At what age did you really start thinking about food and dieting?

In my early 30s as well. After an outing at the lake, I saw a photo of myself emerging from water and was shocked by how heavy I looked. I just hadn’t realized till then how much weight had crept up on me. After that I started jogging and dieting.

I still haven’t. I’m still somewhat athletic at my age, so I’ll worry when I start having problems lol.

I would say I was never really aware, but I kind of knew some things. We had a nutrition class in high school, so I applied that to real life when I would see people eating 3,000mg sodium laden ramen on a regular basis. I started to wonder how people could eat so much and not exercise: it seems like common sense and basic physics that you have to burn stuff off or it won’t go away.

But I still eat cheesburgers 2–3 times a week, and I also eat nothing but spinach and tuna or chicken 2–3 times a week, and…I also work out 3 times a week so I just tell myself I’m doing better than the average person lol.

When I was in my early 20s I was put on a high calorie diet to get up to 100 pounds and stay there. Now I laugh. I need to LOSE 100 pounds or so now.

In my elementary schools years.

14. Digestive disease’ll do that to you. I worried that everything I was eating would make me worse, and it resulted in an anorexia-like mindset in which I thought eating less would be better. It got worse at 16 when I read a book about this one theory that inflammatory bowel disease is caused by carbohydrates, which just fueled the paranoia. There was a point in my life where I seriously contemplated taking all my meals while hanging upside down because some twisted path of logic led me to think that would help.

I don’t have to worry about that stuff too much anymore because my guts are a lot more resilient to food now. My main goal is to just eat as much as possible because I’m way underweight, so I cater to that need by eating what sounds appealing most of the time, while trying to keep a reasonably healthy diet. I still get a little paranoid about carbs though.

In 1987–88 After I had my last child and gained 40 pounds after he was born. My sister was the Diet Queen (to the point she scared me….she ‘s 5’11 and at times wore a size 2…still might) and she helped me change my eating habits. Lost the weight and it never came back.

High school years. I used to sometimes take diet pills and lose 9 pounds in a week! I would consider 115 fat at that point and try to get down below 105.

Needless to say, I don’t diet like that any more but I keep on top of my weight and how much I am eating.

Hard to say.

I was bulimic in high school, and avoided eating in general as a young 20-something. That wasn’t really thinking about food, it was more trying to have some control over my own existence.

After my son was born, I was obsessed with “Natural” health, and changed my eating habits to reflect whatever latest health craze I could attach myself to.

At 24, in the throes of Paleo-Dieting, I had my first gallbladder attack.

That’s the first time I really thought about food. What food I could eat, what food physically hurt me. For three years I battled that nonsense, flipping back and forth between eating little but dry tuna fish and saltine crackers, and bingeing on any baked goods in sight.

Now I’m almost 6 months past my cholecystectomy (gall bladder removal), and I still have to be conscious of what I’m putting in my mouth. Fatty foods aren’t the enemy anymore, but I have to pace myself with eggs and anything that takes too long to digest. My metabolism has slowed significantly, so I have to moderate portion sizes.

It also means my recreational imbibing has lessened considerably. On the rare occasions that I’d indulge in more than a few cocktails, I could hang with the big boys pretty well. Now, well, I can afford to indulge in top-shelf gin, since I can only hold a couple of drinks in a night without getting an awful headache and stomachache. Which is fine. Sapphire me up.

I grew up thinking about food, calories, carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Impossible not to think about if you are type 1 diabetic and care about being functional in the present and keeping your kidneys in the future.

I don’t remember when I DIDN’T think about my weight and diet. I was the 5th of six children and the ONLY one to take after my mom and be “fat.” When I look at pictures from my childhood I realize I wasn’t fat at all, I just had a round face, but my older siblings were constantly telling me that I was fat or sloppy or lazy.
It has taken a lot of work to overcome that, and the low self esteem took me to some pretty dark places.
Now I keep my weight within a 10–30 pound window of “normal” and probably spend most of my time within the 10 pound range. It is a constant struggle though. I often wonder if it would be this hard if It hadn’t been ingrained in me since I was a toddler that I was defective.
I got my first “lifetime” pin from weight watchers when I was about 12. I got two more after that, each with a higher “weight to goal.”

Definitely in my teens. Sadly, Twiggy was my idol; and at 5’8” I tried to hold my weight to under 115 pounds. I could easily drop several pounds in a couple of days by not eating.

My focus was on body image, and it was never focused on a healthy relationship to food.

I’d love to report that I’m older and wiser. I’m definitely older and more informed about healthy eating. But I’ve never conquered the uneasy relationship I have with my body image, and I always feel that something needs improving, and my size/weight is always a concern.

I was often told I looked like Twiggy. Kids on the bus and in the neighborhood called me that. I had freckles and was as skinny as she was.

