Were you overweight as a child?

I was wondering if being overweight as a child will increase your problems with keeping a healthy weight as an adult, and would like to hear from the rest of you, how your childhood weight story was?

For myself, I was overweight from the 0. to the 6. grade, being picked on every single day by classmates and older student - it was a small school with 300 pupils and I was the fat one. The explanation was very straight forward, my granny babysitted my sister and I and every afternoon she prepared enormous amounts of snacks for us - and I learned to just eat until I couldn't eat no more. Result: A great amount of overweight and a loss of appetite-control which I have never regained

It all led to a huge weightloss in my early teens, ending up with me being very thin and very miserable, feeling in no way good about myself. This went on a couple of years, and then I got my first boyfriend, started to feel more confident about myself and regained weight slowly but steady. In all those years between, I've felt more or less good about myself, telling myself that my weight was ok and I wasn't happier when I was lighter. However, I've somehow had a wake up call, and now realized, that I've become overweight and need to lose my kg's.

So, dear fellow members of CC, what's your story like? Did the extra pounds come on because of childhood habits, adulthood routines, feeling good or bad?

I believe, that accepting the reasons for being where you are at one point, is part of the proces of moving on.. Perhaps that's stupid, but it helps me to understand, why food is not just food to me but so much more..

Yes i was overweight as a child.  I started eating out of boredom as a child.  I too was made fun of though out my school years.  I'm still heavy, not like gross heavy but I have steady gained thoughout the years.  THere was a point when i did lose and felt alot better about myself, after my boyfriend and I got together we started gaining together however.  I am now to the point in my higher 20's that I've decided that it's time to fix this one way or another.  I am at about 250 and the index on here says i should be 152 which I expected.  If i can't lose it my self I'm not opposed to the gastic.  I know that i'll never be in a bikini I just would like to be comfortable

I was pretty much a fat girl. I was born weighing much lesser than my older brother but when we were toddlers, he weighed much lighter than me. I ate everything and I could eat bowls and bowls of rice. When I was nine, I often ate two cheeseburgers at midnight.

I took a really long time to lose the weight. I began to realise that I was way too pudgy so I managed to lose a little when I was in high school. I began to have a low-carb diet when I was seventeen and successfully lost all the baby fat this year in July (I turned twenty in November). You can say I took about seven years. :D

I was really skinny when I was a kid. When I was 11, we moved to a different city and I turned into a couch potato, quitting the swimming, skating and dancing lessons I'd taken before. I also started developing problems with anxiety and depression. So I started emotional eating and got a little bit chubby. By the end of university I was maybe 30 pounds overweight. I tried to lose the weight without any luck, until I decided to start counting calories. Then I lost those 30 pounds but I've gained maybe seven pounds back in the past year. I'm determined to get back to my old weight in time for my cousin's wedding this summer! Emotional eating is still a big problem for me though.

I've been overweight since I was about 7.  I like food. I like to eat. I like feeling full.  I'm 42 now, my highest weight was over 260, cw is 211.  I truly do not know what it feels like to be thin.  That is my goal. To be at a normal weight. To look in the mirror and like what I see.

I was born a preemie and made up for it day one.  As far back as I can remember I was overweight.  By my teens I was obese.  I did lose about 60 pounds in my late teens but that only lasted for about 6 months before I started gaining it back.  At age 46 I was 267.  At age 47 I was diagnosed with diabetes.  That was my wake-up call!   Today I am 162 pounds and responsibly fit.  CC helped me understand what I was eating and the groups and forums helped keep me motivated.  

Good luck with your journey.

I was a pudgy toddler- probably on the high end of normal until age 5- but since then I've been on the low end of normal.

I was underweight  ( I was also born a bit too early so I was below average at birth) - up until I was 9 or 10, then I started gaining weight and at the age of 15 I was already obese (basically, I gained almost 100lbs between the ages of 10 and 15 and I'm only 5'3")
I was bullied at school and my way of coping was...food(and lots of it)
It became a habit and once I stopped dancing (and other activities) I just kept gaining

I reached my highest weight ever this summer - when I was around 198lbs
(down to 157lbs at the moment, my lowest weight in over 4 years)

I've been fat since I was a baby - photos from me at one year old definitely showed signs of chubbiness.

I got bigger and bigger every year.  Kids at school nad strangers on the street made fun of me and while I was "confident" on the outside, that was more of the shield that went up to protect me.  I never once told my parents about my sister, kids at school, etc. making fun of me.  I never cried.  I just took it becasue after all, I WAS enormous so they were just pointing out hte obvious.

