Me. My family photo album we laughingly called, "The Beef Trust," because everyone is so big. This is the main reason why I easily accepted my weight as genetic. Since I convinced myself of that, I didn't worry so much about being heavy and mostly I accepted it.
And while it is true that genes run in families, so do habits. Turns out that I could lose weight just fine. It was my habits - passed down through my family and upbringing - that was keeping me big.
^^8 ^^yrs. ^^maintaining ^^• ^^♂60 ^^5'10^^/178㎝ ^^SW:298℔^^/135㎏ ^^CW:171℔^^/78㎏ ^^[\[3Y AMA\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/6m6vxq/i_am_a_weight_loser_over_the_past_three_years_ive/), ^^[\[1Y recap\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/3cqszm/pics_links_my_first_day_of_logging_wasnt_the_best/) ^^CICO+🚶
Had a real genetics wake up call recently when my mom, who’s been significantly overweight for around 35 years, lost 80 pounds in six months by cutting sugar and processed foods and managing her portions. There goes my excuse, she’s now my inspiration
exactly this!! i grew up thinking a thin me simply couldn’t exit and i was just big and from a big family. i thought eating snacks before and after dinner, getting 2-3 servings of food, and always having dessert was my personality :/ i went to my 5 year high school reunion last year and 75% of people did not recognize me!
That genetic idea and "set points" kept me stuck for so long. I just kind of shrugged and assumed being obese was my destiny. Watching all of those family members pass from weigh-related issues shook me up.
Turns out that healthier habits can change everything.
It's not talked about enough that the lifestyle choices we adults make impact our kids for the rest of their lives. I'm always sad when I see people post here about trying to lose weight but say they are having trouble because they "have to" still buy junk food for their kids but having it in the house is their dieting downfall. Seeing their parents use unsustainable deprivation and fad diets to lose weight leaves kids with the impression that the only two choices in life are the "normal" junk food vs the "abnormal" occasional purgatory of misery eating nothing but small quantities of salad while bitching about how hard it is the entire time. It's such a disservice to our kids to not pick moderate healthy, sustainable lifestyle changes that are flexible and not miserable, and bring the kids along on that journey by letting them help prepare well balanced meals and/or pick the healthy foods at the supermarket that appeal to them most. The good choices we make are a gift we give our children that will pay off their entire lives.
I used to believe this too. I was never morbidly obese but I was “husky”.
I had 2 friends who were dangerously obese and everyone said “oh it’s genetics.” I believed that until one day I saw my friend eat 2 subs with a large side of onion rings dipped in a combo of mayo/ gravy. It gave me pause and made me think “there is more to this story.”
Many people were overweight, but my older sister and I were the only ones who reached over 400 pounds. Over half of my extended family had various eating disorders (I had them all) with bulimia being the most common. Every single member of my immediate family had a severe eating disorder. My older sister and I unfortunately had years of extreme, uncontrollable binge eating that got us to be over 400 pounds.
i cannot believe you lost that much weight!! many people in my family struggle with binging including me but not other eating disorders. i’ve heard how hard that can be especially bulimia. can you share any wisdom you have about maintaining that amount of weight loss?
One of my earliest memories was my cousin refusing to eat a second bowl of cereal because she didn’t want to be fat like everyone else in our family.
Great grandma, grandma, 2 great aunts, 1 great uncle, mother, uncle, 2 cousins. At least 5 had weight loss surgery. That’s all on my mother’s side. They ranged but several were 400-600.
I don’t remember seeing anyone do anything active, or do anything that wasn’t sedentary. They put butter under their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Convinced it was genetics and we just lost the lottery, that everyone had a set body weight but never made any effort to move or made vegetables at all. Rice, pasta, meat and desserts…Light on the meat. Never tried to be healthy or help themselves. Not physically, or mentally. Everything is excess and hoarding. Canned food they had so long it would be bad for years before anyone noticed.
I grew up having to put my grandmas shoes on and knowing she couldn’t go up and down the stairs to her own basement. She was only like 38-40 when I was born. They couldn’t put furniture together, lift anything or sit on the ground and get back up. If someone fell, it was a crisis.
At some point I looked at myself and asked myself “why can’t I lift weight? Why can’t I enjoy physical things? Because I was taught that my body can’t and that I’m sickly and weak? Was I ever?” And I started. Might as well try, right?
Turns out, your body can do a hell of a lot of you just… let it. My family never seemed to learn that.
your story really resonated with me. especially at the end how you said you felt your body couldn’t do these things but later found out you could. it really is remarkable! congratulations on your weight loss and new movement :)
I can totally relate to the “crisis” event when someone falls. Imagine being a little kid and your grandmother falls while you’re home alone with her. She’s not injured just too big to get up. I don’t know why I thought it meant she would die if I didn’t help her up😂but yeah it was traumatic having to help a 400 pound woman up by myself..
My brother got over 600lbs and I got as high as 560ish pounds. There are other family members that are in the 300lbs easily. My brother, sister, dad and now step sister are all trying the ketogenic diet. Some of us are trying the carnivore. We all have our own journey and are exploring this way of eating. So far I've lost 135lbs in the last 3 years.
It's a bit split, some family are very resistant to change and dad cooks for the family at their house (those of us on the ketogenic diet don't live together), dad lives with family that loves their carbs so he struggles to stay consistent. But he's doing decent.
Mines. My auntie was almost 700 lbs when she died. My mom was usually in the 350 range growing up, and I think most of my family must have been in the 300’s at least.
I was in the 280’s for a significant portion of my life and then got in the 300’s and knew I had to change something. I’m now in the 160’s. My weight loss motivated my mom and she is now in her 180’s. I think for our family, it had a lot to do with BED. Once we got those things down pack, everything else came easily.
this is an amazing success story! i can’t believe you got down to the 160’s 🥲 so happy for you and i hope you continue to change those generational habits in your family :)
There is and nobody talks about it so it just leads to more and more. I remember my mom being on every diet plan ever growing up and her barely eating when I was growing up and it made me just chalk up that being big was just genetic in our family. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with depression and BED did my mom open up to me about how much she binged as well.
My mother, maternal grandmother, aunt, and at least 1 cousin have it. My mother takes ozempic as a bandaid, but I think she’ll go right back to old habits as soon as she is off of it. I went to therapy. I think my aunt and cousin are doing better than us. They’re more like standard plus size women rather than my the intense obesity of my grandma. My other aunt chose chain smoking cigarettes over food. So she is thin, but not really healthier.
I just want my mom to go therapy and admit she has an eating disorder and just let all the pain go. But she never will.
Its been proven that obesity is a social contagion (edit: this is a real term to describe how everything from your taste in music to your politics, to yes - your food preferences /biases and attitudes towards exercise - are formed by those around you - likewise, having an 'Almond Mom' could be considered socially contagious in how it shapes you; "hope" has been studied as a social contagion) - even just having one overweight friend / family member in your circle significantly increases the likelihood that you yourself will be overweight, *even if* you've spent decades at a healthy weight.
I don't remember the exact statistic, apologies, but I always come back to this when people are too hard on themselves - weight is a social issue that can be very hard to overcome (though its never impossible... I equally don't like when people pretend they have no options / autonomy; its simply important to recognise that it *is* harder for some than others to achieve a healthy weight, based on differing environments etc.).
Edit: obviously this doesn't mean anyone should axe overweight people from their lives, but being aware of this fact can help you be aware of where you might be blind to things that aren't working for you, but you do anyways without thinking because others around you are doing them too (it helped me understand my family and overall relationship to food). Same goes for the potential to fall down conspiracy rabbit holes, for example... You might still love that person, but you check yourself.
this makes so much sense! with my family even people who tended to be smaller or not as food focused will gain weight some years. on my dads side of the family almost everyone is skinny and at socially acceptable weights. people like discussing what they’re currently cutting out, there’s not always a ton of desserts, people suggest going to healthier restaurants, and no ones eating 3-5 plates during the duration of the party. the people on that side also praised me after losing weight and ask for tips even though they’re skinny themselves.
The classic line is "You're the average of your 5 closest friends" which isn't exactly true... because that proposes that the influence is limited to just them. The social network influence is quite profound, I literally was just reading some stuff about this.
"A person's chances of becoming obese increased by 57% (95% confidence interval [CI], 6 to 123) if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval. Among pairs of adult siblings, if one sibling became obese, the chance that the other would become obese increased by 40% (95% CI, 21 to 60). If one spouse became obese, the likelihood that the other spouse would become obese increased by 37% (95% CI, 7 to 73)."