^^Duchess, I was rail-thin, freckled and used tons of mascara to emulate the Twiggy eyelashes. I didn’t do the ultra short hair, as I was in Texas where big hair reigned.

I was only 11 or 12. :)

I would say 12 or 13. I realized in eighth grade that I was one of the chunkier girls in my class. I didn’t actively do anything about it until my junior year in high school. Ate less, moved more, lost weight.

As to the percentage of time I spend thinking about food, I would say 40 to 50%.

Like three or four others, around 11 or so. My grandfather, rest his soul, kep making comments about me ‘getting a little chubby’, then my grandmother would rip his head off, then he’d do it again.

After she died and we talked about those old days, he said “Well April, I like little girls.” I said “Grampa, don’t ever say that again, people will think you’re a weirdo.”

We had a nice laugh over that. Of course he meant small women.

As a reader and an observer I frequently read the latest fad diets in the glossy mags and heard women discussing it.

I personally didn’t think it applied to me until after I started having health problems.

So 22 or 23. I still only half took it seriously since I mentally rejected I was sick, I only made a few changes at first. As to weight. I am the same weight I have been since highschool. Some of it has changed from fat to muscle and occasionally its the opposite.

Diets are more about nutrition to me. Do I feel ok am I missing smething am I having a food related symptom. Does it go away when I stop eating something. What supplements should I take as a Celiac who eats this and this…

My hippie years when I was strictly vegetarian. I reverted to meat eater, but with good nutrition in balance.

I didn’t really begin thinking about food and my food intake until I was in my mid 40’s. Up until that point I didn’t carry any extra weight and pretty much ate whatever I wanted. At this point if I want to feel good about myself and stay at a weight where I am comfortable, I have to be careful about my food intake.

Very young. Probably 12 or 13.

Probably around 12. I barely remember any times in my life that I wasn’t on some sort of diet, and I was always a chunky kid, so I was always aware of that – even as a small child. Sometimes, I think that starting my body obsession so early contributed to the massive weight gain/loss yo-yoing that I did throughout my lifetime. Sometimes I am certain that I damaged my body.

I’ve had a screwed up relationship with food and exercise and my body for a really, really long time. I never brought it up in therapy and I’ve never been diagnosed, but I’ve come to feel like I probably have some kind of eating disorder, not that I’m trying to self-diagnose, but I do approach food and dieting now as if it is true. I don’t know that I need a doctor or a diagnosis to recognize that my emotions surrounding my weight and my willingness to abuse myself mercilessly are better off being avoided, if possible.

15 years ago I would have thought nothing of abusing diet pills (when ephedra was still legal, I could easily plow through a bottle a week.) Laxatives, self-induced vomiting, illicit drugs? No big deal, it was all something I was willing to try to have the perfect image, and it rapidly became my routine. Granted, I was overweight when I managed to literally starve 130lbs off of my body. And I got nothing but praise for it.

“Oh, you’re so skinny! You look great! I wish I had nice legs like you!”

I had given up food. I was lucky to get in 800 calories on a good (at the time I thought of it as a bad) day. I exercised constantly, I mean: I kept weights next to my bed so that I could work out before I fell asleep and as soon as I woke up. I had a roommate walk in on me doing sit-ups in my bed at 6am. All the while, I still despised my reflection. All of the compliments in the world could not make me see someone pretty in the mirror.

Then, one day, my body rebelled. I went off of oral contraceptives and like flipping a switch, I was ravenous. I could no longer choose not to eat and I began eating like a normal person. And I gained 40lbs. The compliments stopped.

And you know, realizing that I was praised for abusing myself, and not for taking care of myself made me aware of what a fucked up society we live in. Not that I’m blaming other people for what I’ve done to my own body, but I also stopped blaming myself. I started to learn how to take care of myself. My focus now is on eating well, on eating enough, on nourishing my body. I’ve lost 23 of the 40lbs that I gained, initially, but if I never lose another pound I’m learning to be okay with that. And I think that, for me, that is a thousand times healthier than being 17lbs lighter.

I was about 16–17 and with absolutely no justification.

When I was fourteen I started worrying about my diet. I realized I wasn’t eating enough, so I starting making more meals. Even then, I still wasn’t eating enough. It took me over two years to figure out the amount of calories I should be intaking daily, and I finally figured it out a few months ago. The last time I went to the doctor before a couple days ago was three years ago when I was 14. Then, I was in the 2nd percentile for the weight to height ratio. Now, three years later, I am in the 20th percentile. I gained ten pounds from last December to March. I hope to only improve from here.

OK. What year were all ya’ll born? 1958 here. Never had a passing thought until 1987.