Depression sogns started in my teens but I never recognized it until I was 33.  All throughout my late teens, 20's and early 30's, I never felt comfortable, I never felt good enough, I never felt accepted.  And by 33years old, I was severely clinically depressed, suffered from anxiety attacks, and the first time I weighed in at Weight Watchers in 2003 I was 316 pounds.

Every single day is a struggle.  I do not know how much I weigh now becasue the scale affects me emotionally and mentally, so I tend to stay away from it.  I do know that today I am wearing a size 16 jeans fromthe Avenue store nad I haven't worn this size since high school, maybe.

I want to be normal.  I want to go into any store nad be able to wear whatever I want.  I want to not stick out as The Fat Girl.  I am 39 now nad feel as though I am just starting to LIVE finally!

For me I was a baby, toddler and a kid that was always skinny and small. I was born premature at 2 lbs 7oz. When I was a toddler through 12 years old I was small and thin. It wasn't until I was 12 that I started gaining weight and since then I have been getting bigger. Now I'm overweight officially for the first time in my life and I hate it like nothing else. It really sucks. I miss the days when I was a kid when going clothes shopping was fun, not it sucks and it's embarrassing for me. But I'm working on trying to lose the extra poundage.

I was a disgusting, spoiled, lazy child who was obsessed with instant gratification.  I ate junk every minute and never ever got my butt of the couch.  I would watch Nickelodeon from the second I got home from school until dinner, then back on after that.

I had no idea how revolting and wrong this was until it was too late.  By the time *I* realized I was fat, everyone at school was ruining my life, my brother tormented me, and my mom was trying to make me diet and exercise...too bad she didn't MAKE ME DO THAT FROM THE BEGINNING and instead just let me become a greasy, fat-rolled, sickening beast.

Yes, it sounds harsh, but I ruined my body for life at a very young age, before I knew any better, and now there's nothing I can do about it.

Anyway, around my 13th birthday, I went a little nuts and developed some sort of weird anxiety disorder that made me a total hypochondriac and prevented me from eating anything for about 2 years.  So I lost a ton of weight and became skinny-fat.  Since then, I had been mostly just a little overweight...perhaps just "soft." Since mid-way through college I developed a penchant for exercise where I actually enjoy it.  Almost exactly a year ago, I decided to stop horsing around and actually get my body into shape while I still had a chance.  Since then I have gone from being "slightly overweight" to being "slightly underweight."  I don't know where my weight will settle, but I do know that I can run for miles and miles now, and that I am finally, FINALLY, happy with my body.

So yes, I do think that being a fat kid affects your weight/weight-loss/general body image.  I did for me.  I don't know if there will ever be a time when I am not at least a little preoccupied with my weight...but then again, maybe that's true of everyone.

I have the long version of my story in my profile but the short version is this: I was a fat kid & fat teen who hated being fat but loved being lazy and eating too much to stop. Something finally clicked when I started university and I gave up junk food & started exercising. I've kept the weight off for almost 10 years because I NEVER wanted to get fat again. It was humiliating... and I wasn't even picked on (usually... though there were a few comments that I remember).

Today, diet & exercise are such a huge part of my life that I can't even remember what it was like to sit and watch tv with a bag of Doritos.

I don't believe I was overweight as a kid, but when I look at pictures of myself from when I was really young (6 - 8 years old) I was a little bit chubby.  As a teenager though, I was very active and not overweight.  I used to play a lot of sports as well as have very active after school jobs.  It wasn't until I left the military at 22 that I began to gain weight and yo-yo a bit.

I started getting chubby at age 6 ; i loved food. Everyday I would get a chocolate bar or chocolate chip cookies w/ milk. It was terrible, I was never made fun of or anything but I did not feel confident. So when I was 12 (13 now) I decided to lose weight, I was 5'0 and 145 lbs, I lost about 50 lbs, I am now 86-91 lbs. Soo ; guess im not chubby anymore. (:

xxx Ali

I have always been slightly on the heavy side, even as a child. Not obese, not the fattest kid in the class, just heavier than average. I was raised on a very healthy vegetarian diet, since my parents were very health conscious. I was active and played sports - not very well, but I still played! I stayed "on the heavy side" with very little weight fluctuation into adulthood, even when I was sedentary and eating poorly, even when I was exercising and eating well. I only started gaining a serious amount of weight in the last year or so (20 lbs) as a side effect of a medication I take.