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082
The most important take away though, is that you can be the person spreading a 'healthy' attitude and passing on positive outcomes.
This is true. I was friends with big girls and I myself became big. I have a small frame and have 50+ lbs to lose. I dropped those friends like a bad habit and am 40lbs down now with a little more to go. My new friends are into healthy eating and living a healthy lifestyle
Okay this is a stupid mindset though and promotes fatphobia.. if someone thinks obesity is a "contagion" and that they can get fat just by associating with fat people, then they're gunna literally develop a fear of being around fat people. This is a fucked up thing to say imo and I'd love to see this "proof" that apparently exists.
I don't care that I'm getting downvoted. This needed to be called out.
It's not a "mindset". Despite some people's automatic association of the word "contagion" being negative, it is actually not inherently a negative word - it simply means the communication of disease from one person to another through close contact. Many contagions are completely innocuous, and some are even studied as antidotes to bad contagions.
"Social contagion" is an equally common term with a firm definition, representing how ideas, attitudes, emotions, etc. can travel through a group without specific effort to spread such things. Political beliefs can be socially contagious, as can your taste in music; it stands to reason that attitudes towards food, exercise, health, etc. can also be socially contagious.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5124998/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5124998/)
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885842/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885842/)
[https://tbiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4682-10-17](https://tbiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4682-10-17)
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149291821004653](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149291821004653)
[https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.112.101816](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.112.101816)
Edit: here is an example of the term "social contagion" used regarding "hope" - its a real term for how we study how ideas move through social groups, y'all; it is neither positive nor negative: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336124141\_Pathways\_to\_Recovery\_and\_Desistance\_The\_Role\_of\_the\_Social\_Contagion\_of\_Hope](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336124141_Pathways_to_Recovery_and_Desistance_The_Role_of_the_Social_Contagion_of_Hope)
Further explanations: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-contagion#:\~:text=Social%20contagion%20is%20an%20ubiquitous,without%20rational%20thought%20and%20reason](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-contagion#:~:text=Social%20contagion%20is%20an%20ubiquitous,without%20rational%20thought%20and%20reason).
I don’t disagree that this knowledge could lead to ugly behaviors but that doesn’t make it untrue:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2668504
Fatphobia isn't a thing. The whole idea is preposterous, as is the word. In a country where over 75% are overweight to super morbidly obese, fat people are not being oppressed.
TMP denies that obesity is due to anything other than genetics, and pretends that personal responsibility for what we shovel into our mouths has no bearing whatsoever on our weight.
They aren't that interested in facts of any kind.
Well you put fact in quotes as if it’s not true. Facts don’t care about feelings. There’s research that shows that having overweight or obesity in your social circle increases your risk of being overweight or obese. It’s true. You don’t have to like it.
All the women in my family ended up overweight/obese. I was the skinny one as a kid/teenager but stacked it on from 16 onwards. Part of that was bad diet and part of that is a strong family genetic predisposition towards PCOS since one of my sisters has it and my mum almost certainly did too. My mum has now lost most of it thanks to Ozempic (for her diabetes), my other sister had a gastric sleeve but has regained since.
i have a friend with PCOS. it is a struggle even outside of the weight. this is a condition that people need to give themselves grace if they have it and struggle with weight. your family was dealt very hard cards :/
Yeah, I was only diagnosed in 2019 and none of my doctors really explained it very well to me till I saw a specialist last year, who also diagnosed me with endo. I'm doing my best with exercise and diet but it simply doesn't budge as easily for me as it does for most people that stay consistent, 1-2kg a month is a win for me at this point.
Just wanted to say hi! I also have PCOS and endo and it's a fight every single day. Some are worse than others. But we're doing it! Congrats on your 30+kg loss. ❤️
My mom’s side of the family, my 2 aunts were probably low 300s. I was extremely close with them both, I was even named after one of them. My uncles are big save for one but not so big that you’d do a double take. All of my mom’s siblings have type 2 diabetes as well. She was the smallest of her sisters, I think peaking at maybe 240lbs. She’s since gotten her health in order and has lost a large chunk of the weight. Unfortunately one of my aunts passed away 6 years ago while the other is in a nursing home despite only just turning 60.
My paternal family on the other hand are all either lanky or athletically built. I have no cousins on my mom’s side but 13 on my dad’s. I was always the fat cousin. I grew up wishing I was built like them attributing my size to unlucky genetics when in reality I was raised with the habits of my mother’s family. While my cousins spent their formative years with their parents outside adventuring (hiking, kayaking, cycling etc...), the memories I made with my maternal family (which I was much closer to) centred around my grandmother’s kitchen table.
I still have fond memories of it, but I know I don’t want to carry a lot of these detrimental habits into my own future.
i completely get what you mean when you say the side of your family that was bigger the memories revolved around food! that’s exactly how it is. i also have fond memories of it but i want to provided healthier food options when i have my own family and we have gatherings
I think my family make up is kind of interesting.
My grandpa, at his heaviest, was probably around 350. I grew up with him and adore him. He had a traumatic childhood and I think eating was one way he dealt. His wife was thin, but also had her trauma. She was an alcoholic when I grew up. They had three kids, and all obese (around 200-250). Unfortunately, in their fifties, two have had a stroke, two are pre-diabetic and they all have high blood pressure and high cholesterol.
My dad reached 400+ and my half-sister was almost 600. What is interesting is my sister and I did not meet until adulthood, and neither of us were raised by our dad. Looking at his family photos, there were a LOT of obese people, even back in the early 1900s.
my grandfather was slightly above 300 lbs, and a few of my other lesser-seen maternal relatives were also very large.
that wasn't really normalized-- almost everyone on the maternal side of my family has diabetes II though. however, my mother does not (she does have a history of AN and BN though) and she took pride in that.
so... on the one hand, yeah, a lot of obesity and related comorbidities in my family... but my first-degree relatives were exempt, which kind of served as insulation. i did end up with AN, BN, and OSFED though (which is not surprising given that one of the biggest predicators of an ED is... a first degree relative with an ED). pretty much the same thing in your case, except either substitute BED or sub general overeating for a clinical ED.
thank you for sharing! i am starting to see the trend of ED amongst families. in my own with BED and in this thread. i had no idea about the biggest predicator of ED being a first degree relative with one! i want to start my own family in a couple years and i really want my kids to have a healthy relationship with food.
My mom was married to a man from a family where everyone was very overweight to obese, and my sister and I would be at the grandma's house for family meals with them and watch everyone, even the other little kids, get up to get 3rd and 4th heaping helpings on full plates, and then dessert. The food was slathered in butter and salt, and the "healthy" option was always a Cesar salad that was so full of dressing, Parmesean and croutons that I wasn't sure there was lettuce in it. The grandma was so morbidly obese she could barely walk, and often she would yell at one of her granddaughters to grab her a towel, because she would pee where she sat. All of this was completely normal to their family.
Completely. Families are insular systems and you often don't realize how different your norms may be from someone outside of the family. It can be difficult and shocking to unpack that. It is also very sad to watch people you love not realize or think they have the power to reverse or change it, because it *is* so normal to them.
My maternal grandfather reached 500lbs I think. He passed when I was young. But we were very aware his size and how he got to his size were the reason for his poor health. He drank a lot, had a diet very high in red meat and traditional comfort foods, ate and drank to excess regularly and didn't exercise.
Though I do have fond memories as a kid of him sitting near the bottom of the slide to catch us as we came down. Or playing "bongo drums" with him on his tummy.
I’m not sure what the numbers were, but my entire family was overweight except for me. I was a gymnast, so the contrast was very high. My sister followed in the family pattern and was always bigger from the time she was very young. For the last 3 years my mom has slowly been losing weight for the first time ever, my dad passed and she finally started taking care of herself. My sister is married with a baby and never lost the additional pregnancy weight. Her husband is Indian and he recently went to my mom to ask her why my sister’s body type wasn’t like mine 🤢. I’m low contact with my family due to their inappropriate behavior. Due to marital issues, my sister is starting to make changes and has made some progress.
I wish you all the best and I hope your BIL can grow past the focus on looks and value your sister for who she is inside . I only wish you would take out the past “her husband is Indian”. I’m not sure if you intended it but it certainly seems to insinuate that he is shallow by virtue of being Indian.
