My brother has always been thin, and I've been overweight since I was a teen. My parents were pretty hands-off with food choices. I was basically allowed to eat what I wanted out of the pantry. When my dad was working at night, me and my brother would get to choose what to cook for dinner. My dad is bad at cooking, so we ate a lot of packaged foods, canned vegetables, noodles, and frozen foods. We rarely made things from scratch. It wasn't the best diet, but we did eat a variety of foods and we ate vegetables with our meals. I'm not a picky eater, and I think part of that could be that I was exposed to different flavors and textures as a child. In my family we would often divide food equally, so I would get the same amount as my twin brother. Thinking back, I should have been eating a little less than him. At the time it would have felt unfair.

My parents never made a big deal about my weight. I was a little overweight for my adult height (I was 150-155lbs as a teen), but it wasn't extreme. I don't think they would have been able to help me lose weight, so I'm glad that they didn't mention my body or weight at all. I didn't try to diet in my teens. I think it's good that I tackled this as an adult with some maturity and experience.