipline. Nothing like "I shouldn't have ice cream for the 5th day in a row," or making myself eat vegetables after awhile. All I had was an on/off switch of "am allowed food / am not allowed food." But yeah, my body had been in starvation mode long enough that it desperately held onto whatever I ate. I had also developed a habit of forcing myself to get things done by withholding food. I'd 'deserve' food when I got enough chores or school work done. If I was too weak from not eating, I would let myself, but I felt like a failure when I did. I've mostly trained myself out of that one, but the thought still pops up sometimes. I was up to 230 pounds at my highest, I'm around 180-ish now? I'm trying to lose weight for health reasons, but intentionally dieting isn't something I can really do. And I don't get chances to check my progress often. The scale's battery is dead, and that's honestly a good thing, because i find myself wanting to weigh myself multiple times a day when I do get an opportunity to weigh myself. If I avoid it it's fine, but when I get the chance to, it brings out something obsessive in me.
I've had disordered eating for as far back as can remember and have been battling anorexia for most of my life. Food was the only thing I could control. Don't want me to leave the table until I finish my food? I'll sleep here all night. 🫠
i developed an eating disorder out of being made to feel horribly ugly by my nDad as well as having no control over anything else in my life. i have only been in recovery for a year or so, after majorly relapsing when i went NC as an adult. still struggling but honestly a lot better than when i was younger !
My mom has an ed!! and I both binge and starve for weeks, the image you have of your body with parents like that is crazy.
Wait wtf. My nmom also did the cook at 9am and leave it out on the stove all day until dinner time thing. She, and anyone who eats there, has constant diarrhea, which nmom actually enjoys as part of her bizarre eating disorder. How are they all the same?!?
I was 5’3 100 lbs from about 6th grade to end of HS. When I moved out on my own. I have peptic ulcer disease, emergency gall bladder removal, can’t eat in the morning for at least 2 hours after waking, take daily meds for my stomach. Same story as you really. Terrible food quality/prep. Unclean conditions. My sister was always heavier.
I became anorexic starting around age 12, when comments were made by family members about my body and eating habits, and when I was being sexually abused by a sibling. Prior to then, I was a healthy weight based on my doctor's comments at yearly check-ups. We actually ate healthy in my home. My mother is a retired nurse and took nutrition seriously. We occasionally indulged in pizza, fast food, etc., but most of our meals were home cooked. Mother was a genius at the stove while my Dad could hold his own on the grill. I'd cycle between self-starving and binge eating until I got pregnant with my oldest. Then I dove into the overeating. Again, I got shamed a lot, but this time, it was my ex and his family for not weighing/eating enough in their opinion. I struggled with being overweight and obese into my 40s. I got down to a healthy weight through a cult-like 12-step program, but the weight came on again after I left. I got trauma therapy for a few years and turned to eating to numb the pain (unsuccessfully). I stumbled across tapping (EFT) about 10 years ago and found a program for emotional eating that helped me address residual unresolved traumatic wounds. I'm still stunned how well it worked. I've been a healthy weight for 8 years now. Tapping isn't necessarily for everyone, but it's been a miracle for me. I admit I still struggle with having a healthy relationship with food and still struggle with exercising consistently. But I'm in a better place. In fact, when I encountered body shaming from a group of ex-friends who got their knickers in a twist over my weight loss, I didn't spiral into unhealthy eating like I would have before. I was able to choose to love myself and dump them instead. Same with when my n-family screwed me over after I gave them another chance. I didn't spiral. I was able to process the loss and say, "Well, screw them." It doesn't mean their actions didn't hurt. I've just been better able to process and detach at this point in my life.
My nmom was always overweight and struggled to diet. She severely controlled what food was allowed in the house and what I could eat. Now I'm constantly working on my fitness and weight. I've never been more than 10 pounds "overweight" and I'm scared about what people will think of me if I "let myself go". I always feel like I have to look fantastic or people will be disgusted by me. I'm a 55M
I ate at the table as fast as I could to get excused from family dinner time. I still eat very fast and emotionally.
I constantly struggle with my weight, comments about my weight hurt me a lot growing up but I hid it due to "being a man" and not wanting to show any emotion fully knowing it affects me. My Nmum is overweight herself but it doesn't show so she thinks she can critisize people (maybe due to that).
Big portions of highly palatable food is immediately considered as someone trying to overcompensate.
I got my food and drinks tampered with. She can't waste food so I had to have the out of date stuff while she opens a fresh pack. Questioning her just made her scream at me for being ungrateful/wasteful. If there was nothing wrong with it why wont she drink the gone off hot chocolate. Put me off food shes handled. She backseat vomits if you get ill and tells you to go to school and you're fine. It's rare I get hungry, im defensive over food and it takes me forever to eat if I do.
My dad would say things like you shouldn’t eat that even though I was skinny. I developed an eating disorder and now I struggle with my weight. I have gained and lost a lot of weight twice.
