Are your parents fat?

my mother has always been fat, more chubby up until she got married and ha kids but yeah shes always been at least 200lb+ most of my life that i can recall.

My father was pretty active, he is stocky and solidly built. Not fat when i was a kid but hes put on a bit now hes older and has quiet a belly.
 
my father is about 5'7ish is quite slim, at age 75 - he works out daily, either with weights or cardio (hes been a walker his entire life) he's no more than 10 pounds from what he weighed in high school or college... and he was trim then...

my mother -different story -she's quite short and a wide as she is tall.. She has dieted for as long as i can remember and would lose weight then gain it right back again - I don't ever recall her not dieting... 30 or so years ago she was slightly active -never super active but not a bump on a log.. the past 25 years havent been kind - Arthritis, knee replacement x 2, shoulder replacement, major back surgery to alleviate (unsuccessfully) athritis in her spine... she is in constant pain and gets no activity at all... activity would probably help with the pain, but I absolutely inherited my stubborn streak from her.. She doesnt do what she doesnt want to do.. and well -yeah shes fat...
 
My parents were never fat. My dad was average and my mom always stayed in size 6’s, even right after I was born she left the hospital in her size 6’s. Because of her awesome metabolism, growing up she always had junk food in the house. She was able to eat it and not worry about it. I was not so lucky. I was very very chubby growing up and my mother never did anything about it [i.e buying healthy food instead of junk] instead she told me how I needed to go on a diet. Ya… Okay like a 10 year old can just drive to the store, buy healthy food and than diet. Heck at 10 I wasn’t knowledgeable in the nutrition department and she never attempted to help me at it either.
 
Both my parents are overweight and are diabetic. I had "baby" fat when I was younger and I keep telling myself that its in my genes but my brother is slim so I guess I was in denial. It was my mothers boyfiend telling me that I was fat that made me get bigger. I tried to lose weight back then (I was 12 yrs old) but I was binge eating in secret. Since then Ive been going up and down like a yo yo. Im 210 now and Im worried about having the same health issues as my parents. I'm serious about losing weight but I cant stop the binge eating after all this time. I'll get there tho...I hope :p
 
Glad you resurrected this thread Tracie, this was really interesting reading for me as a mom of a 3 year old.. I see that kids really do need and WANT guidance on eating healthy and become a bit resentful if they get steered wrong because you as a mom didn't teach them about nutrition and actively participate by buying and cooking the right things.

My daughter and I already discuss what foods are healthy and which ones are not, but that we can eat as a treat sometimes. I feel guilty sometimes if I dont let her eat junk, but I dont let that go on all the time. I feel bad ripping the bag of Smartfood away from her when she's had more than enough. Often I put a portion in a bowl but sometimes she has the bag somehow (daddy probably).

I also need to work on adding veggies to every meal. I try to do that sometimes but I'm not a big veggie eater myself and H will not go near a vegetable. I will work on this. I already dont keep much junk in the house, usually one snack though that I let my baby have.

Now I will feel better about enforcing good eating. Thanks for all your posts which make me see this so clearly now.
 
My mom was thin for a lot of our lives, but put on and took off weight a lot of times. My dad carries a lot of weight around his mid-section - looks like he swallowed a beach ball. Growing up I remember my mom cooking VERY few times. She held two jobs for as long as I can remember, and they always involved cooking. She worked in the deli at the store, cooking for other people; the school cafeteria for YEARS cooking for everyone's kids; a restaurant, cooking and doing dishes; Dairy Queen, cooking...and so on. She'd cook for the world then would bring us leftovers because she didn't feel like cooking anymore, or we'd go get something to eat. My dad is a truck driver, and eats truck stop food.

I can't say my dad's eating habits affected mine because he hasn't been around, ever, for more than a week or so at a time for most of my life. My mom died in 2004 quite suddenly (strokes, heart attacks, etc.). She had an enlarged heart and all kinds of problems....and was skinny when she died.

My sister was always a larger person, ever since we were kids. I didn't weigh above 100 pounds soaking wet until I hit puberty, and at that point we moved to a new town, my mom started working more and we started eating out. I stopped being active because I was the "new kid" and didn't know anyone...less active plus take out food equaled weight gain.