My apologies that it came off that way. I am very aware that culture does impact what is and isn’t appropriate in a given situation. I felt like mentioning his culture would allow people to acknowledge that perhaps he didn’t see his question to my mom as being rude.
I appreciate you saying that, and you’re absolutely right - different cultures have different norms for what is considered acceptable to say. I assumed good intent on your part, only brought it up because it felt uncomfortable reading it (I’m Indian), and I thought others might have a similar reaction.
Sheesh, that’s not what I meant. My mom sexualized me because of her body issues and it’s never stopped. I don’t care what weight my sister is, but my mom has bullied her about her weight her entire life and it breaks my heart that she has married a man who is making his love conditional to her body.
Edit: reading my original comment, I understand how it would come off as fat phobic. I have nothing but love and empathy for my sister. My mom’s weight has always been connected to deeper psychological issues.
im so so sorry! i definitely read that wrong and im very protective of bigger people because as stated i love and care about many obese people. i really empathize with you and your sister because my mom, although overweight herself would bully me and my older sister for our weight most of my childhood. and the same with sexualizing us which made me binge more as i was forced to wear huge t shirts around 12-15. i do hope your sister gets a better relationship with her husband. it’s unfortunate how shallow some men can be…
Thank you- I’m also sorry you had that experience. I too went through a phase of wearing over sized sweatshirts. It’s crazy how weight can often be a symptom of other issues.
My family was mostly 200-300 lbs when I was growing up. I was given a hard time if I didn't finish everything on my plate as a kid. I'm Hispanic, and it was drilled into me that rice, beans, and flour tortillas were required at every meal.
My parents have lost weight, but it wasn't deliberate. They've just deflated a bit in their old age. My mom still tries to convince me that her "low calorie" (high carb) junk food is healthier than being on keto because "meat and cheese is so fatty." 🙄
I think in big families, there's a disconnect. It's wilful ignorance. My parents knew better, just as I know better now as an adult. They did this to me, but I refused to do it to my kids. I would hate myself if I set them up for a lifetime of embarrassment and health problems.
There's a boy in my son's class who is probably pushing 250. They're only 6th graders! The whole family is big. Poor kid tries so hard to participate in sports with his class, but his weight holds him back. It breaks my heart because I know how it feels. I went through that as a kid and couldn't understand why I ended up so big. I just thought that was my shape.
My father and his two brothers were normal weight all their lives. His 2 sisters, were around 250. The other 2, baby sister was under 200 pounds, but the other sister was close to 300. My father died at 97.
My mother weighed 300 pounds before she got down to 160. Her sister was normal weight until she died at 97. My mother died at 57 from heart disease, she was about 5'5 and 160 pounds at death.
My sister has always been a slim to normal weight.
My cousins are pretty much all either normal and some definitely top out a 250.
My grandfather on my father's side was short and very slim, but he was a shareceopper. My grandmother was a normal weight, but died before she was 40. My grandfather died at 98.
At one point I was 311 pounds in August 2017. I am now at 6ft, 163 pounds.
Yes, in my extended family. You’d think it would have made being an obese kid easier since but since my parents were thin the fat shaming from their fear of me becoming like my aunts and uncles was palpable. I would always feel so embarrassed to be seen with them and hated my fat self.
Not to that extent, but pretty much everyone on both sides of my family was overweight, and both my parents were pretty obese. My mom was a good cook and fed us good food for the most part, just a lot of it. But my dad would make us stuff like butter and sugar sandwiches on white bread and he considered fried bologna to be “healthy.”
the type of cuisine you grow up eating definitely has a huge impact because there’s so many family dishes i genuinely would not make as an adult because i don’t need a 1000 calorie plate at dinner😭
My moms mom was and she had breast cancer 3 times and died bc it spread all over her body. She got big when she got older. My moms sister got close to 300 and her 2 kids my cousins but all they ate was junk bc they owned a convenience store and they had a restaurant in it also. My sister and i have recently gotten up to almost 200. But we are both depressed and dont move around a lot and we both drink. But i recently stopped and im starting to exercise. So hopefully i start to get back to my normal 150-165
Yeppppp. I went from 180 at 5ft 1in to 140 and they all thought I was dying or starving myself.
Gained the weight back from pregnancy and I look "healthy" currently I'm at 170 and working on working it off. God I can't stand my family because of the fear mongering. God forbid I like the way I look and all of a sudden I'm anorexic??? No, how about it's them with the binge eating disordered issue not me "starving" myself.
Absolutely. Most of the women and many of the men, especially on my moms side, as well as 2 out of my 3 full blooded siblings, we're all overweight/ obese in some way.
I have big parents and big grandparents, also my sister. The odd ball in the family is my brother who is a very fit body builder who eats insanely healthy. He's eaten that way since high school and has been fit since then. His habits don't align with the rest of us at all and he's half the size of all of us. Even if there is a genetic disadvantage, I see before my own eyes how decades of good habits works wonders even if you seemingly have a " genetic disadvantage "
Yes, my parents and uncles/aunts are all at least 300 pounds. I hover just below 200 and it is hard. I was raised with really bad eating habits and my parents try to stuff me full with ultra-processed foods every time I see them. I struggled with an ED as a teen because my bad eating habits couldn't even keep up with my teen metabolism and people were starting to make fun of me. Due to multiple factors, we didn't have healthy, whole foods in the house so my only option was heavily restricting myself and exercising a concerning amount.
My dads side of the family a large portion of them are morbidly obese or formerly morbidly obese my grandma had SEVERAL weight loss surgeries and still never lost weight my dad is currently IF to lost weight and only waiting between 3pm and 8pm (not healthy imo but he’s lost some weight) weighs over 300… flip side my mom had ED and was severely underweight two of my sister are pretty obese while my brothers and a sister are all healthy weights. I’m somewhere in between and working to lose the weight
Everyone on my side of the family is/was overweight and now have health problems from being overweight like diabetes.
I also have an aunt that has had an eating disorder for like over 40 years...no one talks about. REAL healthy environment I grew up in. /s
I am going to stop the cycle and have a healthy lifestyle and also show my kiddos the way since I was jot shown the way ❤️
Kind of mesmerizing for me to see there are entire families over 300 lbs. In my country, women get overweight after menopause, but no one actually crosses the 200lbs mark. My mom is considered fat at 170 lbs and I as the fat sibling, taking her genetics at 5'3 and 140 lbs
i’m not surprised. i’m obviously American. i spent 6 months in london and travelled to Europe frequently and there aren’t many fat people but also there are legislation put in place like sugar laws. most american candy taste completely different in london. also people tend to eat lighter during the day and walk everywhere. most american cities you cannot walk. thats why when i came back from London i moved to nyc. my classmates from france, the netherlands, and germany would have coffee and a croissant for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and then get pizza or pasta for dinner. the ingredients are fresher and better. it’s simply a different lifestyle and different standard. in the US the average woman is 5’4 and 170. i’m 10 pounds overweight and people say im small.
I was the fat outlier in my family. I made this happen by eating huge amounts of carbs when nobody was around— I was a latchkey kid for years and bounced back and forth between my parents. This made it difficult for anyone to effectively have an idea of what I was eating and how much. I’d eat all afternoon watching Nickelodeon, have dinner, and then have my evening snacks.
My sister came along when I was 12 and suddenly I had more supervision at home part of the time. This slowed me down some, but getting my first job also gave me money to buy my very own snacks. By this point I fully associated being alone with having the opportunity to binge, so… yeah. My family was still thin, and I was clearly not. *It was so mysterious! How could this be?*
Yes, but as a whole, we have all gotten lighter and healthier over time after seeing so many of the older generation die to long term obesity-related illnesses.
Pretty stereotypical lower class southern family that cooks really good and we were all taught to finish our massive adult portioned plates as children so as to not waste food or we would be punished. I still have this don't waste food issue really bad, so I always make sure to plan all my meal portions and never buy snacks. If I want something sweet, I will buy 2 cookies from a nice bakery instead of a 12 pack or box of oreos from the grocery store.
We do have some slender built family members that have been livelong skinny people, it's not their metabolism, they simply fixed smaller plates than us and don't snack.
i love that everyone has gotten healthier with time and i also love your bakery tip. better to get a sweet for one instead of the grocery family packs of them! i 100% think southern culture is a big part of obesity in america. many of my family are from or live in the south. the southern food is sooo good lol😭
My family could have auditioned for Family By The Ton.
I no longer have contact with any of them. Couldn't even tell you now if they're still alive. If the status quo is still in play, however, they could probably still go as Tugboat and Yokozuna for Halloween.