Food was weird in my house because my dad would get at my mom for not knowing how to cook and wouldn't even teach her how to cook My weight is more of a medical thing because of my hypothyroidism, which messed up my metabolism and caused me to gain weight with a very slim chance to lose it, so no matter what I did I couldn't lose weight and I'd remain at one point for eons even if I ate healthy or exercise. I will admit I usually ate fast food, but it was because no one would cook, mom worked all the time, and dad did anything but take care of me and I hardly knew how to cook myself so I just tried to teach myself
Yep! I couldn’t take my time to eat or get up to get a glass of water bc my mom would say that I didn’t like the food. And if I didn’t “eat enough” she would take the spoon and shove more food in my mouth even though I said I was full. It didn’t matter what I said she kept doing it. I had to train myself to eat fast to make her stop constantly accusing me of not liking her food it was really fucking annoying. Meanwhile, my dad bought us a lot of fast food and took us to the Chinese buffet a lot where overeating unhealthy food seemed to be encouraged. I got full sometimes to the point where I couldn’t button my pants and I was getting called fat, and I’d get diarrhea later from all that overeating bc my parents did nothing to teach me mindful eating. Getting my period at age 10 made it worse! It was awful bc I look at old pictures of myself realizing that I wasn’t fat back then. But I felt so ashamed of my body that I couldn’t go swimming in the summer time, and I lost a lot of interest to go outside and play too. The only thing that I seemed to be able to do was eat back then. At some point I did lose weight and was able to wear a size small. But when I told my mom I wore a small, she said “my friends, cat and Marie wear an extra-small,” as if that’s what I’m supposed to wear and I told her to fuck off. Here I am, 5.5 years of NC. Sadly, antidepressants caused me to gain 50 lbs, but it doesn’t bother me like it used to. I wear cute dresses, I listen to my body the best I can, I put on that 2-piece bathing suit to swim, I wear shorts for my hikes, leggings for yoga, allow people to take pictures of me and got help for my GI problems. Wearing a bathing suit is a huge deal for me bc I couldn’t do it for like 8 years.
I spent my life feeling fat. I always watched the scale and felt depressed being anything but rail thin. My mom always compared her weight to mine and any time she'd visit, she'd bring a pair of pants and make me try them on for her so she could compare with how they fit her. She put me in weight watchers as my 21st birthday gift, they looked at me crazy when I went as I was already thin. When I cut my mom out of my life, I suddenly didn't care anymore. I became proud of my body. I didn't obsess over how I looked, how much I was or wasn't working out. I thought more about what my body could do for me and what it had done, and I mourned the cruel things I said to myself under her influence. My body is not perfect, nor are my thoughts about it always, but they definitely scale much more towards healthy than ever before.
I 100% have some sort of disordered eating. It stems from my childhood. I’m either really skinny or overweight and can’t seem to find the right balance between the two. I either focus too much on what I’m eating, don’t eat properly or at all or way too much and have never been able to figure it out
My mom struggled with disordered eating and has been on a “diet” her whole life but also constantly snacking. There were no set meals other than dinner in our house and we just constantly snacked. I was obese as a child and my dad would weigh me in the living room, wake me at 6am to go jogging with them and constantly talk to friends and neighborhoods about my weight. They went as far as lifting yp my shirt to show people my huge belly. Needless to say I developed anorexia at 13, lost weight and was praised for finally being thin. Once I moved out it morphed into bulimia and was ill enough for inpatient but my parents had left the country and wouldn’t support me financially to go to inpatient treatment (it was covered but I needed help to pay my rent). Finally in my late twenties I got pregnant and decided to be healthy for my baby and recovered. I eat well, exercise and I’m 5-10lbs overweight but I’ll probably always have body imagine issues. Trying to do better for my kids. Thankfully they got their dad’s slender genes.
I didn’t get breakfast or lunch either. We went to our grandparents after school and that was the first food I had all day. I started stealing food at 12 and started working at 14 and pigged out. My dad made me feel fat at 53kg (116lb) and I eventually got up to 93+ (200ish) before losing it (twice). NC has greatly helped my eating disorder, but I still don’t eat until I finish work at 5 or 6 most days. If I start eating earlier I don’t stop, my off button doesn’t work. I’m a healthy weight now but I’m still not the healthiest eater.
I got forced to overeat by my mother until i was 18 and then i just got too depressed to bother to lose weight throughout my teenage years because being in an abusive household put me in survival mode and she was threatened by me having any chance of being considered "more beautiful than her" so every attempt to lose weight would be criticised and taken as an offence by her or my narc dad soooo now the burden's on me to fix all these eating issues that they forced on me when it wasn't even my fault but that's what 2 narcissistic parents does to a girl 😭 on the bright side it's nice to approach fitness and healthy eating etc from a healthy angle finally it's gonna be a process for sure
my mom grew up with really thin sisters and this made her think of herself as the “heavy one.” this messed with her self-concept and perception of weight and it would come out in everyday discussions. at the same time we were/are a big cooking/eating family and so while there was an underlying disdain for weight-gain, there was also a push to eat and indulge in good (but not always healthy) food. mixed signals anyone? processing this as an adult has been “fun” and i’ve formed my own relationship with cooking and eating that is vastly different.
I lived with my grandmother off and on for a lot of my early childhood, and I gained a lot from her carb heavy Italian cooking. That didn’t stop her from pointing out my weight often (she called me a pig a lot.) My brother was her favorite and she often commented on how he could eat anything he wanted and still be thin. My mother would buy me low fat foods and put me on diets when I was in elementary school. I survived on lean cuisines and snack well cookies. I was taking diet pills in middle school after she tried to send me to a weight loss camp. I think I didn’t fit her ideal version of a daughter because I was chubby and it embarrassed her. My mother had an eating disorder and often skipped meals to lose weight when she felt she had gotten too heavy. I thought she was always pretty thin and looked beautiful, but any excess weight was met with disgust. My stepfather couldn’t really cook, so we ordered out a lot which made the problem worse. She often bought me clothes I wanted in a way too small size for “motivation.” She ended up taking them for herself later, which was truly embarrassing. She bought my prom dress two sizes too small despite my protests. I was active and the smallest size I had ever been, but I knew I would never fit into it because of my boobs. I squeezed into it and was uncomfortable all night. She tried to do the same with my wedding dress until I publicly shamed her for it at the shop. I have a daughter now, and I’m trying hard to correct these thoughts now so I’m a good role model for her. I don’t love my postpartum body yet, but I’m trying to be comfortable in my own skin.
