Curious -- When Did You Get Fat?

In my previous post, I wrote about the first day of school.  It got me to thinking about when I became fat.

You know, I don't remember exactly when I became fat.  I was born two months early, and my mother fed me whenever I wanted to eat because she wanted me to gain weight and thrive.  She said I liked to eat, too.  By age 1, I think I weighed 25 lb.

I have seen pictures of myself as a young child, and I wasn't fat then.  It seems to me I started gaining around mid-elementary school years, although I never felt fat because I used to run and play all the time.

Odd that I don't remember a time in my life when I wasn't some varying degree of fat! 

When did you get fat?  Was in in childhood, teenhood, or adulthood?  If in adulthood, was it a shock to you that you became fat after being thin as a child?

Curious,
Kix
 

Interesting.....

I started gaining in 3rd or 4th grade. And have been continually packing it on for the rest of my life!
Until now of course.
I have lost up to 65 lbs several times. 

I'm thinking that's probably around the age I first started gaining weight.  I've lost and regained weight more times than I can count (as I'm sure most of us have)!

Kix

Childhood did it for me.  My Grandma taught me how to cook and bake and I've always loved it.

I come from a family (mom's side) where everyone is MO, good ole southern cooks that love to cook as much as they love to eat.

I was also abused by my Dad as a child and turned to food when I had nothing else to turn to. Took me years to realize this. My Dad HATED fat people, but when he married my Mom she was well over 200 pounds and as I mentioned before her entire family was MO. Food was my comfort.

I come from a family of short fat Danes on my mother's side and tall fat Danes on my father's side.  One of my cousins once joked that she wanted to meet the two fat Danes who got together and started all of this so long ago!    We aren't a small people!

Funny, too, my dad hated fat people even though he was fat at varying times in his life and all of us were varying degrees of fat.  Even though I was a great kid and outstanding student, I always felt a bit inadequate because I didn't conform to the "norm" in terms of body size as my dad defined it. 

Kix

Hello Kix,

This is off your original topic, but I had no idea you were a Dane... so am I.  My mother is 100% Danish born and bred.  We are (I was!) of the short fat variety.  I had a baby girl in January (my first), so I am a little "fatter" than I'd like to be at this point, but still doing ok.  I am going to do everything in my parental power to make sure my baby grows up healthy - making proper food choices, exercising, etc.  I definitely don't want her to experience the obese lifestyle; I'm fairly certain her Danish grandma doesn't either after seeing what I have been through.

BTW, you have done simply amazing.  I used to be a frequent visitor/poster of this board after my surgery, but I've kind of become a lurker since my pregnancy took center stage and I hopped over to the Pregnancy after WLS board; however, I have continued to follow your story - very impressive.

Take Care,
Tanja

Tak nemlig den kompliment Tanja! Jeg er først led Amerikaner , mig forældre kom hen til den U.S. nemlig teenagers. Mig bedstefader fik en gunstig lejlighed hen til belære animalsk husbandry henne ved Rutgers Universitet i Ny Jersey , men han var nysgerrig omkring den Vest og det var det hvor mig slægt **** tede oppe i California!

BTW , mig Dansk er nok så skadelig , vi gjorde ikke indtale sig mange herhjemme.

Av , JEG næsten glemte , tillykke oven på den ny baby!
========================================================================
OK, did that make your head hurt?  Danish makes my head hurt!    I'm not very fluent, I am better at written Danish; with spoken Danish, the accent throws me off and I'm always begging people to speak S L O W L Y. 

If I did this right, what I said was: 

Thanks for the compliment!  I'm first generation American, my parents came to the U.S. as teenagers at the tail end of the Depression.  My grandfather had an opportunity to teach animal husbandry at Rutgers University in New Jersey (he was some kind of expert on chickens), but he was curious about the Western U.S. and that's how my family ended up in California.  Oh, and I also apologized for my poor Danish, we didn't speak it much at home.  Also, congratulations on the new baby!

Kix

Fascinating thought about our dads and their attitudes. I never really considered that my dad hated fat people, but thinking back, he ALWAYS pointed out fat people to me as an example of the body type that "we jocks" were much "superior" to. Dad did have one SMO sister that both he and one of my uncles thought I took after in body type. The two of them were often cautioning me "not to be like Aunt Lena."

for me, it has been life long. 9 lbs at birth. 80 lbs by first grade. and you know, that was the first i knew i was not the same as everyone else. my first grade class had to go into the other first grade classroom and share seats with those kids. then we went to the front of the class and got weighed as our names were called. i remember the teacher doing the weighing said "eight zero" for me. when i returned to my seat, the other kids said how much did you weigh? and i said "eight zero" -- still not really registering with me that this was 80 -- but all the other kids knew right away and most of them were weighing 45 - 50. this was my first awareness that i was fat. but the realization didn't change anything. i just kept gaining steadily my whole life. my mom was an excellent seamstress and made most of my clothes all thru my childhood/teen years.

i would diet/lose weight, then regain the loss and some more. when i had my first weightloss surgery in 1980, i weighed 315 - lost 120 lbs. when i went on optifast sometime in the 1990s, i weighed 419 - lost 195 lbs. when i had the RNY in 2005 i was up to 463.

this time is different!

deb

Deb, I know we're around the same age, and I certainly remember those awful weigh-ins at school.  Ugh!  We also did President Kennedy's Presidential Fitness Program, and I remember huffing and puffing around the schoolyard track, my fat basset hound legs trying to keep up with the rest of the class. 

My mother and grandmother were also excellent seamstresses, so they kept me in clothes (including the dreaded dresses back in the days when girls couldn't wear pants to school).  I was a tomboy, so my gramma used to put deep pockets in my dresses so I'd have places to carry all my treasures.  Yay, gramma!

I weighed 175 in high school and didn't really head toward SMO until I graduated from college.  I'm sure that becoming less physically active as I got older was a major factor in it, so I have to tell myself to remain vigilant about daily activity.

As a tall person, did you get grief from peers over being tall, or being fat?  I had a tall, fat friend tell me it was worse being tall, but since I greatly envy tall people, I have a hard time buying it!

Kix