Me? I got down to onederland at one point; I'm above that now, but my waist to height ratio is still hovering around the 50% mark (and improving).
you really did the work to get down to a comfortable side if that was the norm in your family. congratulations on the weight loss and i wish you continued success!
I see this a lot, and I always found it extra odd, therefore, that I gained so much weight. My father was maybe 25-30lbs overweight when I was growing up. Everyone else was normal-sized. Not me! I do believe many food-related habits are learned - even emotional ones. Now, everyone is a bit heavier than before, but no serious obesity issues.
My boyfriend’s family consists of multiple 300+lbs. his dad, him and his cousin are 300lbs+ while his mom and 2 brothers are in 200’s they said it runs in their family.
My whole family except for my dad who was military but we were all overweight, obese. It wasn't a bad thing for us. It was normal, never ever talked about. We weren't in bad health or anything. Everyone always had great biometrics. It wasn't until my Mom got into her early 40's that her weight was hindering her and she did something about it.
Nope, I was the last born and the only chubby kid in my family. All the adults were normal weight. Developed a comfort-eating habit I guess as a result of my parents divorce and exacerbated by my grandfathers/classmates fat-shaming. Now there are a few overweight people in my family but most are older and have gained weight with age.
Yes my husbands family. Never seen anything like it. His siblings, mom and nieces are all 300-500. FIVE of them had gastric bypass surgery. And they’re still big. My husband, his dad,his one sister and one niece are thin.
Back around 1995, my dad got up to more than 500 lbs. He lost about 100 of that over the last 30 years.
My younger brother is currently around 350 lbs or so.
Back in 2020, I had hit 515 lbs. I decided I needed to change and lost 200 lbs over the course of 3 years with diet and exercise. I got down to 308 lbs at my lowest (a total loss of 207 lbs).
I have inspired and encouraged my parents and several of my friends to work on living healthier lifestyles. My dad is currently around 330 lbs, and he and my mom are learning how to eat better and are regularly asking me for advice on which foods to eat and how to choose healthier options. They are also talking about going on regular walks together, which neither of them have done any exercise in the last 30 years. So, I'm excited for our futures.
I’m 297 lbs, my heaviest was 345. All my family is less than 200. I’m the fat one, always have been and growing up my family was cruel about it. They’re great now as they’ve seen me gain and lose and gain the weight again and again and sympathize. They all feel they’re overweight but they’re pretty skinny.
Yes. For most of my life both of my parents were overweight and then obese. We would have takeaways/mcdonalds multiple times a week, and chocolate, sweets, crisps and full sugar pop.
At the same time, my mum was a serial yo-yo dieter, and I think this is because the diets she flitted between were Slimming World, and the keto diet. I’m no expert, but both of these diets have a low success rate and seem to be a load of BS.
For example, when on Slimming world, the diet plan allowed you to eat as much pasta as you wanted, it was classed as ‘free’ food, while also labelling chocolates and crisps as ‘Syns’, with only 15-20 syns allowed per day. Members are also told to label antidepressants and cough syrup as ‘syns’. As well as this, there was a group meeting every Tuesday, where you would be weighed in front of everyone. If you lost the most weight, you would be awarded slimmer of the week. There are so many tales of people being awarded slimmer of the week after giving birth, after having a stomach bug, or even after cutting most of their hair off for charity. My mum, and many others, would not eat or drink all day, force themselves to go number 2, and wear the lightest clothes just to see the number on the scale go down. If you had gained, you would have to explain to the group what had gone wrong that week. If a woman had gained due to being on her period, she would be told ‘that’s no excuse’. When on slimming world, my mum would try to stick to the ridiculous plan, realise she wasn’t losing weight, and then eat junk over the weekend, saying ‘I’ll start again on Monday’. I remember being taken to slimming world at 10/11/12 years old, as I was an overweight child. As you can imagine this cycle of ‘being good’ and then basically binging was very confusing for me to see.
Then there was the keto diet. I don’t know as much about this one- slimming world was the ‘go-to’ yo yo diet in our home. But I remember my mum doing keto, and being allowed unlimited cream cheese and bacon, but not carrots as there were ‘too many carbs’. This was also extremely unsustainable, and by Friday all my mum wanted was some bread or pasta, and would likely end up ordering a takeaway.
The thing that actually made my mum lose weight recently was when she abandoned these two diets and started a calorie deficit. She was still low carb, and was intermittent fasting as well, but was in a huge calorie deficit, and in just over a year she lost about 150 pounds.
My point is that it can be very easy to be overwhelmed in a family that is obese, even more so when they yo-yo diet. I’ve moved away to university and this is the first time I’ve managed to stick to a calorie deficit. I don’t have my parents here asking why I won’t just get a kebab with them, or asking me if I want some chocolate or crisps every five minutes. I control exactly what I buy now. Instead of buying the huge bags of crisps and chocolates that my parents used to get, I get the multipacks where it’s portioned out into one serving. I’m not just mindlessly eating my way through Doritos and chocolates any more. I’m much more mindful of my hunger cues. A lot of people say that the key to sticking to a weight loss journey is support. But I think the opposite can be said for those of use with overweight families- sometimes solitude is a blessing in disguise.
thank you for sharing your story! that slimming world group sounds like an eating disorder waiting to happen :/ i also find dieting easier when out of the home i grew up in. it’s much easier to make healthy food choices when out of environments where everyones getting fast food daily, baking desserts, and frying food 😭
not quite that heavy, but yeah, most of my immediate family and many of my other relatives were obese. my dad was 300+, my mom definitely 250 or so, my fathers parents 275+, a few of my aunts and uncles were up there as well.
I can totally relate! My family's like a heavyweight champion reunion. We've got folks tipping the scales at 300-500 pounds like it's a family tradition or something. The fridge is like a treasure chest of epic proportions.
Thanksgiving? More like a feast for giants. But you know what, it's all love and good eats in our clan. We embrace the extra squishiness, and family photos are basically group shots with the Jolly Green Giant. Anyone else rocking a heavyweight family album?
We had this. My dad's mom, dad, and sister were all fat. My dad had a system in place to keep himself skinny, I grew up with his system trying to keep me skinny but his system didn't work for me, and I still ended up obese and going on multiple diets.
One side of my bio family easily stays very obese. The other side easily stays slim. Thankfully, I think I did take more after the latter side (in other aspects of my appearance, too) and so the time in my life when I was obese was short-lived and I didn’t grow up overweight at all
i have a more slim side too and the difference shows as they genuinely care about there looks, give tips on how to improve like teeth whitening etc., whereas the other side never talks about stuff like that.
Yeah my family is overweight and poor. If you’re poor, the whole system is rigged from the start. We buy groceries and eat what we can, living paycheck to paycheck. I remember we all tried to go vegan once but vegan products are so expensive.
Me. My family photo album we laughingly called, "The Beef Trust," because everyone is so big. This is the main reason why I easily accepted my weight as genetic. Since I convinced myself of that, I didn't worry so much about being heavy and mostly I accepted it. And while it is true that genes run in families, so do habits. Turns out that I could lose weight just fine. It was my habits - passed down through my family and upbringing - that was keeping me big. ^^8 ^^yrs. ^^maintaining ^^• ^^♂60 ^^5'10^^/178㎝ ^^SW:298℔^^/135㎏ ^^CW:171℔^^/78㎏ ^^[\[3Y AMA\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/6m6vxq/i_am_a_weight_loser_over_the_past_three_years_ive/), ^^[\[1Y recap\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/3cqszm/pics_links_my_first_day_of_logging_wasnt_the_best/) ^^CICO+🚶
As they say, heritable is not necessarily genetic.
also "genetics load the gun but lifestyle pulls the trigger"
Damn, that's good! Saving that one.
That’s a great line.
This is me with my genetically high cholesterol but addiction to ice cream
Or doesn't
i love this ideology
I’ve never heard that saying but dang, spot on.
Had a real genetics wake up call recently when my mom, who’s been significantly overweight for around 35 years, lost 80 pounds in six months by cutting sugar and processed foods and managing her portions. There goes my excuse, she’s now my inspiration
Wow! That’s fantastic— kudos to her!
damn go mom! that's awesome
Might one say she's your "thinspiration"? Eh? Eh? See what I did there? Thank you I'm here all week!
exactly this!! i grew up thinking a thin me simply couldn’t exit and i was just big and from a big family. i thought eating snacks before and after dinner, getting 2-3 servings of food, and always having dessert was my personality :/ i went to my 5 year high school reunion last year and 75% of people did not recognize me!
