TLDR: My parents and kid siblings are overweight/obese. While I recognize that my parents are old enough to understand the seriousness of their decisions, I’m very concerned with the state of my siblings. However, I’m constantly dismissed or told I’m either being too mean or am projecting my own insecurities onto them.
Hello! I'm not sure if this belongs here, but I don't know where else to post this.
I (f21) have lost 73 pounds in the span of a little over a year and am only a few pounds away from my goal. Though I'm technically right on the cusp of overweight (one point less on the BMI and I'm not), I'm not obese anymore and both look and feel so much better than I have in about ten years. It was an uphill battle against PCOS, binge-eating disorder, and the general breaking of bad habits, and I struggle with serious body dysmorphia, but I'm very proud of my progress.
However, throughout this process, I realized how unhealthy and overweight my entire family is, and that they're continuing to get worse. It's very concerning, but they refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem, and have continued to diminish me and my progress as being "anorexic," "you're starving yourself" (I do OMAD), or "you were fine/beautiful before, you didn't need to lose weight" (I was 230 pounds at 5'6" at my highest). My parents, who are overweight, are old enough to understand the gravity of their decisions, but my main concern lies with my siblings: my little brother (17) and little sister (9). Their habits are *terrible,* they're both obese (brother pushing 300, sister was over 120 last I knew, and has undoubtedly gained since) and my parents continue to enable them.
To give an insight into how bad these habits are...
Every time my brother gets out of work, he goes to the convenience store and spends it all on huge bags of chips, candy, full-size sodas/slushies/milkshakes, cookies, etc., and not only can he polish this all off in a day, he'll do it again the next day as soon as his shift is over. He brings this junk home for my little sister as well, despite me trying to tell him not to. They both eat three full-size meals a day, with dessert at both lunch and dinner, and are constantly snacking and drinking soda, milk, or juice. My brother does the bare minimum of physical activity, otherwise lying around all day doing nothing, and while my little sister is still young and goes outside to play sometimes, she usually sits around watching TV and doing nothing else. Neither of them can move around for too long without getting red-faced and out of breath. My brother has about 16 cavities he's still getting fixed, and his general health isn't great; and my sister keeps outgrowing all her clothes, to the point where she's already in women's sizes.
I have done what I can. When I come home to visit on the weekends (I live away at college), I take them (mostly my sister) with me and my dog on walks and up to the park, on bike rides, and general physical activities. I encourage my little sister to drink water when she's thirsty instead of the juice/soda she's always asking for, and when she asks me for snacks, I gently tell her no. (My brother is at that age where I have tried to advise him, but he doesn't care.) And I have had many delicate conversations with my parents that devolve into fights because they accuse me of bullying/being mean, say things like "just because you have an eating disorder/hate yourself doesn't mean they have to deal with that too" and "you aren't their parent, you don't need to worry about it," and just generally shoot me down.
I feel utterly helpless and seeing them like this is heartbreaking: *especially* my little sister. These are habits that are going to be tremendously hard to break as she gets older. She's already been picked on for her size and has occasionally expressed insecurity in her body at the age of *nine.* She doesn't know better. She's being set up for failure by my folks. Maybe it's because I remember being that enabled and obese teenage girl, and remember how miserable I was; clothes didn't fit the way I wanted, I didn't look like most other girls my age, and attention from boys was minimal, if not nonexistent. Life *sucked.* And I don't want to see that happen to my sweet, sunshine little sister. I hate being this much at a loss. I understand I'm not their parent, but being the oldest of four kids (and often being left in charge of them when my parents were working) has made me very protective of them.
I don't know if I'm looking for advice or just really needed to vent. If you made it through this ridiculously long and personal vent, thanks for sticking around.
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/u/tired-dog-momma
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