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How My Upbringing (Past) Shaped My Perspective (Present)



Being a kid is awesome: you don't have to worry about anything major in life! Most of the times, the most concerning thing is being the next cool kid, getting good grades and... Trying to stay out of trouble to avoid getting grounded! Your life is pretty much taken care of by your parents or caregivers. This includes the nutrition part. And if you, like me, grew up with parents who were not nutritionists or attached to their culinary roots, your parents were probably feeding you whatever filled your stomach and not what gave you the necessary nutrients you needed to grow up healthy. 

And, I mean, I get it... As a parent (I'm not one, but I guess this is what I'd do if I were a parent too) you try to have food on your table and, if you grew up eating a certain type of food, that's what you know is right to eat. Well, that was my parents' case. I would come home to my favorite childhood food of all times: Mac and Cheese. Or, for breakfast, how about a good ol' bowl of cold cereal?! Any cereal was great... Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Cheerios, Rice Krispies... I loved them all! At the end of the day, the question my parents always asked was "Are you OK? Do you want some more? Come on, eat!! You haven't eaten enough! There are kids starving in Africa and you are throwing this away!" Well, I come from a Mexican/Italian family, where life revolves around food and saying "no, I'm full" is a big offense. So, there I was, eating to make people happy, not listening to my body's signal telling me it had had enough.

That was not the worst part, the worst part was when my teachers, doctors and family members would point out to my parents that I was overweight. This automatically created a feeling of frustration in my parents, that was translated into my parents telling me that I was overweight because I couldn't control my eating, because I did not eat veggies at all... Wait, what? I was eating what they were giving me and eating it all because they wanted me to eat it! Hmm.... Something just didn't make sense and it was making me very frustrated! But, from a kid's perspective, it was my fault. My fault that I did not have enough will power to control myself. 

I was limited, I had no access to any of the food I have access now, had little access to any sport I could do for over a month because I would be sick all the time, and now, I had no one to support me or tell me which right food to eat. So, what happened? Nothing... Instead, I kept eating because food was the only thing that would comfort me. It went on like this until I was 12. When I was in 6th grade, I made a decision that would finally put all this eating-non-sense to an end, and it was not the best decision I had ever made... 

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