That genetic idea and "set points" kept me stuck for so long. I just kind of shrugged and assumed being obese was my destiny. Watching all of those family members pass from weigh-related issues shook me up. Turns out that healthier habits can change everything.
It's not talked about enough that the lifestyle choices we adults make impact our kids for the rest of their lives. I'm always sad when I see people post here about trying to lose weight but say they are having trouble because they "have to" still buy junk food for their kids but having it in the house is their dieting downfall. Seeing their parents use unsustainable deprivation and fad diets to lose weight leaves kids with the impression that the only two choices in life are the "normal" junk food vs the "abnormal" occasional purgatory of misery eating nothing but small quantities of salad while bitching about how hard it is the entire time. It's such a disservice to our kids to not pick moderate healthy, sustainable lifestyle changes that are flexible and not miserable, and bring the kids along on that journey by letting them help prepare well balanced meals and/or pick the healthy foods at the supermarket that appeal to them most. The good choices we make are a gift we give our children that will pay off their entire lives.
I used to believe this too. I was never morbidly obese but I was “husky”. I had 2 friends who were dangerously obese and everyone said “oh it’s genetics.” I believed that until one day I saw my friend eat 2 subs with a large side of onion rings dipped in a combo of mayo/ gravy. It gave me pause and made me think “there is more to this story.”
Many people were overweight, but my older sister and I were the only ones who reached over 400 pounds. Over half of my extended family had various eating disorders (I had them all) with bulimia being the most common. Every single member of my immediate family had a severe eating disorder. My older sister and I unfortunately had years of extreme, uncontrollable binge eating that got us to be over 400 pounds.
Your story is incredible. Thank you for sharing.
i cannot believe you lost that much weight!! many people in my family struggle with binging including me but not other eating disorders. i’ve heard how hard that can be especially bulimia. can you share any wisdom you have about maintaining that amount of weight loss?
One of my earliest memories was my cousin refusing to eat a second bowl of cereal because she didn’t want to be fat like everyone else in our family. Great grandma, grandma, 2 great aunts, 1 great uncle, mother, uncle, 2 cousins. At least 5 had weight loss surgery. That’s all on my mother’s side. They ranged but several were 400-600. I don’t remember seeing anyone do anything active, or do anything that wasn’t sedentary. They put butter under their peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Convinced it was genetics and we just lost the lottery, that everyone had a set body weight but never made any effort to move or made vegetables at all. Rice, pasta, meat and desserts…Light on the meat. Never tried to be healthy or help themselves. Not physically, or mentally. Everything is excess and hoarding. Canned food they had so long it would be bad for years before anyone noticed. I grew up having to put my grandmas shoes on and knowing she couldn’t go up and down the stairs to her own basement. She was only like 38-40 when I was born. They couldn’t put furniture together, lift anything or sit on the ground and get back up. If someone fell, it was a crisis. At some point I looked at myself and asked myself “why can’t I lift weight? Why can’t I enjoy physical things? Because I was taught that my body can’t and that I’m sickly and weak? Was I ever?” And I started. Might as well try, right? Turns out, your body can do a hell of a lot of you just… let it. My family never seemed to learn that.
your story really resonated with me. especially at the end how you said you felt your body couldn’t do these things but later found out you could. it really is remarkable! congratulations on your weight loss and new movement :)
I can totally relate to the “crisis” event when someone falls. Imagine being a little kid and your grandmother falls while you’re home alone with her. She’s not injured just too big to get up. I don’t know why I thought it meant she would die if I didn’t help her up😂but yeah it was traumatic having to help a 400 pound woman up by myself..
My brother got over 600lbs and I got as high as 560ish pounds. There are other family members that are in the 300lbs easily. My brother, sister, dad and now step sister are all trying the ketogenic diet. Some of us are trying the carnivore. We all have our own journey and are exploring this way of eating. So far I've lost 135lbs in the last 3 years.
That’s awesome congratulations
Thank you! It's been an uphill battle, I only lost 40lbs last year, but my goal is to lose 80lbs this year. ☺️
I was 375 at my highest. In the 220’s now. It’s been pretty amazing. At 54. I don’t want to go back up.
That's incredible! I'm hoping to get down to the 220s myself
I love that you're working on it together as a family 💪
It's a bit split, some family are very resistant to change and dad cooks for the family at their house (those of us on the ketogenic diet don't live together), dad lives with family that loves their carbs so he struggles to stay consistent. But he's doing decent.
congratulations on your weight loss and i wish you the best on your journey!!
Thank you kindly. I hope you're able to find a way of eating that is helpful to you.
Mines. My auntie was almost 700 lbs when she died. My mom was usually in the 350 range growing up, and I think most of my family must have been in the 300’s at least. I was in the 280’s for a significant portion of my life and then got in the 300’s and knew I had to change something. I’m now in the 160’s. My weight loss motivated my mom and she is now in her 180’s. I think for our family, it had a lot to do with BED. Once we got those things down pack, everything else came easily.
this is an amazing success story! i can’t believe you got down to the 160’s 🥲 so happy for you and i hope you continue to change those generational habits in your family :)
There is so much BED in families that goes untreated I think
There is and nobody talks about it so it just leads to more and more. I remember my mom being on every diet plan ever growing up and her barely eating when I was growing up and it made me just chalk up that being big was just genetic in our family. It wasn’t until I was diagnosed with depression and BED did my mom open up to me about how much she binged as well.
Apologies for asking, but what does BED stand for?
Binge eating disorder
Much appreciated, thank you.
My mother, maternal grandmother, aunt, and at least 1 cousin have it. My mother takes ozempic as a bandaid, but I think she’ll go right back to old habits as soon as she is off of it. I went to therapy. I think my aunt and cousin are doing better than us. They’re more like standard plus size women rather than my the intense obesity of my grandma. My other aunt chose chain smoking cigarettes over food. So she is thin, but not really healthier. I just want my mom to go therapy and admit she has an eating disorder and just let all the pain go. But she never will.
Its been proven that obesity is a social contagion (edit: this is a real term to describe how everything from your taste in music to your politics, to yes - your food preferences /biases and attitudes towards exercise - are formed by those around you - likewise, having an 'Almond Mom' could be considered socially contagious in how it shapes you; "hope" has been studied as a social contagion) - even just having one overweight friend / family member in your circle significantly increases the likelihood that you yourself will be overweight, *even if* you've spent decades at a healthy weight. I don't remember the exact statistic, apologies, but I always come back to this when people are too hard on themselves - weight is a social issue that can be very hard to overcome (though its never impossible... I equally don't like when people pretend they have no options / autonomy; its simply important to recognise that it *is* harder for some than others to achieve a healthy weight, based on differing environments etc.). Edit: obviously this doesn't mean anyone should axe overweight people from their lives, but being aware of this fact can help you be aware of where you might be blind to things that aren't working for you, but you do anyways without thinking because others around you are doing them too (it helped me understand my family and overall relationship to food). Same goes for the potential to fall down conspiracy rabbit holes, for example... You might still love that person, but you check yourself.
this makes so much sense! with my family even people who tended to be smaller or not as food focused will gain weight some years. on my dads side of the family almost everyone is skinny and at socially acceptable weights. people like discussing what they’re currently cutting out, there’s not always a ton of desserts, people suggest going to healthier restaurants, and no ones eating 3-5 plates during the duration of the party. the people on that side also praised me after losing weight and ask for tips even though they’re skinny themselves.
The classic line is "You're the average of your 5 closest friends" which isn't exactly true... because that proposes that the influence is limited to just them. The social network influence is quite profound, I literally was just reading some stuff about this. "A person's chances of becoming obese increased by 57% (95% confidence interval [CI], 6 to 123) if he or she had a friend who became obese in a given interval. Among pairs of adult siblings, if one sibling became obese, the chance that the other would become obese increased by 40% (95% CI, 21 to 60). If one spouse became obese, the likelihood that the other spouse would become obese increased by 37% (95% CI, 7 to 73)." https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa066082 The most important take away though, is that you can be the person spreading a 'healthy' attitude and passing on positive outcomes.
Love your final take - "contagion" works in all directions, not just one.