I don't BLAME my mom, because she was doing the best that she could given the circumstances. She had to work so we'd have electricity and water (which we didn't always have anyway), and my dad stayed gone months at a time working a job where he made way less than he should've.

It's crazy, but when I got out on my own I barely knew how to cook. I could make spaghetti and hamburger helper. I've now expanded my skills and can cook a number of things. My kids, when I have them, will be brought up differently than we were, if I'm able to pull it off.
 
I know this is an older thread, but I was aimlessly wandering the site,

anyhow, my take on this subject, to me weight isn't really about weight, nor is money about money.

It has to do with the emotion behind it, how a person is feeling. How they are doing in life and what they teach their children for that matter, what they know, and what they are willing to know.

To me it is an excuse when someone says well I weigh a lot because my parents are heavy and there has always been food around.

I understand there are alot of circumstances and emotions that ppl hold onto from their parents and what their weights are, but the list can always go on.

Sometimes a child/adult might be ill and can have some kind of weight gain problem too.
 
My mum was always very overweight when I was growing up. At lot of people in my family are, on both parent's sides.

At christmas my nana (mum's mum) mentioned to me that she doesn't keep food in the house because if she did she would just eat it all in one go.

I suffer from Binge Eating Disorder, so I was amazed to hear that my nan experiences the same thing. That got me thinking...I wonder if my mum had it as well when I was growing up and I just didn't notice?
 
I like this thread--I Think it gives some interesting perspective. My mom has always dieted and yo-yoed with her weight, but she has never been fat or obese.
My dad has the greatest metabolism ever and is 56 years old and has a six pack and is in amazing shape with very little effort. I actually think he tends to get too skinny and my mom and I like him better with some weight on him!!

I have always dieted and had body image issues, have always thought I was fat and hated my body growing up, but I have never really been overweight or obese.

My brother, on the other hand, makes me so sad. He has gained SO much weight over the past three or four years. I think his is emotional, but it breaks my heart. He was always thin and athletic growing up, but now he is obese. I worry about his health and I worry about what it is that is going on in his life to make him eat like he does. I know it is not easy and it is emotional, but it still breaks my heart. It is like watching someone who is annorexic and not being able to do anything.
 
both my parents were really athletic in their 20's.
they were a gorgeous, thin couple.

but as years went by they put on a lot of weight. mom blames it on us (pregnancy haha)
and dad well, just good eating and drinking.
I don't believe it was ''genetic'' at all as they were never fat when young but the lifestyle I grew up in definitely impacted my weight. we mexicans do everything in the kitchen, it is sort of the ''heart'' of a home and you are basically eating every day, large quantities of food. you feel sad? have a cookie. aw, it hurts? eat candy.
it actually got to a point- at my heaviest- that they apologized for not trying harder at keeping me healthy- but they thought they couldn't judge me if they were fat themselves.
then there is my brother who was always the attractive one- slim, popular. but now he is putting on some weight haha I can grab his love handles and :p smile.

but heck I know it is my responsibility and dwelling on the past won't change a thing. I have the power to have a healthy lifestyle and achieve my dream weight.
xoxo
 
Both of my parents have been obese for longer than I have been alive. My mother is 5'5" and about 220 lbs, my father 6'0" and 250 lbs. Consequentially, they seemed to have no problems in passing their unhealthy lifestyle onto me, feeding me cola in my bottle as a baby and raising me on junk food. Fruit and vegetables were never required. It's no freaking wonder that I had struggles with my weight all of my life! I'd be lying if I said that I didn't resent them quite a bit for getting me into those habits right from the moment I was born.
I don't completely blame it on them, though. I initiated my 'lifestyle change' a few days after I turned 14 (I'm 15 now) and I know I could have done it at least a few years earlier if I actually tried. ​
 
I think environment has a LOT to do with a person's size...but it's not the only determining factor. There are a lot of thin kids with overweight parents, and they grow up to be healthy people I'm sure. But in many, many cases when you see an overweight child, you'll also see an overweight parent.

