Do you have a junk food junkie living with you, or a close friend who you spend a lot of time with whose primary form of entertainment is eating junk? Fortunately for me, I do not have a junk food loving family member but I have talked with a lot of people who do! I’ve had friends tell me that their spouse brings home pounds of chocolate because it was “on sale” and buys chips by the bagful because they love them. I’ve seen people struggle to keep their hands off the cookie packages that were bought by their roommate or grown son or daughter who lives with them.
It can be very frustrating to be friends with, or live with someone who just can’t pass up the Twinkies, donuts, chips, candy bars, and Little Debbie snack cakes. And it can be even more frustrating if that person brings it into your house!
I was talking with someone the other day who asked my advice on dealing with such a problem. I had a few suggestions for her, but told her that I would ask my blogging friends their ideas. I feel sure that some of you have dealt with this along the way.
Here were my ideas:
- Ask them not to bring it home.
- If they do bring it home, ask them to hide it where you can’t see it, smell it, or feel it, or even sense that it is living in your house.
- Encourage them to bring home just what they will eat at one time so a bunch of junk isn’t sitting around the house tempting you ever minute of the day.
- This might have been wrong to say, but I also told her that she could just throw the junk away when the junk food junkie wasn’t looking!
I can see where this would be so frustrating and hard – especially if you struggle with a love for junk food as well. Seeing Oreo cookies laying around on my counter would be hard for me, as that is one junk food that I still like a lot. Okay – I love them a lot! Fortunately, John wouldn’t even dream of bringing them home so they are easy to avoid as I never buy them.
There is a whole other issue here that I just thought of as I was writing this post, and that’s the issue of sabotage by the friend or family member. I think I will save those thoughts for another day.
So what advice would you give my friend (or yours) in handling a junk food loving friend or family member? Diane
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I know a lot of people who are like this. Unfortunately, the tips you give is sometimes not working as people like these (enforcers) do not listen at all to the things you request.
I got very upset with people who brought junk food to me. I got rude with them because some just did not get the message. After that, they stopped.
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You are right – sometimes people just don’t get subtle hints and you end up having to be way more direct than you’d like.
As the main buyer of groceries in the house, I buy “junk food” that I don’t like and know that the junk food lover will or just don’t buy it at all. Usually my junk loving hubby is not motivated enough to go to the store to pick something up!
Liz@LastChanceTraining´s last fabulous musings ..Perspective and personal truths
That was my strategy when I was losing weight. I hate coconut and when I bought cookies for the kids, I always bought coconut cookies. I’d look at those things and think, “yuck.”
It depends on what type of relationship you’re in. I realized when I started this journey that I was going to totally focus on losing weight and getting healthier and nothing was going to get in my way.
Fortunately, I am just living with my kids at the moment so I don’t have the issue of junk being brought into my house.. but I know how weak I am when food is available at home. Right now, if someone was bringing crap into my house after I had sat down and discussed the issue with them, I would likely end the relationship.
I have followed many threads on this subject and I am just amazed at how many un-supportive spouses there are out there. How can people accept relationships like that?
Like anything in life, we make our own decisions and we need to do what we feel is best for us. Either accept it if you can’t change it, or change your own situation around it.
There are many unsupportive relationships when it comes to food and other life situations – I lost my best friend when I lost weight. I know several couples that have divorced after one lost weight. Very sad.
Doesn’t everyone
I have a friend who gave me See’s Candies two year’s ago. The unopened box is still in the closet
You have a strong inner constitution Dr. J!
Luckily I don’t let this go on in my home, but when we visit my in-laws it’s a different story. I just try to grin and bear it. I just read the comment above and that box would be gone in about a week. I make good healthy choices and I consider See’s (in small doses) to be one of them.
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Ha! I wouldn’t have been able to look at that box day after day either.
I have three teenage boys and they love all kinds of junky food! I buy the food, though, so I have control over it, and try not to let too much into the house. The only thing that is real problematic for me are chips. So we only have them once a week and I often buy three single serve bags just for the boys, for that one day. Or I buy one regular size bag that we portion out for everyone, and then it is gone!
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We buy chips in the individual serving bags and that helps my teens limit their intake. Now if they start to open two bags at lunch, I may have to rethink that strategy.
