childhood food neglect/malnourishment makes dieting hard

[heroek]

Diets are agony for me. My husband thinks its because I was malnourished as a child (we had money, but my mother (has BPD, divorced my dad when I was 5 so it was just she and I) often forgot to go shopping or get food so I'd go hungry) and diets kick in my survival panic mode. Because of her neglect of our house, a cabinet full of dishes fell on me when I was ten and basically broke my spine. After several surgeries over the span of my life and a lot of hardware in my spine, exercise is a challenge for me (in my 20s, it was fine and I used exercise to manage my weight) and my pattern is to attempt exercises moderately for a couple weeks, then I get injured, then I have to stop. Anyway, anyone else struggle with aftereffects of food neglect/malnourishment not necessarily poverty related?

[catta]

Yes, although maybe not as extreme-- My uNPD mom was always on weird diets/food restriction and we rarely had anything to eat in our house that didn't require a lot of preparation. Or we'd have things, and they would be off-limits: "your dad's cereal," "for company next weekend," "for mom only."

After school there would usually be no snack food, just dried pasta (gluten free or whatever fad she was on at the moment) in the pantry and a bunch of random ingredients. I wasn't allowed to cook anything and make a mess. My mom did not work, but she would nap all afternoon, so I usually didn't see her until dinner time. I remember just staring into the cabinets as if something might appear. Eating condiments. Etc.

My dad, also uNPD, can't/won't make food for himself and was weirdly possessive about the food in our house. Hence "your dad's cereal" above. To this day I have anxiety making a sandwich because we never had enough ingredients for two, and if he heard me making one, I'd be forced to give it to him and use whatever was leftover.

[SeaBreeze]

Yes. My brother and I grew up in what's known today as a "food insecure" home due to a combination of poverty and my uNPD/schizoaffective mother's eating disorder. My brother and I were medically considered underweight on the growth charts from birth til we left home, whereas my yo-yo dieting mother was always medically overweight. It was feast the day after payday, famine the last few days before next payday, plus my non-custodial dad treated us to fast food on visitation days. Yet it took me until my 30s to figure out why/how I became an overweight comfort eater (food = security and comfort) and I've openly struggled with that full knowledge and continual weight gain into my 40s.

A pediatrician threatened my mother with CPS once over my brother's dangerously low weight, but because my father was thin back then, she convinced them it was genetic. (It was genetic in part, but I can also attest she did NOT feed my brother properly.) As I recall she was less scared of losing him and moreso angry that her parenting abilities were questioned.

My biggest conflict with my mother during my first pregnancy (I was 20, single and still at home due to enmeshment) was lack of adequate nutritious food, other people eating food I bought for myself, her failing to cook promised dinners on nights I worked late, etc. My first child was born pretty small, whereas kids 2 and 3, who I had after I married and left home, and so ate much healthier during those pregnancies, were big butterball babies!

In turn I perhaps overfed my own kids, determined they wouldn't go hungry or be underweight like I was. Mind you I served them healthy, nutritionally balanced meals but... I also unfortunately taught them to comfort eat by proxy, often taking them out for ice cream to escape uNPDh's rages when they were growing up. That smallest firstborn grew up to be my biggest adult and now binge eats, yet my bigger kiddoes grew up to restrict themselves and are now medically underweight. But we at least all recognize the pattern now, openly discuss it, and have all sought help for our respective food issues.

My brother admits to the same with his kids, and also is a professional chef, a career he equally credits/blames on our hungry childhood. When we visit each other, we actually check out each other's pantries and compliment one another's stockpiles just like we would a new car or furniture. He admits he will eat an entire package of cookies in one sitting just because he can, and I wholly commiserate because we went hungry together and will never forget.

And of course I married uNPD husband with an eating disorder who tries to control the rest of the house with his diet of the week. I am so sick of the role food has played my dysfunctional family, especially since I've realized the root of it for the past several years. We have to eat to survive, and while I'm at it,  I enjoy sitting down to a pleasant meal with good company and conversation. I hate the accompanying anxiety that others (and yes, myself) have literally brought to the table.