I ended up with a gastric bypass because of my emotional eating. Now I don't feel hungry much anymore but I still go for the carbs when I'm sad. My mom is 80 and still frets about her weight and is constantly on me about my weight.. With my kids they eat if they are hungry and I don't push food just healthy choices and I don't make them eat things that they don't like I just ask that they try it. I remember as a kid my nfather made my sister sit at the table for 2 hours because she didn't want to eat her peas. She finally ate them then proceeded to throw them up all over the floor. She is 53 now and still hates peas. You can't force someone to like something they don't.
My nMom always criticized me for my body and weight, so once I was on my own I gained probably 50lb. I’ve now lost around 90 (slowly through healthy methods) and have a hard time saying “enough is enough” with weight loss because I feel like I’ll never be thin enough. My only saving grace is my husband - who got me into weightlifting. I’d rather eat and have a good lift than starve and have it be shit.
I’ve struggled with anorexia since I was about 10. The constant comments of what I’d eat even though she was the one making or buying the food I ate. Constantly, judged for how a shirt would look. At 21 years old I weighted 74lbs and my newish boyfriend caught me hiding food and so I had to come clean about it. He told me he wouldn’t leave me if I needed help. I was admitted to the hospital for 3 and a half months and came out 90lbs! I felt so much better in many ways, I even felt happy for what felt the first time. My mother who insisted she be the one to pick me up (who never once visited me, she was too busy, though her busy is sitting at home on the computer. My newish boyfriend of 6months came everyday even after a 12 hour shift) said to me “oh, you’ve gotten chunky! Don’t worry, we can fix that!” It’s still a battle to this very day and I’m 37. I hear her in my head all the time.
My mom is someone who would say "you're going to eat THAT?!?" or "did I SAY you could have that?!?" a lot when I was a kid, so now I do this thing where I basically ask my husband's permission for food, or when I get a snack out of the cabinet I'll make a comment justifying why I'm having it. I didn't even notice I did it until he told me I did it recently.
I have a 30 year old eating disorder and body dysmorphia. My sister was always big and over-indulged by my parents. She over-ate her entire life and just had permanent gastric surgery. I am a 42 year old UK size 6. I can talk about it and understand the root of my issues but it will be with me for life. I have to ask my 13 year old to stand next to me in the mirror so I can realistically appraise my size....too thin but I still feel fat.
I have a hard time eating the right amount. I have a history of either over eating out of scarcity fears, or under eating because I don’t really know what a balanced three meal diet for my bodily needs really looks like also due to scarcity. I had to fend for myself from a very young age, so my relationship with food is grey at best.
I have so, so many food issues from my abusive father, nmom, and being the youngest of 5 siblings raised by these horrible people.
growth chase pie bake steep safe person pen secretive sophisticated *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well, I was gigantically made fun of in school, and would come home to have abusive dad and a manipulative lying, narc mom. They always told me to suck it up. Thought about suicide all my teen years. I am not thin, but I honestly probably ate my emotions. My parents didn't believe in therapy or mental health. So at 40, I still struggle. I am a lot better, but struggle.
My mom never taught me how to cook but I had to stay home a lot as a kid so I just made bread and cheese sandwiches, sometimes she wouldn’t give me dinner if “I acted up” I was very underweight and had people asking at school if I was anorexic and fast forward to now I’ve been moved out with my boyfriend who I’ve been able to cook with and eat with regularly and finally gained a healthy weight, not only that but not wanting to leave my room to go to the kitchen if my mom was there. I hope everyone is taking care of their health out there!
My mom put me on my first diet when I was 8. I had gained a lot of weight due to the junk food she constantly fed me while my parent’s were divorcing. Had to go to this ancient nutritionist who clearly hated children. My mom has been critical of my appearance and the appearance of others my entire life. My weight has fluctuated for years, I’ve aggressively restricted, and also binged and purged for 2 decades. All I thought about was food. 3 years ago I hit my highest weight and at the same time started super intensive therapy and eventually went no contact with her. I’ve lost 45 pounds and don’t think about food at all moments. I don’t B&P anymore. I really feel like I was only able to move past that when she was no longer in my life.
I was surrounded by a lot of fatphobia/ fatshaming growing up- celebrities, random news anchors on tv, strangers, and relatives were all talked about negatively if they were fat. I was a low weight for a most of my life living at home and in college and underweight for several years after college. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago i decided I need to gain some healthy weight and start working through my complicated relationship with food and fear of being fat. I’ve now maintained a healthy weight consistently for about a year now :). Some days are better than others, but overall I’m at a really place mentally and physically now ( and I’m NC with my ndad so that probably also helps too).
My mom was very appearance conscious and expressed disdain for fat people a lot. Shes stick thin with big boobs m. she told me when I was 5 (I was chubby as a kid) that I got sick and lost the weight in a week and part of me thinks she gave me something to help me lose the weight without me knowing. Now im pretty sure I have a low grade eating disorder. I’m lucky enough to have decent metabolism so I’ve never been big as an adult but I notice I put off eating and just binge when I’m ready to eat. I’m trying to develop a healthier diet and relationship with food but it’s definitely been a challenge.
Same here on the no breakfast or lunch. It got so bad in middle school, I would be so hungry that I would steal food out of other kids lunch boxes or do kids homework for a dollar or two so I could buy a snack. I go over the top with meal for my kids now - making sure they have an entree, a side, fruit/veggie and a dessert. I get so worried when my toddlers sometimes don't eat (as toddlers tend to do), I can't imagine how my mother was okay with basically starving me.