It will be tough here next week when my boys are home. Yes, it is my fault they love junk food:( I’d go back and do things differently if I could.
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It’s not your fault! My parents fed me little to no junk food and I loved it all by myself!
I find putting the junk food out of sight, in the pantry for example, is very helpful. My husband and I also made a choice to limit how much we buy anymore and I keep it put up out of sight so I’ll stay out of it.
I don’t expect people in my home to have to live 100% healthy just because I struggle with weight and food issues. Of course, I’m an “everything in moderation” gal, so I’ve made it a point to learn to enjoy treats in moderation along my journey and that is how I can handle having junk food around me in the house.
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That’s a good strategy. If I put the junk on the very top shelf of the pantry where all of us need to drag a chair in there to reach it, we all tend to forget it is there. Well, everyone except my teenage son – then I hide it in my room.
My neighbor is ALL ABOUT THE JUNK FOOD and it drives me crazy! She has a disease that keeps her body from digesting food properly so all food makes her sick, and super skinny, so she eats crap… ALL. THE. TIME. It is pretty annoying because I want to be healthy and eat healthy, but if she invites me over for lunch I KNOW it will be fatty and served with coke… Honestly, I’ve had to cut down on interaction with her because of food! We are both stay at home Mom’s so it’s been a little hard.
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That is so sad isn’t it? I had friends who pushed junk on me, and they got annoyed when I kept saying, No, NO, No. One friendship ended over the whole weight loss/healthy lifestyle issue.
This made me think — when I was growing up, out of everyone in the house, the one person who loved junk food and seemed able to eat at all hours and in all quantities was my older brother. It caused no small amount of friction in our house because no one could have a treat and save it for later, because it would vanish every single time, from the time he was a very small child. I’d make a small cake or some treats, and he would literally eat every single one in one sitting. He’s still big now, and the rest of the family was fairly slim and still is. Out of all of us, he could live on pizza and doritos, and the rest of us are all over fresh food and fresh veg. I think doritos taste like puke. We never once had coke or pepsi in the house, but he can down a 2-liter bottle of that stuff in two days.
It just struck me that this was a sort of “do you live with a junk food lover” story from a different angle. In retrospect, that caused a good amount of tension in the house when we were growing up. To this day, we all still know what treats he didn’t like and hence were safe for us to keep around because they wouldn’t disappear in five minutes once he discovered them — fig newtons, coffee-flavored ice cream.
He’s married now, and he, his wife, and her kids are all on the big side — it’s not good for their health, but she’s fantastic, and they are both happy, and I think that the absence of that tension is good for him, of not living in a house where the majority has such different eating habits from him. It’s surprising now, looking back and thinking of how intrusive that difference was in our family life. It came across to everyone else as quite selfish, but I suppose in some ways it was just an inability to stop eating.
It likely was an inability to stop eating. I’m glad that he is in such a supportive marriage. I wonder if some of the junk food loving tendencies we have are just inherently build into our psyche or if they come from the need to eat for comfort.
I don’t know — I think we all have our ways of finding comfort. I don’t know why he zeroed in on food as his way to get it. I do wish that his family were healthier eaters, but at least if they all decide they want to to slim down, they will all be approaching it from the same angle as opposed to just mystification as to WHY you can’t just not eat all the oreos.
We do have ways of finding our own comfort. I always thought food was a comfort to me, but looking back I can see that the comfort was fleeting and temporary. I wonder if he ever feels that way. I hope he and his family can make healthy changes in their eating habits.
I realized in reading this, that I don’t eat other people’s food. Probably because I grew up in large family (12 kids) and we learned early that if you wanted your boundaries respected, then you better respect other people’s boundaries, including food. We all shared well, but only if asked and only if we wanted to. Probably why we all still get along for the most part today.
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I didn’t know you were one of 12! My kids too respect each others boundaries, and food it included. We don’t pick from each others plates or share cups. Germs you know.
My husband doesn’t do that, because he’s doing this lifestyle change with me. But I do have a chocolate bar in my fridge for my own temptation. I’ve found that it hasn’t tempted me in over 6 weeks, so that’s good!
I do have friends that are like this though .. and I find that sometimes they will push me a lot about how I’m making changes. Like accuse me of being sort of antisocial or “not fun”. They’ll try to persuade me to have some cake because I need to “live a little”. It can be very upsetting.