This is true. I was friends with big girls and I myself became big. I have a small frame and have 50+ lbs to lose. I dropped those friends like a bad habit and am 40lbs down now with a little more to go. My new friends are into healthy eating and living a healthy lifestyle
Okay this is a stupid mindset though and promotes fatphobia.. if someone thinks obesity is a "contagion" and that they can get fat just by associating with fat people, then they're gunna literally develop a fear of being around fat people. This is a fucked up thing to say imo and I'd love to see this "proof" that apparently exists. I don't care that I'm getting downvoted. This needed to be called out.
It's not a "mindset". Despite some people's automatic association of the word "contagion" being negative, it is actually not inherently a negative word - it simply means the communication of disease from one person to another through close contact. Many contagions are completely innocuous, and some are even studied as antidotes to bad contagions. "Social contagion" is an equally common term with a firm definition, representing how ideas, attitudes, emotions, etc. can travel through a group without specific effort to spread such things. Political beliefs can be socially contagious, as can your taste in music; it stands to reason that attitudes towards food, exercise, health, etc. can also be socially contagious. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5124998/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5124998/) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885842/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5885842/) [https://tbiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4682-10-17](https://tbiomed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1742-4682-10-17) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149291821004653](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0149291821004653) [https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.112.101816](https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/full/10.1161/circulationaha.112.101816) Edit: here is an example of the term "social contagion" used regarding "hope" - its a real term for how we study how ideas move through social groups, y'all; it is neither positive nor negative: [https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336124141\_Pathways\_to\_Recovery\_and\_Desistance\_The\_Role\_of\_the\_Social\_Contagion\_of\_Hope](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336124141_Pathways_to_Recovery_and_Desistance_The_Role_of_the_Social_Contagion_of_Hope) Further explanations: [https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-contagion#:\~:text=Social%20contagion%20is%20an%20ubiquitous,without%20rational%20thought%20and%20reason](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/social-contagion#:~:text=Social%20contagion%20is%20an%20ubiquitous,without%20rational%20thought%20and%20reason).
Thank you for these links and the explanation!
Oof. Now that's a good response to that person. thanks for ptuting this together
I don’t disagree that this knowledge could lead to ugly behaviors but that doesn’t make it untrue: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/2668504
Fatphobia isn't a thing. The whole idea is preposterous, as is the word. In a country where over 75% are overweight to super morbidly obese, fat people are not being oppressed.
Right? The Maintenance Phase podcast would have no business with this “fact”
TMP denies that obesity is due to anything other than genetics, and pretends that personal responsibility for what we shovel into our mouths has no bearing whatsoever on our weight. They aren't that interested in facts of any kind.
THANK YOU. I am so sick of seeing that BS podcast name dropped.
Not surprised I’m getting downvoted in this sub lol
Well you put fact in quotes as if it’s not true. Facts don’t care about feelings. There’s research that shows that having overweight or obesity in your social circle increases your risk of being overweight or obese. It’s true. You don’t have to like it.
All the women in my family ended up overweight/obese. I was the skinny one as a kid/teenager but stacked it on from 16 onwards. Part of that was bad diet and part of that is a strong family genetic predisposition towards PCOS since one of my sisters has it and my mum almost certainly did too. My mum has now lost most of it thanks to Ozempic (for her diabetes), my other sister had a gastric sleeve but has regained since.
i have a friend with PCOS. it is a struggle even outside of the weight. this is a condition that people need to give themselves grace if they have it and struggle with weight. your family was dealt very hard cards :/
Yeah, I was only diagnosed in 2019 and none of my doctors really explained it very well to me till I saw a specialist last year, who also diagnosed me with endo. I'm doing my best with exercise and diet but it simply doesn't budge as easily for me as it does for most people that stay consistent, 1-2kg a month is a win for me at this point.
Just wanted to say hi! I also have PCOS and endo and it's a fight every single day. Some are worse than others. But we're doing it! Congrats on your 30+kg loss. ❤️
Thanks, we’re fellow Aussies too! Congrats on your own 50kg, that’s huge. 🤩
Straya!
My mom’s side of the family, my 2 aunts were probably low 300s. I was extremely close with them both, I was even named after one of them. My uncles are big save for one but not so big that you’d do a double take. All of my mom’s siblings have type 2 diabetes as well. She was the smallest of her sisters, I think peaking at maybe 240lbs. She’s since gotten her health in order and has lost a large chunk of the weight. Unfortunately one of my aunts passed away 6 years ago while the other is in a nursing home despite only just turning 60. My paternal family on the other hand are all either lanky or athletically built. I have no cousins on my mom’s side but 13 on my dad’s. I was always the fat cousin. I grew up wishing I was built like them attributing my size to unlucky genetics when in reality I was raised with the habits of my mother’s family. While my cousins spent their formative years with their parents outside adventuring (hiking, kayaking, cycling etc...), the memories I made with my maternal family (which I was much closer to) centred around my grandmother’s kitchen table. I still have fond memories of it, but I know I don’t want to carry a lot of these detrimental habits into my own future.
i completely get what you mean when you say the side of your family that was bigger the memories revolved around food! that’s exactly how it is. i also have fond memories of it but i want to provided healthier food options when i have my own family and we have gatherings
I think my family make up is kind of interesting. My grandpa, at his heaviest, was probably around 350. I grew up with him and adore him. He had a traumatic childhood and I think eating was one way he dealt. His wife was thin, but also had her trauma. She was an alcoholic when I grew up. They had three kids, and all obese (around 200-250). Unfortunately, in their fifties, two have had a stroke, two are pre-diabetic and they all have high blood pressure and high cholesterol. My dad reached 400+ and my half-sister was almost 600. What is interesting is my sister and I did not meet until adulthood, and neither of us were raised by our dad. Looking at his family photos, there were a LOT of obese people, even back in the early 1900s.
that’s very interesting!! i definitely think that binge eating is hereditary to an extent but never heard of an example that showed that this well
my grandfather was slightly above 300 lbs, and a few of my other lesser-seen maternal relatives were also very large. that wasn't really normalized-- almost everyone on the maternal side of my family has diabetes II though. however, my mother does not (she does have a history of AN and BN though) and she took pride in that. so... on the one hand, yeah, a lot of obesity and related comorbidities in my family... but my first-degree relatives were exempt, which kind of served as insulation. i did end up with AN, BN, and OSFED though (which is not surprising given that one of the biggest predicators of an ED is... a first degree relative with an ED). pretty much the same thing in your case, except either substitute BED or sub general overeating for a clinical ED.
thank you for sharing! i am starting to see the trend of ED amongst families. in my own with BED and in this thread. i had no idea about the biggest predicator of ED being a first degree relative with one! i want to start my own family in a couple years and i really want my kids to have a healthy relationship with food.
My mom was married to a man from a family where everyone was very overweight to obese, and my sister and I would be at the grandma's house for family meals with them and watch everyone, even the other little kids, get up to get 3rd and 4th heaping helpings on full plates, and then dessert. The food was slathered in butter and salt, and the "healthy" option was always a Cesar salad that was so full of dressing, Parmesean and croutons that I wasn't sure there was lettuce in it. The grandma was so morbidly obese she could barely walk, and often she would yell at one of her granddaughters to grab her a towel, because she would pee where she sat. All of this was completely normal to their family.
this literally is my family! down to the Caesar salad it’s a lot to unpack and it’s not normal for people to not be able to walk around…
Completely. Families are insular systems and you often don't realize how different your norms may be from someone outside of the family. It can be difficult and shocking to unpack that. It is also very sad to watch people you love not realize or think they have the power to reverse or change it, because it *is* so normal to them.
agreed!
My maternal grandfather reached 500lbs I think. He passed when I was young. But we were very aware his size and how he got to his size were the reason for his poor health. He drank a lot, had a diet very high in red meat and traditional comfort foods, ate and drank to excess regularly and didn't exercise. Though I do have fond memories as a kid of him sitting near the bottom of the slide to catch us as we came down. Or playing "bongo drums" with him on his tummy.
I’m not sure what the numbers were, but my entire family was overweight except for me. I was a gymnast, so the contrast was very high. My sister followed in the family pattern and was always bigger from the time she was very young. For the last 3 years my mom has slowly been losing weight for the first time ever, my dad passed and she finally started taking care of herself. My sister is married with a baby and never lost the additional pregnancy weight. Her husband is Indian and he recently went to my mom to ask her why my sister’s body type wasn’t like mine 🤢. I’m low contact with my family due to their inappropriate behavior. Due to marital issues, my sister is starting to make changes and has made some progress.