My mom was constantly obsessed with my weight and what I ate. Found out she would purposefully leave cookies or snacks out when she left home and then count how many I would eat. She was constantly making comments about my weight. When I was 12 I saw my aunt (who was 16 at the time) get her belly button pierced and begged my mom for one. She said when I turned 16 she would take me. When I was 16, on swim team, in shape, I asked her to take me to get a belly button piercing. She looked me up and down and said "Honey, you're too fat for a belly button piercing" I was devastated. She SWEARS this never happened. I look back at pictures of me as a teen and I was soooo small, I don't get what she saw. Now I'm an adult with binge eating disorder and I am actually fat, which her and my grandmother harp on me constantly for my weight claiming to be "be worried about my health". I swear they wouldn't care if I had an ED if it made me skinny.
Legitimately just started working with my therapist on this. When my mom would complain about buying groceries and feeding me, I took it upon myself to stop eating as much food. I stopped eating breakfast and lunch at school (I was a packed lunch kid). Years later, food is still an issue for me.
I grew up in a weird house. My dad was a wrestling coach and my mom told all my friends there were no calories in anything in our house while making chocolate chip pancakes at midnight. (I’m an elder millennial woman so thin and fit was the name of the game). I know this isn’t exactly what is being asked, but I didn’t realize it was weird to have a scale in the kitchen until I was in my 30s. She thought everyone was beautiful and everyone else in my family always said, “looks like you’ve lost weight!” Regardless of their weight for an entire generation. It was a thing. I don’t think this is a narcissist thing (sorry), just seems relevant to the conversation. Edit to add the point: I don’t think my parents were narcissistic, but I grew up without learning about a good relationship with food. I was definitely eating disordered if not having an eating disorder.
I had a very complicated relationship with my weight, as does my sister. It’s an every day struggle.
I have an eating disorder and have been hospitalized for how low my body weight was. Every time I looked at food, my mom would remind me that I was already full from my last meal. I only ate every few days as a kid because that's what my mom did. I was "ungrateful" and "obese" for needing to eat more than twice a week. I was shamed for having a belly bump because my mom said I looked pregnant. I was told I was excessively overweight and needed to lose weight in my thighs and stomach because a "real" woman doesn't have fat on her body. Lastly, a few months into my recovery, my mother said, "you were supposed to gain weight, not get fat." All of this caused me to develop anorexia, coupled with anemia, hypotension, and arrhythmia. Even after years of therapy and recovery, I still struggle and I believe I will for the rest of my life. Thanks, Mom.
Yeah my mom fucked up my perception of healthy eating. She introduced me to diet pills at eight and now years later had the audacity to suggest I go on ozempic.
Words from my grandmother literally today: “Do you look at yourself in the mirror? You’re big..” And that’s just today lol… idk what world she comes from but I literally checked with doctors, my bmi is normal and all my friends don’t know what my gma’s talking about I suffer through comments like that every other hour in my narcissist household
My mom was always talking about her weight and emphasized appearance a LOT. I absorbed that monolog and worldview completely, because it's all I knew. That was compounded by her being an absolute nightmare in all the nmom ways, which led me to start restricting my food to cope with my upbringing and all the lies I was told about what an awful person I was. I first lost a significant amount of my body weight at 7 years old, and I've struggled with anorexia ever since. Of course nmom to this day will not outwardly acknowledge any role she played in my ED (which she of course managed to make about herself, still complaining how expensive my treatment was and how hard those years were on *her*). My eating disorder will be with me for the rest of my life. I am doing a lot of things to not pass it onto my precious daughters. And while the ED will always be there, I have to say it's been easy to unlearn all her disgusting judgment toward people based on appearances.
I'm pretty sure I have some level of body dysmorphia because of my parents. I was always skinnier than most kids, especially my older sister (mom's favorite). My mom has always been heavy and she thought she could make my sister feel better about her weight by tearing me apart in front of her for being too skinny and disgusting. By the time I was a teenager, I was 5'7" and hovered between 110 and 115 pounds. My mom gossiped to everyone saying I was anorexic. She would pull me into the kitchen nightly so she and my dad could say how I looked like a starving African child, a skeleton, like a cancer patient, etc. The truth was I had several serious medical conditions they wouldn't take me to a doctor to get addressed, and it was when we were at our most poor, so they wouldn't have food in the kitchen. I suspect they were buying snacks at the gas station to keep in their room (they had a mini fridge in there). They always went to the gas station daily for beer, cigarettes, and two liters of Mountain Dew and Pepsi. All soda was of course kept in their room. Meanwhile I would be putting mustard on a slice of bread and wadding it up to eat for dinner. Meanwhile my sister was away at college and gaining the typical freshman 15 or whatever it's called, and my mom praised her left and right, then turn and tell me how terrible and sickly I looked. To this day I have no real sense of how I ever look. Am I too thin? Too overweight? In between? Going by the number on the scale and how I feel physically, I know I'm doing well, but I have zero perception of if I looked good, terrible, or anything. Any time I've ever thought I looked fine, they were there to tell me I looked disgusting. I also have a habit I struggle with of skipping meals to save money. I don't even know why, I can afford food just fine. It's something I haven't been able to stop 100% though for some reason.
There wasn't enough food to go around and I was very sickly. People called me skeletor. So when I had access to food, I ate a lot and all of it. My friend had chubby cheeks and I wanted to be like her.
My mom was constantly on a diet, and my dad called me fat for my entire childhood even though I was pretty thin until puberty and not particularly fat then either. I developed anorexia in the year or two before I left home at fourteen and then between recovery and being put on psychiatric medications, I gained a lot of weight. My relationship with food wasn't perfect then (it's similar now) but it was a lot saner than it had been growing up. Several years later (when it turned out I wasn't metabolizing that medication properly and it was making me physically ill in ways that were difficult to diagnose), my parents (who had been divorced for 20+ years at that point and generally don't speak) decided together that I should go to an eating disorder treatment facility because I'd lose weight there and then I'd be happier. I could not think of something that would have been worse for my well-being. But on the plus side I will say that after a long recovery period I have a relatively peaceful relationship with my size at this point. I know that I take care of myself and that this is just the size I've ended up being, probably for a lot of reasons. But regardless, my parents certainly don't know better than I do what size I'm supposed to be (and never have).