It makes me think that my body might just have a higher "set point" than some others, if there is such a thing. I have made lifestyle changes so I have more time to work out, and I joined Calorie Count to make sure I am eating the right size portions. I am trying to lose those recent 20 lbs (and the 10 I picked up in college...mmm...beer) to get back down to a healthy BMI and get back in shape, but don't really expect to ever be "thin."

In terms of body image, I feel far better about my body now as an overweight adult than as an adolescent (when I pretty much hated everything about everything), even though I am proportionately fatter now. I just chalk that up to maturity, and leave it at that. ^_^

It started with me when I was 10 years old and my dad was diagnosed mentally ill. I think it was the focus from ME to my dad, that really made me gratify myself with food. I didn't realize what I was doing at the time.

Often times to "get away" from it all, my mom and I would go shopping, eat fast food, and get ice cream. It was just what we did. There were family sized bags of doritos in the cabinet that wern't off limits, we had gallon buckets of ice cream, magic shell, all the fixings. I grew up with my grandma country frying everything. Lots of things were deep fried. Heck we had one on the counter! My mom was obese, and I just joined her as a tag team by her side. I was just taught to be that way.

I was overweight in 5-6th grade, and just kept going from there. Hit 300lbs, and started feeling the effects of it as I am over 20 years old, and I saw my mom and her health, and just couldnt do it.

Heck yes it affects your mind as a grown adult. You never fully get rid of the "omg french fries are amazing! especially with chili and cheese on them!" mindset. I call myself fat. Am I physically fat? No but I have a FAT BRAIN! Darn that thing. But with self discipline, I have been maintaining my 175 pound weight loss for over a year.

Keep on truckin.

Oh yes. I was born 8lbs at 7 weeks premature. Imagine the agony if i had been full term... ;-)

Back in the day a big baby was a healthy baby, so nobody worried. I was classed as overweight when  i was 6. My mother didn't change our eating habits, then food became the main focus of my life as everything else was unreliable. When i was 13 my mother left me and my sister to look after ourselves, leaving masses of food behind and topping up the cupboards and fridge every Friday. Nurturing meant feeding, not actually being there.

I have and will probably always have a very difficult relationship with food. But i am working on it. I can now have junk food (or ANY food for that matter) in the house without breaking into a cold sweat and needing to eat it all till it's gone. I suppose having kids of my own made me realise that what i show them now will stay with them forever. So i had to work hard to make sure my kids would see food as sustenance, and not a replacement parent.

I was 212 lbs and a size 16 womens in 7th grade.  I reached my highest weight of 252lbs--busitng out of a size 20--when I was 16 years old.  I finally found out that i am insulin resistant and in the past year i have lost 28lbs and now weigh 224lbs.  Being overweight as a child definately makes it harder, but what can you do?  Someone shouldve helped me.  Theres no reason an 11 year old girl should be 212lbs.  Someone shouldve helped me, guided me, and taught me. 

The reason I think I got fat was because I grew up rough.  We never had money, my mom was an alcoholic, my dad had major anger issues, and everything was falling apart--literally.  Our house was in shambles.  I didnt have a bed, our plumbing barely worked, our house was covered in trash and cockroaches, and eventually when I was 10 years old my parents were arrested and charged with child neglect.  Food was the only thing that could make everyone happy at once.  Also, it was so easy for my parents to buy me a 2 liter of soda and a half gallon of ice cream to keep me from complaining--and it was so easy for me to use food to feel happiness.  Metabolism probably had something to do with it too because none of my siblings are obese.  Also, I am much more sensitive than my siblings.  I grew up too quickly and blamed myself for not being able to fix the grown up problems even though i was a kid.  I ate because it was instant happiness that no one could argue with.

But now I'm 20 years old and since I'm an adult it is solely my responsibility to fix it.  I am always telling myself that i can do this and that i will do this.  but to be perfectly honest,  i cant even fathom what it'd be like to even just slightly overweight, much less skinny.  Its hard to envision something you've never seen.  If I do succeed at this then I will have achieved my life dream that I never thought was possible  and then I'll be 10 times more badass than all those people who had it easy.    I always try to be optimistic.

I was never overweight as a child, but always felt like I was.  I was an early bloomer and had a very womanly body (lots of curves) by sixth grade.  I think because I felt like I was overweight, I acted like it.  And that included my attitudes toward exercise and diet.  And now today, I actually am overweight.