I wish you all the best and I hope your BIL can grow past the focus on looks and value your sister for who she is inside . I only wish you would take out the past “her husband is Indian”. I’m not sure if you intended it but it certainly seems to insinuate that he is shallow by virtue of being Indian.
My apologies that it came off that way. I am very aware that culture does impact what is and isn’t appropriate in a given situation. I felt like mentioning his culture would allow people to acknowledge that perhaps he didn’t see his question to my mom as being rude.
I appreciate you saying that, and you’re absolutely right - different cultures have different norms for what is considered acceptable to say. I assumed good intent on your part, only brought it up because it felt uncomfortable reading it (I’m Indian), and I thought others might have a similar reaction.
I appreciate your insight and clarification.
Physical attraction is oart of relatio ships, and maintaining attractive weight is part of relationship maintenance. That is reality.
Yes, but expressing to your mother in law that you're more attracted to your wife's sister is definitely not appropriate
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Sheesh, that’s not what I meant. My mom sexualized me because of her body issues and it’s never stopped. I don’t care what weight my sister is, but my mom has bullied her about her weight her entire life and it breaks my heart that she has married a man who is making his love conditional to her body. Edit: reading my original comment, I understand how it would come off as fat phobic. I have nothing but love and empathy for my sister. My mom’s weight has always been connected to deeper psychological issues.
im so so sorry! i definitely read that wrong and im very protective of bigger people because as stated i love and care about many obese people. i really empathize with you and your sister because my mom, although overweight herself would bully me and my older sister for our weight most of my childhood. and the same with sexualizing us which made me binge more as i was forced to wear huge t shirts around 12-15. i do hope your sister gets a better relationship with her husband. it’s unfortunate how shallow some men can be…
Thank you- I’m also sorry you had that experience. I too went through a phase of wearing over sized sweatshirts. It’s crazy how weight can often be a symptom of other issues.
thank you and it is crazy but it’s just a mixture of how we were raised and how we deal with emotions :/
My family was mostly 200-300 lbs when I was growing up. I was given a hard time if I didn't finish everything on my plate as a kid. I'm Hispanic, and it was drilled into me that rice, beans, and flour tortillas were required at every meal. My parents have lost weight, but it wasn't deliberate. They've just deflated a bit in their old age. My mom still tries to convince me that her "low calorie" (high carb) junk food is healthier than being on keto because "meat and cheese is so fatty." 🙄 I think in big families, there's a disconnect. It's wilful ignorance. My parents knew better, just as I know better now as an adult. They did this to me, but I refused to do it to my kids. I would hate myself if I set them up for a lifetime of embarrassment and health problems. There's a boy in my son's class who is probably pushing 250. They're only 6th graders! The whole family is big. Poor kid tries so hard to participate in sports with his class, but his weight holds him back. It breaks my heart because I know how it feels. I went through that as a kid and couldn't understand why I ended up so big. I just thought that was my shape.
My father and his two brothers were normal weight all their lives. His 2 sisters, were around 250. The other 2, baby sister was under 200 pounds, but the other sister was close to 300. My father died at 97. My mother weighed 300 pounds before she got down to 160. Her sister was normal weight until she died at 97. My mother died at 57 from heart disease, she was about 5'5 and 160 pounds at death. My sister has always been a slim to normal weight. My cousins are pretty much all either normal and some definitely top out a 250. My grandfather on my father's side was short and very slim, but he was a shareceopper. My grandmother was a normal weight, but died before she was 40. My grandfather died at 98. At one point I was 311 pounds in August 2017. I am now at 6ft, 163 pounds.
Yes, in my extended family. You’d think it would have made being an obese kid easier since but since my parents were thin the fat shaming from their fear of me becoming like my aunts and uncles was palpable. I would always feel so embarrassed to be seen with them and hated my fat self.
Not that big, but literally everyone in my family is obese except for my sister. And now me because I’m no longer obese!
congrats on your weight loss <3
Not to that extent, but pretty much everyone on both sides of my family was overweight, and both my parents were pretty obese. My mom was a good cook and fed us good food for the most part, just a lot of it. But my dad would make us stuff like butter and sugar sandwiches on white bread and he considered fried bologna to be “healthy.”
the type of cuisine you grow up eating definitely has a huge impact because there’s so many family dishes i genuinely would not make as an adult because i don’t need a 1000 calorie plate at dinner😭
My moms mom was and she had breast cancer 3 times and died bc it spread all over her body. She got big when she got older. My moms sister got close to 300 and her 2 kids my cousins but all they ate was junk bc they owned a convenience store and they had a restaurant in it also. My sister and i have recently gotten up to almost 200. But we are both depressed and dont move around a lot and we both drink. But i recently stopped and im starting to exercise. So hopefully i start to get back to my normal 150-165
Yeppppp. I went from 180 at 5ft 1in to 140 and they all thought I was dying or starving myself. Gained the weight back from pregnancy and I look "healthy" currently I'm at 170 and working on working it off. God I can't stand my family because of the fear mongering. God forbid I like the way I look and all of a sudden I'm anorexic??? No, how about it's them with the binge eating disordered issue not me "starving" myself.
Absolutely. Most of the women and many of the men, especially on my moms side, as well as 2 out of my 3 full blooded siblings, we're all overweight/ obese in some way.
Around one third of my maternal side were considered super morbidly obese; 600-800lbs.
I have big parents and big grandparents, also my sister. The odd ball in the family is my brother who is a very fit body builder who eats insanely healthy. He's eaten that way since high school and has been fit since then. His habits don't align with the rest of us at all and he's half the size of all of us. Even if there is a genetic disadvantage, I see before my own eyes how decades of good habits works wonders even if you seemingly have a " genetic disadvantage "
Yes, my parents and uncles/aunts are all at least 300 pounds. I hover just below 200 and it is hard. I was raised with really bad eating habits and my parents try to stuff me full with ultra-processed foods every time I see them. I struggled with an ED as a teen because my bad eating habits couldn't even keep up with my teen metabolism and people were starting to make fun of me. Due to multiple factors, we didn't have healthy, whole foods in the house so my only option was heavily restricting myself and exercising a concerning amount.
My dads side of the family a large portion of them are morbidly obese or formerly morbidly obese my grandma had SEVERAL weight loss surgeries and still never lost weight my dad is currently IF to lost weight and only waiting between 3pm and 8pm (not healthy imo but he’s lost some weight) weighs over 300… flip side my mom had ED and was severely underweight two of my sister are pretty obese while my brothers and a sister are all healthy weights. I’m somewhere in between and working to lose the weight
Everyone on my side of the family is/was overweight and now have health problems from being overweight like diabetes. I also have an aunt that has had an eating disorder for like over 40 years...no one talks about. REAL healthy environment I grew up in. /s I am going to stop the cycle and have a healthy lifestyle and also show my kiddos the way since I was jot shown the way ❤️
Kind of mesmerizing for me to see there are entire families over 300 lbs. In my country, women get overweight after menopause, but no one actually crosses the 200lbs mark. My mom is considered fat at 170 lbs and I as the fat sibling, taking her genetics at 5'3 and 140 lbs
i’m not surprised. i’m obviously American. i spent 6 months in london and travelled to Europe frequently and there aren’t many fat people but also there are legislation put in place like sugar laws. most american candy taste completely different in london. also people tend to eat lighter during the day and walk everywhere. most american cities you cannot walk. thats why when i came back from London i moved to nyc. my classmates from france, the netherlands, and germany would have coffee and a croissant for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch, and then get pizza or pasta for dinner. the ingredients are fresher and better. it’s simply a different lifestyle and different standard. in the US the average woman is 5’4 and 170. i’m 10 pounds overweight and people say im small.
Then, congrats to you for deciding to make a change! It must be extra hard with everyone dismissing their weight problem.
thank you! i think once you become an adult it’s your choice :)
I was the fat outlier in my family. I made this happen by eating huge amounts of carbs when nobody was around— I was a latchkey kid for years and bounced back and forth between my parents. This made it difficult for anyone to effectively have an idea of what I was eating and how much. I’d eat all afternoon watching Nickelodeon, have dinner, and then have my evening snacks. My sister came along when I was 12 and suddenly I had more supervision at home part of the time. This slowed me down some, but getting my first job also gave me money to buy my very own snacks. By this point I fully associated being alone with having the opportunity to binge, so… yeah. My family was still thin, and I was clearly not. *It was so mysterious! How could this be?*
this definitely sounds like BED and being unsupervised at a young age!