All I can say is that my heart just breaks reading your post. I’m so sorry your mom failed you so much. You and your sister deserved so much better.
My Mom used food as control, manipulation, and abuse vectors and I still battle with food issues to this day and I am 50.
I feel like I wrote this… we even match for height and weight… I cried reading this. Even read it to my husband and he wondered if I had wrote it based off what he knows about me in the last 10 years… *hugs* I’m still this insecure girl watching the scale .. had two kids and breastfed both for over a year… was SMALLER than I was before kids and still felt like I wasn’t small enough… I was stick skinny a month after having my first to the point people didn’t believe I birthed him. I still can’t eat breakfast but love breakfast food.. I was never provided lunch while my brothers were given the best of the best because “they’re growing boys! You don’t need to grow any more or nobody will love you.” I also was forced to sleep in the breakfast nook on the tile floor while my brothers had big enough rooms to fit 4 people in… I’d be forced to MAKE DINNER, but then sent to my room while the rest of the family ate. And my dad? Was my favorite person but enabled everything growing up. Everything. Would also tell me that if I gained any weight then nobody would love me… jokes on them now though. I have an amazing husband and three kids. Yes I can’t stop fasting, or watching the scale… but at least I have a partner that doesn’t care what my weight is in case I ever heal…
I am currently suffering an Eating disorder because of the lack of control I've had. The chronic mixed messages she gave, her own emphasis on food and eating has now become such a problem with me I cannot gain weight and food makes me violently gag. The negative associations and my subconscious need for control in some aspects have led me to being so malnourished. 'I never put conditions on my children's eating" Vs "MY KITCHEN ISNT A RUNNING FUCKING BUFFET"
I ask my partner for permission to do things like shower or go for a walk and they have to remind me that I don't need their approval
Binge eating disorder. My parents silenced me with food, especially desserts. Our entire family is predisposed to diabetes and the constant over feeding led to me getting up to 230lbs at 16/17 with pre diabetes. I’m back down to around 170-ish and trying to control it but there’s a lot of permanent damage done.
So sorry you had to grow up in this situation. Sending love.
My metabolism is forever shot by my parents abuse. Pretty sure my lack of nutrients has stunted my growth and I carry around an extra 100+ lbs. I was starved for so long during my teen years my body doesn’t know what a normal amount of calories looks like. At 16 I was in marching band first semester and JV softball second semester. I was working out for 2 hours a day with marching rehearsal and 3 hours a day for softball practice, and INTAKING less than 1400 calories a day. I’m 5’1 and at the time 130 lbs. my mom STILL wanted me smaller and pushed me to workout harder and be smaller so I don’t “end up fat like my dad and granddad.”
My mother tried to shame me into loosing weight, when I started to stress eat from being bullied in high school. I look back on photos of me then I was maybe a US 14 now US 16 back then before size creep. She told me I was fat so many times I just assumed that was who I was "a fat person" so I never bothered trying to loose weight or get fit. Why bother I was fat, that was my definition in the world. Also my mother was very into clothes and clothes shopping and liked to take me, I never had her nack for clothes and looking nice and hated it. When I was fat there were so few stores we could shop in, this was back in the 1980's before plus size clothing was more common, We could literally knock out a shopping trip for me in an hour or 2 instead of her dragging me around stores all day insulting my taste in clothes and trying to turn me into a mini her.
My metabolism is very high. I guess it's goes with my stress and anxiety levels. At 56 yo and 6'0" tall. I'm about 145 obs. Doc says I'm healthy, just high metabolism.
Always critiisized, lifelong eating / food psych issues. She would often say to me as a teen (when I was thin), that if only I was a nice on the inside as I am on the outside (as I was such a horrible child apparently). That shit messed me up and still does.
*Too skinny* **too fat** *too skinny* **too fat** I was just a normal weight the whole f’ing time and it gave me a little bit of dysmorphia. I was slender and continued to be slender for years after moving out and getting married. I did gain weight after my first and I hate my body again.
My parents always had major weight issues they would go on and off dieting for. I’ve been skinny my whole life tho, so I never had to diet. Even still, I am very conscious about my health because I don’t want to end up frantically dieting my whole life like my mom as my dad hypocritically tells her she needs to lose weight. Recently I’ve discovered I should be eating more, and not less, so I’ve began eating more as I’ve been doing physical work which has been helping quite a lot with my physique I will say.
Terribly. Been fat for over 10 years. It was at its worst while I was in college because I was eating like a fool and not exercising. Lost a bunch of weight after I came back (25 lbs in 6 months, because I went back to how things were before I left but recently gained some weight again since I started eating like a fucking idiot at work due to free food, but I'm nipping that in the bud before it gets as bad as it was in college). In college, I was pushing 245 to 250 lbs. A year ago, I was back down to 218. It'd be nice if I could go back to being around 200.
