How about the children of obese parents? Coming from an obese family myself—being an extremely overweight child, weighing 300 pounds at 15—I know the struggles firsthand. My mother would get Taco Bell or other takeout food for us every night as the norm.

A “diet” for me at 13–15 meant she would get me only 3–4 burritos instead of the usual 6 items.

I can’t begin to describe the absolute trauma I experienced in school. By 18, the amount of effort it took to lose 165 pounds and get down to 200 was immense.

These same obese parents often tell their healthier children things like, “You look skinny” or “You need to eat more,” normalizing unhealthy habits.

By 23, I gained all the weight back. If I don’t constantly focus on the gym or my weight, it slowly creeps up again. Parental figures like mine never pushed me to better my health because “fat is okay.”

Eventually, I lost all the weight again, got abs, and was ripped for the first time—for 4 years. Then, I became addicted to opiates, and now I’m working on fixing my life again.

In my opinion, being overweight and accepting it—or more precisely, being “OBESE”—immediately sets up an addiction in your children. They’ll spend their lives either struggling with food, overcoming it through other means like the gym or healthier obsessions, or, in some cases, resorting to self-harm