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That is excellent that you’d had that chocolate bar sitting there for so long. It’s like a challenge to yourself that you are winning!
This is not a prob for me BUT me, I would just be honest with the person & ask that they respect what I am doing to lose weight. I think being up front is the best option. Sabotage comes in many forms unfortunately…
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It really does come in a variety of forms, and this is definitely one of them Jody.
My suggestion would be to tell the person to keep their stash somewhere private and eat it alone to not tempt me if it’s a nonperishable like candy or chips… if they like ice cream, it’s easy enough to buy a small container like a pint and do that when one feels like eating ice cream instead of keeping a non-single-serving container around.
However, the psychology is totally foreign so it’s hard for me to really give you a good suggestion as I do love some junk foods particularly salty chips but would be horrified to have someone else be present when I’m in junk food mode. Sure, I’ll eat a small cookie or a piece of chocolate in front of other people–but I’m not going to dive into an entire package of anything in front of others… Obviously this family member has no guilt/shame about eating this stuff.
I do limit it to 2 or 3 times a week (otherwise I would never have lost and kept off weight) but I keep my stash secret, eat it secretly and even dispose of the packaging secretly. I’ve also managed to downsize how much I eat of “junk” by disappearing after dinner and eating it when I’m already full so I can get that feeling of beyond stuffed, without eating too much junk.
Good suggestions as always. You are like me – I do not like to eat junk in front of other people and since I’m home with people all day, I eat little junk.
I would try to inspire them with how amazing you feel living a healthy and fit lifestyle. And in the meantime ask them to keep the junk food out of sight and out of mind.
Inspire with positivity! I love that suggestion.
There are some good ideas above, but at the end of the day it all comes down to discipline. People who succeed in any endeavor; business, athletics, music, and fitness have many things in common, but at the head of the list is the word, “commitment”.
You are right – it does come down to personal choice and making a firm commitment to ones health.
What I try to tell my husband is, what doesn’t bother you makes me stumble. If I see pretzels, poptarts, cookies anything on the counter I want it. If its closed, it doesn’t usually bother me. If it is left open, oh boy!
I can’t expect him not to eat what he likes he’s only 150 pounds at 6’3″. So, I suck it up and deal with it. I tell myself “its his NOT yours so stay out!” That usually helps, but sometimes it doesn’t.
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That would be tempting for me too. My hubby won’t open a box of crackers or cookies, but once it is opened, he has a hard time staying out of it. That’s another motivator for me not to buy it and make it harder for him to lose weight.
My husband brings home so much artery filling foods. I have successfully put extra candies up in the crock pot on the highest shelf in the pantry. Just too annoying to take it down because it requires at little step ladder.
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That would be very difficult for me because I still have a sweet/junk food tooth. I control it, but if John brought home Dove chocolates I would likely eat them all very quickly. I use the same “put it up high” technique.
When I am feeling strong and living right I can be around junk food and it will not bother me, even at home. But there are hours/days/weeks when I do not need the visual stimulation and I ask that it be gone, not hidden – gone from the home. No matter where it is hidden I can find it. I would rather not have it there when I am needing the extra TLC of not stuffing my face.
My family generally helps with this. When we are with others or when the family wants to indulge and I am not feeling strong, I try to be elsewhere or at least get on the phone with a member of my support team and talk it out. It has worked five years so far.
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Five years is such an accomplishment Jane. I love your strategy for just asking that the junk be taken away. You obviously have some great support.
It’s hard to deal with this at my house. It is very sad that I often get very stressed before I go home from college to visit my parents as I know there will be some junk food available.I have to be extra careful to stick to eating only at mealtimes, and stay OUT of the kitchen all other times (which is tough, since our kitchen is also a kind of hallway in our house! those darn, open layouts!) I have openly communicated my issue with my parents on this, and they know not to offer the sweet stuff to me. Thats half the battle! It’s up to my own self control for the rest.
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I am sorry that you feel stress about that, but you can try to think of it as a little bit positive. I wonder if before you started this journey you would have looked forward to having all that junk available, whereas now you know you want to avoid it. It sounds like you have a great strategy in place, and that your parents are at least sensitive to the issue.