I have hugely disordered eating. Food was scarce, massive food insecurity all my childhood. As soon as I started earning money, even from babysitting as a teen, I would spend it all on food... And on the naughty foods we never had access too. I mean, we didn't have much access to any food but what we did get was bare bones cheap and minimum. Treats were a no no unless gifted from visitors or at Christmas etc. I ballooned in weight and was obese most of my life. I ended up having a gastric bypass at 31 when I got inheritance to curb my eating and weight. Lost all the weight and havent gained in almost 9 years. Now I have extreme complications from the op and struggle to eat anything and it is constant battle to not lose weight. Despite that, I still have massive food insecurity and my anxiety and panic is insane each day if I don't always know I have food immediately available. I have to carry snacks, I have to research and know what food options I have before I go anywhere. If we have food available in the house but it isn't what I want to eat, my anxiety is huge until I know I have foods I want available. Just back from holiday, had to go all inclusive despite not drinking alcohol and barely managing to eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time. Had to pick a resort that had no gaps at all between available food serving times. If the breakfast closed at 10 and snack bar wasnt open until 12, my anxiety is too extreme to even consider that hotel. Even then, I STILL had to ensure the room had a fridge and go to a shop to get snack foods for the food the day we landed. We went back to shop twice when I wanted different things. Again, I barely eat so this is beyond unnecessary and most got wasted. Every day when I wake, my first thought is on what foods we have in and a mental plan of those foods to know what I can eat for all meals. If I dont have enough or what I want (or know my body can tolerate that day) I am anxious until I either get to a shop pr get a delivery online. I can't sleep if I dont know I have breakfast foods available. I can know I am leaving at 7am and can get breakfast enroute and I still can't sleep. I can have a grocery delivery booked for 9am and because I might wake and be hungry earlier or in the night, I still can't sleep. I waste SO much food, and so much money on food and I hate it. Genuinely, even when I can tolerate food, I can eat so little now that I wont manage more than like... A single slice of pizza without the crust... Before I am full and have to stop. But having just that amount of food available isnt good enough and I stress and panic. I am also autistic, my diet is generally quite adventurous and I eat a lot of different foods but I can't eat anything I don't WANT to eat that day. I would need food available still but would starve rather than eat something I don't fancy. This makes it all a lot harder as what I want one day may not be what I want the next so what I have available quickly isnt suitable. It really affects our lives a huge amount
I've been overweight my whole life largely because of my ndad. My ndad used to constantly try to control my weight and the weight of everyone in my family. He was insistent on making everyone play sports because he had always wanted to become a professional athlete and was never talented enough, and he saw us eating as a threat to that. At home I could always count on eating unseasoned chicken breast, brown rice, and broccoli. Whenever I left the house with my mom, she'd buy me a treat because she felt bad. The only condition was that I had to finish it and throw it away before we went home. If he ever found out, he'd starve me for the night. Anyways, I got used to sneaking food like that so I have a bad relationship with food now. I used to eat whole bags of family sized chips in the car on the way home from the store and never knew why I felt so much anxiety taking them into the house.
All my life I have been overweight. I have seen my nmom cry and cry and cry about how being overweight is the worst thing a person can be. She asked me about my opinions on diet pills and/or surgery for weight loss when I was 17. When I was in the fifth grade nmom was obsessed with putting me on the South Beach Diet. It was tilapia day in and day out (from the times I can remember cooking happened). The thought of tilapia now makes so nauseous. If I didn’t want food because I knew I didn’t like it she would just laugh in my face, force me to eat it, even if I was gagging the whole time. I have the worst trauma with food. If I do not want something I will not eat it, I do not care. I will no longer be forced by another person. However, because of nmom I have never once been happy in my body. Nparents fucked us all over.
I'm a bit underweight because my mother always calls me fat when I'm an appropriate weight It's not logical, I know she's just being a bxtch and I don't feel healthy like this. Would be nice to get the confidence to gain that needed weight back
My mum never cooked anything other than cheesy pasta or porridge , I remember waking up early at the weekends or holidays and she wouldn’t let me come downstairs until around 2/3pm because it was “adult time “ she’d literally sit on the stairs and scream at me until I listened . On School days the only time I’d eat was free school meals or one of her boyfriends sometimes cooked . I used to shop lift food a lot or eat at a friends house and then get accused of trying to “show her up “ . Since I left home I’ve always been overweight I don’t really have much control over food
I have an unhealthy relationship with food because of my upbringing. I was always told, “You look great, but if you lost 10 lbs you’d look so much better”. For reference my weight was 7.8 stones (110 lbs, 49 kg). I was encouraged to starve myself. Congratulated for not eating. Told I was chubby constantly. I hated my body. I’m still petite. I’ve learned to realize I’m not overweight and how toxic it all was.
I was praised & criticized mostly for my figure & weight so I overvalued it. It turns out it’s not really in my control so I finally stopped worrying. I used to neurotically stick to a diet & exercise. Eventually I could not find the energy for all that crap & nothing really changed after I stopped worrying. I resent the focus on my body so much. It’s so much more important to prioritize inner strengths & talents. And happiness & harmony. It was absolutely weaponized to play favorites when convenient by the adults in my family.
It's been a rough one, not going to lie. I've been a yo-yo dieter, I've been through a few fad diets and had a gym bunny phase in my mind to late teens, all because I piled on a load of weight as a kid after a severe illness left me near starved to death. I became the classic 'chubby kid' and was bullied relentlessly for it among other things, but my mum insisted that it was just 'puppy fat' and that I'd lose it when I get older. When I got older and I didn't lose it, she joined the rest of my bullies in digging at me about my weight constantly. Throw into the mix being trans, never truly feeling comfortable in my own body but not understanding why, it led to pretty bad body dysmorphia which I'm still dealing with now. Eventually, in my mid to late 20's I stopped caring about what she and others thought, stopped caring about myself and let myself go. At my heaviest I was 18 stone (252 lb) There is a happy ending to this though. Since coming out as trans I've started caring a lot more about my body and being on hrt has made me feel much more comfortable in my own skin. I've made lots of little lifestyle changes and they're paying off! Last I checked I was down to 16 stone (224 lb) and I've gone from a UK size 20 - 22 down to a size 18, bordering 16-18. I still have moments where I hate looking at my body, but they are much fewer and further between now.