One of my best friends growing up was morbidly obese from pre-teen to adulthood. Her parents were also very, very large. And even now I'm noticing the parent/child weight relationship whenever I go places...like the other day I was in the checkout line at a store and there was a family in front of me. The dad was very large, mom was larger. The teenage son was so large he was already having trouble walking (I'm talking 13 or 14 here)...the junior high aged boy was slightly smaller and the elementary aged kid was nearly as large as the middle child. They were stocking up on bags of candy, potato chips, snacks, sodas, etc.

Like I said, I know environment only accounts for PART of who you become...but when the parents eat junk and cook junk, the kids in many cases have no choice but to also become what their parents are.
 
MindiK said:
I think environment has a LOT to do with a person's size...but it's not the only determining factor. There are a lot of thin kids with overweight parents, and they grow up to be healthy people I'm sure. But in many, many cases when you see an overweight child, you'll also see an overweight parent.

One of my best friends growing up was morbidly obese from pre-teen to adulthood. Her parents were also very, very large. And even now I'm noticing the parent/child weight relationship whenever I go places...like the other day I was in the checkout line at a store and there was a family in front of me. The dad was very large, mom was larger. The teenage son was so large he was already having trouble walking (I'm talking 13 or 14 here)...the junior high aged boy was slightly smaller and the elementary aged kid was nearly as large as the middle child. They were stocking up on bags of candy, potato chips, snacks, sodas, etc.

Like I said, I know environment only accounts for PART of who you become...but when the parents eat junk and cook junk, the kids in many cases have no choice but to also become what their parents are.
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Pretty much, yup. If you're at the supermarket or local Target or Wal-Mart and you see an extremely obese child wandering around, the odds are extremely good that their parents are also obese (my personal observations h have borne this out). I also rarely see morbidly obese parents with fit children. Sometimes the children are only slightly overweight but you can tell just by the way they're shaped and the way they hold themselves that they get little to no exercise and they will almost certainly grow up to be fat.

One thing that is extremely startling...and this is possibly because I live in Texas and see it more than people in other parts of the country...is the skyrocketing rise in obesity in Hispanic children. Statistically speaking Hispanic children are the most likely to be obese of pretty much any ethnic group in this country, and the socioeconomic status of the parents seems to have a lot to do with this. There are a lot of low-income Hispanics in my part of Dallas and almost every Hispanic family I see out and about has at least one seriously overweight or obese family member, usually the kids. The dads are usually a normal weight or close to it; the moms are often obese, and the children are almost always obese. I think this has much more to do with socioeconomic status than ethnicity but I think even taking that into account, Hispanics are more likely (statistically speaking) to be obese than whites or blacks.

Like I said, I think socioeconomic factors are more important than ethnic factors; when I go to middle-class or affluent areas of DFW I rarely see obese children (though there are still plenty of overweight ones) and the parents tend to be more fit, especially the mothers. It's almost getting to the point where you can guess someone's socioeconomic status simply by looking at their figure. People in Southlake, Highland Park, etc. (the metroplex's most affluent areas) are almost universally thin. People in east Dallas (a poor area) are almost universally overweight.

What is the connection between poverty and obesity? Is it REALLY that much more expensive to eat healthy food? I don't think it is. Is my middle-class upbringing and affluence making me naive?
 
txsqlchick... I'm in Texas too (north-central)....and the family I was talking about was Hispanic. I've also noticed a huge rise in overweight individuals in that racial group, and a majority of my town is probably Hispanic at this point.

Oddly enough, my husband and I were also talking about economic status and obesity just Saturday. I'd gone to take pictures at an Easter egg hunt that was attended by a number of "economically disadvantaged" children and their families. It was crazy....all but ONE of the mothers I saw bring their children to the hunt was obese...yet many of the children were skinny. Kind of contradictory now that I think about what I said before...
 
MindiK said:
txsqlchick... I'm in Texas too (north-central)....and the family I was talking about was Hispanic. I've also noticed a huge rise in overweight individuals in that racial group, and a majority of my town is probably Hispanic at this point.

