How to live with parents who refuse to cook "clean" or even entertain the idea of a healthy lifestyle?

How old are you?

Weight issues are hard to deal with and the reason you see so many over weight kids is because their parents didn’t teach them how to eat right and exercise. I know I personally strive to teach my kids the healthy way of life. Obesity is an epidemic unfortunately but maybe if you get your parents all together and have a big hard discussion about exercise and how you want to get in shape and eat right. Maybe ask your step-mom to join in with exercising, it may start her thinking healthier and be more willing to buy healtier food for the house.

Another suggestion would be if you are old enough to get a job to get one and buy the food you want to eat rather than eat what is served.

How old are you? Do you have a job? If not, can you get one?

Unfortunately, there’s no way to force your family to eat according to your standards. They have the right to eat whatever they want and since they buy the food, you’re just going to have to deal with it or buy your own.

Many people dislike wheat bread and reduced fat milk – not all of those people are fat. I eat “healthy white” bread (not because I think it’s healthy, but because I can only eat bread when it’s really soft, and whole grain never is) and I don’t enjoy eating veggies, so I have a limited variety that I force myself to eat. I’m not fat. It’s all about moderation and staying active. When I lived at home, my mom cooked Hamburger Helper almost every night. So unhealthy, but I got out without becoming obese and so will you.

You control what goes in your mouth. If corn is cooked with butter, fine, but no one is forcing you to add more once it’s on your plate. No one is forcing you to eat 2 heaping servings of it. And no one is forcing you to sit on the couch and not exercise. Living at home with no job limits your options, but you can make healthier choices given the options you do have.

1) Wheat bread DOES taste like sandpaper. Particularly the processed stuff

2) What gives you the right to try and impose your values on them? Healthy or unhealthy, you don’t have the authority or the moral right to impose your values and beliefs on anyone else.

Language tip: Don’t tell them what to do. Tell them what you can or can’t do.
“I can’t eat this.” > “You/We shouldn’t eat this.”
“This isn’t healthy for me” > “This isn’t healthy”
“This disgusts me” > “This is disgusting”

Make a clear distinction between your intentions and theirs. Don’t make it seem like you’re judging them, keep these discussions about you and what you want for yourself.

According to a recent question, the OP is 17. Nearly an adult and plenty old enough to have a part-time job.

For what it’s worth, many obese people have awesome lungs and hearts. Consider this – they’re always lifting weights. I’m not saying that to be mean, but it’s true. Being seriously overweight is like carrying a 50+ pound rucksack everywhere you go. Burns calories, builds muscle, good cardio. So there’s that.

I appreciate that you have a desire to eat healthier. However, you’re not currently shopping for food. Until you are, you’re pretty much screwed.

One option might be to offer to cook the family dinner and couple of nights a week, provided you can choose the menu. Maybe you could surprise them into appreciating a nice chicken pita or something.

@Feta You got some very good advice from @ninjacolin. If you can land a part time job, do some babysitting, dog walking, whatever; that should give you enough cash to buy some healthy veggies and low-fat sources of protein. So cook up what you want to eat, and offer to cook form them too. Chances are they won’t take you up on it, but at least it then doesn’t offend them that you cooked only for yourself whereas they cook for everyone.

At your age, you’ll be out on your own soon enough.

You haven’t mentioned exercising. You can do the math. Count the calories in the food your family serves. Figure out how many of those calories you can walk off in a day. Combine eating a little less and exercising more so the calories you take in are balanced by the calories you burn off exercising. Don’t put the responsibility on your parents. They are just following their traditions You do your thing. And don’t grumble. Just laugh when they tell you that you aren’t eating enough.They don’t care if you get fat. You DO. So you take control of the situation to get the results you want.

Buy them a healthy cook book.
That will completely eliminate their “I do not know how to cook healthy” excuse.
If they continue, confront them. Ask them in stern words if they are actively trying to destroy your health and turn you into a chunky monkey wobble slob.

@ragingloli Yeah, like that’s going to work. LOL

@Feta Nobody ever gets anything accomplished by insulting the people they’re trying to convince.

I don’t know… she’s a teenager. The assumption that she will be whiny and bitchy is kind of built in. It just might work.

Yeah…. Disrespect never ever worked at our house, but maybe it will at theirs.

Respect must be earned. It is not bestowed upon you by mere parenthood.

Right. But if I’m trying to get someone to listen to me, I would not expect to get there by insulting the person I’m trying to influence. They’ll only write me off, but maybe that’s the OP’s intention. If that’s so, they’re only wasting their time to engage in the first place.

What makes you think I call my parents fat to their face? It’s an observation that they think they’re healthy as a horse when they obviously eat junk. My dad has dangerously high cholesterol but continues to eat like this.

I suggest that we eat healthier and they call me a liberal and ask when I’m going to stop eating gluten.

We have a democratic household. I can state my opinion, it may not be acknowledged, but I have the right to do so. That’s not disrespect and I’m NOT whiny and bitchy just because I’m 17.

I do exercise and I eat smaller portions of what they cook however it does hinder my weight loss and health compared to if I was eating a completely clean diet. I wouldn’t be the only one to benefit from this, they would too. My dad was interested in it for awhile but we couldn’t convince my stepmom to switch over to healthy foods.
She just prefers to eat butter soaked food and entire meals for “snacks”.

I am old enough to get job. I want a job just for this reason; to have my own money and buy my own food.

However, we live in the middle of nowhere, the only jobs are in fast food or grocery stores and by asking around at school, since so many teenagers (and adults) work in those places, they only get scheduled like 10 hours a week for minimum wage. The gas to get to work would cost my entire paycheck.

Not to mention my lack of transportation. No carpool, no bike, no bus services, and the places are too far to walk to. If I got my parents to drive me or let me use the car they’d have me paying them half of the insurance on the car too.

They don’t let me cook because they know they’d probably get a vegetarian dinner if I did. The only thing I’m ever allowed to do is put the Stouffer’s lasagna in the oven or make cheese biscuits. Besides, my stepmother plans every meal and only buys that food. If I did cook dinner, it would be simply that, cooking dinner, not planning it.

I’m trying to be healthy and lose weight because I want to start a modeling career (yes I’m tall enough, and yes I know how tough the industry is). My parents never started a college fund for me so I’m going to have to pay my way through college with my own money and scholarships…and I’m applying to Harvard (journalism).

About the language, I have tried saying, “I can’t eat this”, I’ve actually never really tried to dictate what they eat…I ask them to buy me the food so I can eat healthy and they can eat whatever they want, but they want me to eat what they eat. Anyway, they don’t care if I won’t/can’t eat something, they’ll tell me I can go without.

But it’s a different story when my stepmother’s vegetarian daughter visits, then she makes vegetarian meals to accommodate her diet choices.

^^^ Just throwing that in because I think it could also be a personal thing against me…my stepmother doesn’t like me.

@Feta The fact of the matter is that they buy the food, so they have the final say. It’s quite obviously not a democratic household if your opinion doesn’t matter. A kid can say they think every family meal should consist of candy, but that’s not going to happen either. He who holds the checkbook holds the power.

You have a lot of excuses for not getting a job, but there are jobs you can do close to home that requires no car – babysitting, cleaning houses, mowing lawns, etc. If it’s truly not an option, that’s fine, but you’re just going to have to eat the food provided for you. Be thankful that you have food. Be thankful you’re not abused at home. Be thankful you have a home. And stop blaming your parents for all of your problems. You’re too old for all that noise.

When you go off to college, you can eat whatever you want. You have 4 years to get your body in shape then. It’s not the end of the world that you have to eat unhealthy foods for one more year. Suck it up.