Comments on: Upbringing and Nutrition: What’s the Connection?

By: Shiona

Shiona — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:42:32 +0000

I wish I could give you some sage advice. Having grown up being overweight and then developing my own ED in school. I know how it is to be young and overweight and how my mother held back on the goodies that I would later go and seek out, just because I could.

I feel that the “denial” of certain treats and goodies growing up caused me to overindulge once I left home and caused yet another unhealthy food relationship. I have food issues and I don’t want them to have the same.

I am adjusting it as I go and as they grow. I hope to show them that they can have a healthy relationship with food and not go crazy when they are not under my roof any longer. I

By: Katie

Katie — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 01:33:35 +0000

Growing up, my mom was constantly on a diet of some sorts it seems. When I was in high school though, she had her OWN “a-ha” moment after watching a show about a woman who lost 25 pounds through running. Mom has been a life long swimmer to this point (she still swims and she’s 71!) but she decided to enlist the help of my brother and father to “teach” her how to run. She also overhauled what we ate. She is a fantastic baker, and always had cookies and treats ready for us after we got home school. We also had a meat and potato dinner every night. All that stopped when Mom finally got serious about her weight. By the time I went off to college, we were all basically vegetarians and Mom was 25 pounds lighter. She remains my inspiration to this day.

The trouble started when I went off to school and for the first time in my life I was responsible for what I chose to eat. I developed some weird eating habits and they lingered till I got married and had our first child. When she started eating solid foods, I realized that in order for her not to be “scared” of food like I was, I had to clean up my act and focus on eating normally.

Today I make sure that our kids have breakfast every morning and a little something from each food group in their school lunches (they carry them from home) and I have always stocked our pantry with a good variety of snacks and our fridge with all kinds of fruit. Our daughter is now 16, and has a fantastic attitude about her body and is very self-confident. Our son is about to hit his teen age growth spurt and refuses soda, loves broccoli and is a fledgling runner. I’m very proud of both kids and how they view themselves. Good luck and you’ll be a GREAT mom!

By: Maryann

Maryann — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 21:40:16 +0000

Thanks for referencing my article and reading my blog! On my site, http://www.RaiseHealthyEaters.com, I try to teach parents that “how: they feed their kids is as important as “what” they feed them. I’m currently working on a “how to prevent eating disorders in children” series and plan to interview healthcare professionals that work with eating disorders so stay tuned.

As for the childhood and nutrition connection. I grew up with 5 siblings and sweet treats would be gone the second my mom bought them. This led me to overeat sweets as an adult afraid they would be “gone.” I tried to fix this by restricting sweets only to over-eat them. When I finally gave myself permission to eat sweets with no limits, my desire to over-eat diminished.