When I was about 17. I never felt the need to diet but my gym teacher said I needed to lose some weight. Looking back at my picture of the time, I was more than fine. I weighed about 118 at the time and was 5 feet tall. My legs were heavier at the time but that was because they were muscular. I was very active (loved to play hand ball and gymnastics and dancing) and walked and ran everywhere. So I tried to diet for about a month and then gave it up. Didn’t diet again till after the birth of my son and again after the birth of my daughter.

Figured out the word diet sets you up for failure. Best just to make healthier food choices to gain strength for working out.

My mom was very conscious about nutrition. So I was always exposed to whatever was considered healthy. We never had desert and there were no snacks except apples, carrots and the like in. There were never had soft drinks in the house. We had water when we were thirsty. I can remember my mom saying the only thing better than one vegetable at dinner was 2 vegetables. So it has always come as second nature to me, but not something I really consciously think about. Except for my addiction to cokey cola and A & W root beer. So here is the drill, I allow myself 1 can of root beer after supper at night. And I will allow myself a coke on weekends. After all you gotta have some vices!

Thanks everyone for all the answers! This Q turned out to be more interesting than I had assumed it would be. The answers are rather varied.

My mom kind of did the 4 food groups with us growing up. Our dinner plate always had a meat, starch, and veggie. We did not have dessert after dinner, but we could have sweets as snacks pretty much whenever we wanted. Having been married to my husband for many years, who likes dessert at the end of a meal I started to get more into that habit, and it is a terrible habit in my opinion. It’s part of how you learn to stuff yourself.

@DigitalBlue I have a feeling you would like the book Obsessed by Mika Brzezinski. Watching her talk about her book on Katie is what sparked this Q.

Here is a link about the book.

@Dutchess_III I was born in 1968.

I just asked a new question about dessert and sweets habits.

I thought about food quite a lot when I was a kid, but not as it related to weight. I was just an extremely picky eater, so it was on my mind a lot.

The first time I ever really thought about my weight was when I lost some very suddenly. I’d always been underweight, but not skeletal until I was hit with thyroid storm. At 15 years old, just shy of 5’8”, I ended up weighing 114 lbs. I looked anorexic. Getting back to a somewhat normal weight was a huge struggle, when my body – just while sitting still – was burning more calories than I could possibly eat. When I was 17, the damn thyroid died…and I’ve had the opposite problem ever since. The only time I’ve really dieted was in my late 20s, successfully losing what I wanted to just before I started having children. I’m too lazy to put much effort into what I eat, and for the last 17 or 18 years, have been in too much pain to contemplate exercise.

@Dutchess_III 1982.

The end of ‘85, here.

I always wondered if a girl’s body image is tied to her mother’s body image. I have often thought that one of the silver linings of being raised by a single dad was that I didn’t have a mother modeling constant body image issues.

@SuperMouse Great question. I would say for me my body image is tied to my mother as an adult, meaning me as an adult, because I have her body. I have most of the same flaws for lack of a better word, with the surprise of heavy thighs in addition, whcih she never had. But, as a child my body had nothing to do with my moms. I was a thin, some would say skinny kid, my mom mom worried about her weight moderately, not obsessively. She would stand in front of the mirror sideways and see how far her stomach stuck out. LOL. I do the same sometimes, but never when I was younger.

Once in a while someone outside the family would say I was too thin, and any adult relative within hearing distance would basically tell that person to shut up and say I had a perfect body. This is when I was quite young, before puberty. So, I had all sorts of positive reinforcement about my body, and I didn’t connect my body with my mother at all. She was older, I was young and thin. As a teenager I wanted my breasts to be a little bigger, but I still had all sorts of reinforcement from boys about my body and my family. I also think taking ballet as a child helped. The whole posture, confidence, poise, grace, thing. As a teen I did start to worry about my stomach being the place I held weight, but once when I was pointing it out my boyfriend said, “women should have some weight there, look at Marylin Monroe, she does not have a board flat stomach,” and he placed his hand basically on my womb while he said it. I mean really, that was unbelievable right?! My husband puts his hand there and teases me calling me Buddha.

When I was very young I was literally afraid to eat when I was full. Afraid I would throw up, I hated that nauseas feeling, although I always had a healthy appetite and food was never an issue. I didn’t have to be pushed to eat or anything like that. My dad thought it was the greatest thing in the world that I would not eat one more bite once full. Even though when he talked about it to other people it embarrased me. He realized I was like this one day when I was eating black olives and there were two left and I refused to eat the last two. He pushed me, and I refused! He made me feel terrible about it, but then later he appreciated it. My dad has been overweight my whole life.

@SuperMouse My dad had a strong athletic build and my mom is overweight. Yet, I’m wicked skinny.

Around 35, when my expensive trousers started to feel uncomfortable and I didn’t want to invest in new ones.