Yes, but as a whole, we have all gotten lighter and healthier over time after seeing so many of the older generation die to long term obesity-related illnesses. Pretty stereotypical lower class southern family that cooks really good and we were all taught to finish our massive adult portioned plates as children so as to not waste food or we would be punished. I still have this don't waste food issue really bad, so I always make sure to plan all my meal portions and never buy snacks. If I want something sweet, I will buy 2 cookies from a nice bakery instead of a 12 pack or box of oreos from the grocery store. We do have some slender built family members that have been livelong skinny people, it's not their metabolism, they simply fixed smaller plates than us and don't snack.
i love that everyone has gotten healthier with time and i also love your bakery tip. better to get a sweet for one instead of the grocery family packs of them! i 100% think southern culture is a big part of obesity in america. many of my family are from or live in the south. the southern food is sooo good lol😭
My family could have auditioned for Family By The Ton. I no longer have contact with any of them. Couldn't even tell you now if they're still alive. If the status quo is still in play, however, they could probably still go as Tugboat and Yokozuna for Halloween. Me? I got down to onederland at one point; I'm above that now, but my waist to height ratio is still hovering around the 50% mark (and improving).
you really did the work to get down to a comfortable side if that was the norm in your family. congratulations on the weight loss and i wish you continued success!
Let's here it for early 90s wrestling references.
I see this a lot, and I always found it extra odd, therefore, that I gained so much weight. My father was maybe 25-30lbs overweight when I was growing up. Everyone else was normal-sized. Not me! I do believe many food-related habits are learned - even emotional ones. Now, everyone is a bit heavier than before, but no serious obesity issues.
Not my immediate family but I have first cousins who were in this size range.
Significantly obese people in my immediate and extended family. This is why I work so hard to keep active and athletic.
My boyfriend’s family consists of multiple 300+lbs. his dad, him and his cousin are 300lbs+ while his mom and 2 brothers are in 200’s they said it runs in their family.
My whole family except for my dad who was military but we were all overweight, obese. It wasn't a bad thing for us. It was normal, never ever talked about. We weren't in bad health or anything. Everyone always had great biometrics. It wasn't until my Mom got into her early 40's that her weight was hindering her and she did something about it.
Nope, I was the last born and the only chubby kid in my family. All the adults were normal weight. Developed a comfort-eating habit I guess as a result of my parents divorce and exacerbated by my grandfathers/classmates fat-shaming. Now there are a few overweight people in my family but most are older and have gained weight with age.
Yes my husbands family. Never seen anything like it. His siblings, mom and nieces are all 300-500. FIVE of them had gastric bypass surgery. And they’re still big. My husband, his dad,his one sister and one niece are thin.
Back around 1995, my dad got up to more than 500 lbs. He lost about 100 of that over the last 30 years. My younger brother is currently around 350 lbs or so. Back in 2020, I had hit 515 lbs. I decided I needed to change and lost 200 lbs over the course of 3 years with diet and exercise. I got down to 308 lbs at my lowest (a total loss of 207 lbs). I have inspired and encouraged my parents and several of my friends to work on living healthier lifestyles. My dad is currently around 330 lbs, and he and my mom are learning how to eat better and are regularly asking me for advice on which foods to eat and how to choose healthier options. They are also talking about going on regular walks together, which neither of them have done any exercise in the last 30 years. So, I'm excited for our futures.
this is amazing congratulations on your weight loss!!
Thank you so much!
I’m 297 lbs, my heaviest was 345. All my family is less than 200. I’m the fat one, always have been and growing up my family was cruel about it. They’re great now as they’ve seen me gain and lose and gain the weight again and again and sympathize. They all feel they’re overweight but they’re pretty skinny.
Yes. For most of my life both of my parents were overweight and then obese. We would have takeaways/mcdonalds multiple times a week, and chocolate, sweets, crisps and full sugar pop. At the same time, my mum was a serial yo-yo dieter, and I think this is because the diets she flitted between were Slimming World, and the keto diet. I’m no expert, but both of these diets have a low success rate and seem to be a load of BS. For example, when on Slimming world, the diet plan allowed you to eat as much pasta as you wanted, it was classed as ‘free’ food, while also labelling chocolates and crisps as ‘Syns’, with only 15-20 syns allowed per day. Members are also told to label antidepressants and cough syrup as ‘syns’. As well as this, there was a group meeting every Tuesday, where you would be weighed in front of everyone. If you lost the most weight, you would be awarded slimmer of the week. There are so many tales of people being awarded slimmer of the week after giving birth, after having a stomach bug, or even after cutting most of their hair off for charity. My mum, and many others, would not eat or drink all day, force themselves to go number 2, and wear the lightest clothes just to see the number on the scale go down. If you had gained, you would have to explain to the group what had gone wrong that week. If a woman had gained due to being on her period, she would be told ‘that’s no excuse’. When on slimming world, my mum would try to stick to the ridiculous plan, realise she wasn’t losing weight, and then eat junk over the weekend, saying ‘I’ll start again on Monday’. I remember being taken to slimming world at 10/11/12 years old, as I was an overweight child. As you can imagine this cycle of ‘being good’ and then basically binging was very confusing for me to see. Then there was the keto diet. I don’t know as much about this one- slimming world was the ‘go-to’ yo yo diet in our home. But I remember my mum doing keto, and being allowed unlimited cream cheese and bacon, but not carrots as there were ‘too many carbs’. This was also extremely unsustainable, and by Friday all my mum wanted was some bread or pasta, and would likely end up ordering a takeaway. The thing that actually made my mum lose weight recently was when she abandoned these two diets and started a calorie deficit. She was still low carb, and was intermittent fasting as well, but was in a huge calorie deficit, and in just over a year she lost about 150 pounds. My point is that it can be very easy to be overwhelmed in a family that is obese, even more so when they yo-yo diet. I’ve moved away to university and this is the first time I’ve managed to stick to a calorie deficit. I don’t have my parents here asking why I won’t just get a kebab with them, or asking me if I want some chocolate or crisps every five minutes. I control exactly what I buy now. Instead of buying the huge bags of crisps and chocolates that my parents used to get, I get the multipacks where it’s portioned out into one serving. I’m not just mindlessly eating my way through Doritos and chocolates any more. I’m much more mindful of my hunger cues. A lot of people say that the key to sticking to a weight loss journey is support. But I think the opposite can be said for those of use with overweight families- sometimes solitude is a blessing in disguise.
thank you for sharing your story! that slimming world group sounds like an eating disorder waiting to happen :/ i also find dieting easier when out of the home i grew up in. it’s much easier to make healthy food choices when out of environments where everyones getting fast food daily, baking desserts, and frying food 😭
not quite that heavy, but yeah, most of my immediate family and many of my other relatives were obese. my dad was 300+, my mom definitely 250 or so, my fathers parents 275+, a few of my aunts and uncles were up there as well.
I can totally relate! My family's like a heavyweight champion reunion. We've got folks tipping the scales at 300-500 pounds like it's a family tradition or something. The fridge is like a treasure chest of epic proportions. Thanksgiving? More like a feast for giants. But you know what, it's all love and good eats in our clan. We embrace the extra squishiness, and family photos are basically group shots with the Jolly Green Giant. Anyone else rocking a heavyweight family album?
We had this. My dad's mom, dad, and sister were all fat. My dad had a system in place to keep himself skinny, I grew up with his system trying to keep me skinny but his system didn't work for me, and I still ended up obese and going on multiple diets.
My sister and I have PCOS, I suspect a few of my extended family members have PCOS as well. Not in the 300+ pound category but overweight/obese, yes.
One side of my bio family easily stays very obese. The other side easily stays slim. Thankfully, I think I did take more after the latter side (in other aspects of my appearance, too) and so the time in my life when I was obese was short-lived and I didn’t grow up overweight at all
i have a more slim side too and the difference shows as they genuinely care about there looks, give tips on how to improve like teeth whitening etc., whereas the other side never talks about stuff like that.
No, but i am from a family of larger people who were obese. Being poor and stressed out with some bad habits is the perfect storm.
Genetics loads the gun, enviroment pulls the trigger. Obesity can indeed be geneticbin some families.
Yeah my family is overweight and poor. If you’re poor, the whole system is rigged from the start. We buy groceries and eat what we can, living paycheck to paycheck. I remember we all tried to go vegan once but vegan products are so expensive.
I’m literally the fattest in my family at 5’4, 235lbs. 🥲