Oddly enough, my husband and I were also talking about economic status and obesity just Saturday. I'd gone to take pictures at an Easter egg hunt that was attended by a number of "economically disadvantaged" children and their families. It was crazy....all but ONE of the mothers I saw bring their children to the hunt was obese...yet many of the children were skinny. Kind of contradictory now that I think about what I said before...
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I don't see a lot of thin Hispanic kids in this neighborhood. I see lots of Hispanic children who are already overweight/obese or who are well on their way. It's odd because when I was a kid, the Hispanics in my school weren't fat at all. I don't think people can blame the "American lifestyle" for it either because judging from the parents' accents in Spanish, they sound like they're from southern or southwestern Mexico and almost certainly were not born here, so it's not like they've been here a long time. (I don't talk to strange children out in public so I don't know if the kids speak English or not.)

It's scary because Hispanics also seem to be more prone to diabetes, so it seems like our diabetes epidemic is going to get worse. Especially in Texas!
 
Hmm....my mom's never been overweight. My father (whom I never met) was skinny, and died skinny. My stepfather is underweight. My aunt has never had an ounce of fat on her. My grandmother was round, but in a healthy way. I never had anybody in the family grossly overweight.

I wasn't overweight as a kid. I had a good relationship with food. I was an outdoor kid, brought up on fruit and vegetables. I didn't have a computer, game boy or any of that stuff until I was 16. I would prefer going out into the woods or swimming over sitting inside and watching TV at any given time.

I started to put weight on when I was around 16, and everything in my life went pear shaped. I do believe that when you are a kid, your parents set an example for you. But that doesn't relieve you from the responsibility once you grow up. If you're a fat kid, blame the parents. If you are a fat teenager, or a fat adult, blame yourself. Once you are old enough to make your own decisions, you can make the decision to lose weight if you have to, or not put it on in the first place.

I do not believe that there is such a thing as a genetic tendency to be overweight. That's an excuse for people who are looking for one. I have friends who are both overweight, yet their daughter (who's 17 now) never had an ounce of fat on her. I've seen skinny parents with overweight children. It's how these kids are brought up and what they are taught, but not genetics.

Just my two cents.
 
My Mum and Dad are both overweight. They where a little overweight when they met (they where both 40) and are now bigger.

My mum has lost weight about 5 times through weight watchers or meal replacement type diets but she has always put it back on again.

I think with my dad is is the larger because he drinks alot but what he eats is fairly standard.


My parents split up when I was 11 and since then I've had to make my own food - my mum would just stock the fridge with ready meals because she had to work and me and my brother (who is also overweight!) just used to eat them.

I've been overweight my whole life - I don't ever remember not being the biggest out of my friends. I actually weigh less now than I did when I was 12 years old.

I don't blame my mum for me being overweight, but I don't think I would have gotten so big if she had made better food choices for us when we were younger.
 
txsqlchick said:
I don't see a lot of thin Hispanic kids in this neighborhood. I see lots of Hispanic children who are already overweight/obese or who are well on their way. It's odd because when I was a kid, the Hispanics in my school weren't fat at all. I don't think people can blame the "American lifestyle" for it either because judging from the parents' accents in Spanish, they sound like they're from southern or southwestern Mexico and almost certainly were not born here, so it's not like they've been here a long time. (I don't talk to strange children out in public so I don't know if the kids speak English or not.)

It's scary because Hispanics also seem to be more prone to diabetes, so it seems like our diabetes epidemic is going to get worse. Especially in Texas!
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what can I tell you, it is sad. our eating habits are shifting dramatically and I remember as a girl here in mexico we had fruits like oranges, tamarindo or sugar cane in the piñatas at kids parties. now all you see is refined sugars and chemicals. I didn't have a Mcdonald's as a kid either but now fast food places became really popular.
if you add a lot of junk food to our already greasy and starchy food specials like red meat tacos, tortas and tamales, you are on the right track to obesity and health issues.
we are now easily the second fattest country in the world! and with the higher risks of diabetes it is something to be taken seriously.

eating is something linked to our culture and it became a problem.
a home's heart is its kitchen and there was a time I was eating all day as my grandmother is cooking all day and making you eat it!. portions aren't precisely small either so we lack knowledge of portion control too. the things I know about health and dieting came from studying a lot, so I believe part of the problem could be managed by giving out more information of how to eat properly and that starts at home, with our parents.
 
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