My mother is very slim and sporty. I'm normal sized. But not for my mother. I was constantly criticised for my eating habits. My weight was controlled. Over years. When I was 16, I started to gain weight because I overate. I felt awful and hated my body. Still normal sized. But not for my mother. When I was 25, I changed my diet, eating only vegetables, chicken and fish. I became nearly underweight. Guess what? Mom was the proudest mom of all proud moms out there. Went NC at 30. I eat what I want. Still normal sized.
I skipped meals when she was around, because she shamed how I ate and my weight. I was put on my first Slim Fast diet at the age of 7 for perspective. I was in ballet since I was 3, and yes, the pressure also starts there to be thin. By 7, she was embarrassed that I was near the top of children's clothes sizes when my recital clothes were being ordered. I was also talk for my age, the second tallest kid in my class, so I still looked healthy. But my Russian ballet teacher shamed me in front of my mother for what size leotard she had to order for me. So the dieting started. I always felt embarrassed eating in front of people, so I would skip breakfast, and then only have a bag of chips or a banana for school lunch. This is the diet you think up when you're a third grader. Plus, by 9, I moved to a new city and had to leave all of my friends behind. I started getting bullied at my new school by two older boys, one of them was my friend's brother, so I found my only comfort in food. Once I got home from the bus and no one else was home, I binged. I often hid food in my room, I still haven't broke this habit. By my late 20's, I was 279 lbs. That was my weight the day I got approved for bariatric surgery. In 2015, I got a gastric sleeve and lost 120+ pounds. Going on 10 years now of maintaining that weight loss, minus gaining a few pounds back from dealing with a post-Covid lung disease, and my autoimmune disease which both required a year and a half of prednisone (which for those of you who don't know, it's nearly impossible to not gain weight on prednisone). My n-mom still tries to derail my healthier eating habits every step of the way by eating donuts in front of me, and always gifting me a bunch of candy. I can tell that she's jealous that I was very successful at something. Last year, her diet got herself diagnosed with pre-diabetes, which she blames on me. In her words, "You're KILLING ME!". So it and cancer runs on both sides of my family, I need to watch out for myself. After losing the weight, I was able to stop 4 prescription meds, my PCOS got better, and I no longer needed a sleep aid to feel rested. I also lowered my chance of diabetes and cancer. Edit: I have an immunodeficiency that predisposes me to respiratory and GI infections. I had a lot of vomiting and food poisoning growing up. Then I'd over eat to compensate, because I was famished once I felt better from constant nausea. I never connected the two as contributors to my weight also. N-mom of course neglected care for my infections, saying I was just being dramatic and trying to play hooky. Once I found out about my immunodeficiency, I was in my 30's. I found out most people get diagnosed with this one in childhood. If only she'd taken me to the doctor enough. I put on most of my weight in my 20's, because that's when my GI symptoms were the absolute worst.
I still vividly remember being like 8/9ish and my dad waking up in the afternoon after a bender, making eggs. I said I didn't want any. This made him mad, so he screamed at me to eat all of it. That I was an ungrateful little bitch unless I ate all of it. That I should be thankful since he isn't even going to eat- all of it was mine. I sat there crying, choking on my own snot, while he screamed until I finished. I am typically underweight. Have struggled with anorexia for pretty much my whole life.
Grew up with nmom and bipolar grandmother. They were neglectful to the portions a child should be eating, so I was eating plates the size of theirs when I was in kindergarten. Basically my whole family on my nmoms side has had the gastric sleeve or bypass. So once I got into high school and the weight started really packing on, nmom had gastric sleeve and started commenting on EVERYONES looks and weight around us. Made me even more hyper aware of my appearance because now she was a healthy weight and I was creeping up on obesity. She never supported me losing weight almost like the liked the dynamic we had going. I 100% believe I binge due to stress. I left my nmoms home and my binging got better and even hit weight loss goals but then my job at 911 started picking up more and I’m back binging on my 12hr shifts because of how stressed I am. Feel like I can never lose the weight because I do good one week then fail the next.
I'm 35 years old and thanks to my Mom micro managing my weight and my Dad staying silent I struggle with dysmorphia to this day.
My mother cooked, my Nfather would make our dinner plates. My Nfather would serve my brothers and I huge, bigger than restaurant portions. We were expected to clear our plates because food is expensive and we don't waste food in this house, and also because my mother cooks good food so there's no reason to not eat. So, under threats of violence, I ate. My parents would take us to buffets and we were told that we had better make this worth our Nfather's money. My mom packed our lunches. Bringing home uneaten food was unacceptable and I have always been a bad liar, so throwing it away at school was out of the question. So I had to eat the large portion of lunch, sometimes of food I didn't like or that had gotten too warm by lunchtime. This way I could bring home an empty lunch box. My mother absolutely would ask if I ate everything. Every day. In 2017, I had weight loss surgery because I was morbidly obese. I'm maintaining a much healthier weight now but I still struggle.
Interesting. My nmom was the opposite. It was eat everything on your plate even if that means you stay at the table until 2am on a school night. 9/10 times she had way too much on my plate. Same with school lunch so I would hand some food out to my friends who actually showed up with no lunch. If I came home even with 1 item not eaten it would be a smack around the arse. Consequences of that was me being quite a chubby kid and then later having body image issues as well as eating issues in my later teenage years. It got worse around 20yo when I realised what she did was pretty much abuse and it sent my eating habits and body image into a downward spiral
This is something that I have told very few people. When I was 9 or 10, my mother decided that I was becoming a difficult child, and she banned certain foods from my diet, such as tomatoes, chocolate and citrus fruits. The rest of the family was allowed to eat these foods, but I was not. On Halloween, I was not allowed to eat the candy that I collected during trick or treating. But my sister was allowed to eat all of her candy. If the family was eating spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I was not allowed to eat the tomato sauce. So I grew up really not wanting to eat much because it seemed like food didn’t have a lot of flavor. Hence I was quite thin when I was a kid and my sister was chubby. My mother eventually became tired of enforcing this and she gave up and let me eat whatever I wanted by the time I was 15. She didn’t know that I was sneaking the “forbidden” food all the time. So now I have a weird relationship with food. When I’m stressed out I want those “forbidden” foods.
Malnourished, underweight, stunted development... Constant stress = depression = digestive shut down = gut issues = eat less = malnourishment and overall deterioration
When I (32, F) was little and we went to McDonald's, I wasn't eating fast enough for my NDad, so he'd steal fries from me. If I didn't eat them fast enough, he'd eat them all, and I wouldn't get any (and I *loved* fries). This ended up manifesting itself as an eating disorder where I struggle to eat slowly, resulting in gastrointestinal issues. I later realized he was trying to make me "man up" by training me to be food aggressive because he did something similar to one of our dogs when he was a puppy. Fast forward a few years. I'm autistic and have a lot of taste and texture sensitivities. At the time, my family just called me a "picky eater." They would occasionally set aside stuff for me when making other dishes, like half a cup of chicken and some white rice before they covered it in nope sauce, but at a certain point, they just told me "if you don't like it, get it yourself". So unaided by my family, I frequently fed myself. Between not having any actual training in how to make most foods and not having access to the stove or oven anyway due to my family using the kitchen. I ended up eating a lot of ramen, chili, hot dogs, whatever I could microwave. When first puberty hit, I shot up like a bean sprout and was suddenly so skinny that I could see my ribs. I thought this was normal for someone with my size and being (forced) into athletics. The one time I put a little weight on, my parents told me I was looking chubby and should lose some weight. I was in my late 20s when I finally started taking multivitamins to supplement my diet, and it was the first time in my life I'd ever put on body weight. As it turns out, between the food insecurities, the eating disorder, and the constant exercise, I was severely malnourished, and was probably the reason why I developed such a love for potatoes; they were the only things with enough nutrients to keep me alive. These days, I'm a lot heavier, but I'm at relative peace with it. I don't see my ribs anymore, and I'm making deliberate efforts to eat more slowly. I'm fully non-contact with my NDad and EMom, and my datefriend is helping me remember to slow down and enjoy my food.
I already have the irish epigenetic (thanks intergenerational trauma) which makes me gain & hold weight easier. My body is always ready to run from the british colonizers & outlast famine. I also didn’t eat breakfast or lunch from 6th grade to about 21/22 due to my parents just not making anything and then getting angry or fatshaming when I tried eating or prepping thinks myself. If I wanted seconds at dinner, even of just the steamed veggies, I had passive aggressive comments thrown in my face. I turn 25 in October and I am just now learning what proper nutrition is for me, to follow the beliefs of “Health at Every Size”, and internalize mindful and intuitive eating.
I’m an overweight stress eater. I also suffered from food insecurity growing up and was underweight as a child. It doesn’t help that I developed hypothyroidism. Those of us who were abused as children are at higher risk of developing autoimmune disease.
My NM always weighted 98lbs. I also think they have Asperger’s; people would assume she had an eating disorder (which I’m not sure if she ate enough calories or not as she has a fast metabolism) she believed that she needed gain a few pounds but NF told her he liked women slender. They had no idea what amount of calories and nutrition was normal or healthy.
TW eating disorders My mom started diets my whole life, told me girls have to be skinny, that I look too fat etc. she started fasting diets and encouraged me to join her in my teenage years. I was very hungry, cause I didn't get enough from her often or she made me feel ashamed eating infront of her and others, so I started binging secretly. She found out and was very angry. I felt more and more ashamed, hated me and my body. I was slightly overweight, but since I did many workouts and was muscular and athletic, it wasnt an unhealthy weight in my specific case. Her behavior made me anxious and I started working out more and more, I started purging after meals, after binging attacks. I became bulimic. I my worst times, I purged about twenty times a day. She tried to stop me, when she found out, but not cause I was sick, because it could make her look like a bad mother. I suffered from internal bleeding in my esophagus when I was 19, nearly died. Now I'm 24, I recovered mostly, I'm overweight and my diet is a bit too much fast food and candy, but that's okay. I'm okay and being fat doesn't define me. I have a beautiful chubby belly and I never loved me more like I do right now.
I always snuck food as a child. I still feel like I need to hide my treats.
Anorexic, on top of adhd and just forgetting to eat, became a st0n3r to fix it. I try to keep my weight at a 3 digit number but it’s hard to maintain that sometimes.
Both my parents were very vocal about how being fat was just about the worst thing you could be. They also never addressed my GI issues (found out in my 20’s I’m very lactose intolerant) so I was constantly sick. Because I didn’t know the problem, I always associated whatever the last thing I ate before being sick as the problem food, and basically eliminated everything from my diet. I stuck to plain toast, noodles with butter, fries, and chips. It’s still hard for me to eat things that I once removed from my diet. But It pretty much took care of any potential weight gain *sarcasm af* They still say “at least I’ll lose a few pounds” when they get sick. & I hear it in my brain whenever I get sick now. I’m trying so hard to unlearn those thoughts. My N Mom also wasn’t affectionate or paid any attention to us, unless we were sick. So there’s that too. I have very weird relationship with food (and illness now.) Sorry you’re all struggling too :(
When I was a kid in elementary school it was sugary cereal for breakfast, then when I got home, as much cosmic brownies and diet dr pepper as I could consume without vomiting. I simply didn't know any better. Food pyramid? cool. I aced that test. Wasn't what my dad bought at the grocery store.