persuading a grown man to eat healthier...

my fiance eats shitty, shitty food, like everyday, he just eats junk. he is italian and grew up liking mostly very fattening food, and he eats tons of stuff that's covered in cheese and pepperoni and sausage. he likes SOME veggies, but only carrots, peppers, and onions. he doesn't like fruit. well, he likes apples if they're cut up and peeled and dipped in caramel. he's picky.

here's the problem. he has always had a heart arythmia (sp?) and when he had a checkup about a year ago, his doctor said he had high cholesterol, and then he had a "cardiac event," about 2 months after that, which wasn't quite a heart attack...it was more like angina, lots of pain due to artery cloggage. this is not deadly NOW, but if he doesn't nip it in the bud now, it could become deadly in the long run.

it really worries me, because i love him and want him to be around for a long time. we are engaged and planning to spend our lives together, so his health is important to me. i know on some level he wants to be healthier, but he is so picky. he just keeps eating junk food...

i recently started working at the local health food co-op. i work a couple opening shifts a week...in the morning we go through the deli cooler, the produce, and the dairy and drink coolers. when there is stuff on the shelves that has a sell-by date for the day before, it's up for grabs for all of us employees to take home for free if we want to. it's still good to eat, we just take it off the shelves because customers don't usually want to buy something that's a day old. i've been bringing stuff home and trying to get him to try things. i had these crackers made of spelt (a grain very similar to wheat, but different) that had sesame seeds on them, very low in sodium, fat, and cholesterol...and he liked them. he liked this hummus dip stuff i got to bring home, too.

he likes some healthy stuff, but the problem is getting him to eat it habitually. he and i work very different work schedules right now, so we don't eat together very often. we end up cooking for ourselves. i was wondering if anyone knew any ways i could just introduce him to the idea that healthy stuff can taste good. he's very intelligent and is very aware that his diet is shitty, but i think it's such a habit to him that it's hard for him to change it.

 

People don't change unless they want to. Even a health problem won't make some people change their diet. He is an adult. You can offer good food, you can cook good food. But as a grown man, you can't make him eat it. He has to make that decision for himself. And some people never do.

Please don't blame his shitty diet on him being Italian. I am Italian (as well as Celtic) and I eat a good diet. So does my Italian daddy. It is my NON Italian mother who eats crap. There are plenty of healthy choices in traditional Italian Cuisine. Please don't blame us.

 

sorry you took the italian thing the wrong way...that's not what i meant...sorry if it came off non-p.c., though. my bad.

in my defense, him and his family joke about being italian all the time...his folks are like 3rd generation italian-americans, so they've also been more americanized than people who actually come straight from italy. and let's face it, americanized italian food is mostly fattening.

sorry i pissed you off so bad, and i wish you wouldn't have taken it that personally...i wasn't attacking anyone who is italian or "blaming" them for bad food...maybe i should have been more specific...his palate prefers the more fattening spectrum of italian cuisine. there. better? i was just saying that in his family, their recipes revolved around more fattening stuff, more americanized versions of italian cuisine.

i am part dutch and part irish. everyone is from some ethic background and unfortunately there are stereotypes about those...and i, for one, try to have a sense of humor about them and not take things too personally.

i mean, not all italians eat fattening food, not all irish people are alcoholics, not all scottish men wear kilts, not all black people smoke menthols, not all japanese people carry big cameras around, not all native americans own casinos...but these are stereotypes that people have, and unfortunately they aren't going to go away anytime soon, because people are too narrow to think anything else. of course these stereotypes aren't true, and most wise and well-rounded people know they are not true, including myself.

it's a rough world out there and i'd rather develop a bit of a tough skin and know when to get offended and when not to get offended, when to not take something too seriously or personally. i think if i took it personally every time someone said something about an ethnic stereotype about irish or dutch people, i'd be mental by now (especially given the stereotype of alcoholism and catholocism about irish people--i am neither an alcoholic or a catholic. but given my strong irish heritage people give me shit about it...but i've learned not to let it upset me because it's not worth getting upset over).

i don't want to start a forum war or anything. i'm just stating my opinion on that particular issue. it may sound like i'm typing mean things, but i'm not trying to be mean to you at all. i'm just debating a point, here. shit, my fiance calls himself a "dago" which is actually a derogatory word used to describe a southern italian person, but he likes the word and sees it as a positive thing...it all depends on your outlook on things...'nuff said.

i do appreciate your comment and your advice, however, maggie you're right on about how i can't MAKE him eat the healthy food. what i was hoping to get out of this post was perhaps someone would maybe offer some kind of advice or insight on how they would approach this particular situation. i'm not looking to hold my man down and shove food down his throat. i know it is ultimately up to him to try new stuff. i was just hoping maybe someone else had a little more insight, maybe someone who had a family member who had really bad eating habits...etc. i've been trying to compile some recipes that sound like something he would enjoy. one limitation is he can't eat any beans or legumes other than chickpeas or soybeans. he's allergic to all the rest. ohhhh, well...

*hugs*

 

Aint that the truth. My step-father-in-law (mouthful!) was told @ a year ago that he has diabetes, high-blood pressure, and high-cholesterol. Did her stop eating his southern-fried food? Hell no. Today, he is in the hospital ICU for 6 days now on dialysis because his kidneys shut down. He is only 50 yrs old. If he gets out of this, he will have to change his whole diet. But, no one can make him. Hopefully, he will finally realize that he will die if he doesn't quit eating the way he has been.

 

dario is really cool with the idea of trying new recipes (he loves to cook as much as i do) and i brought home some stuff from my job at the health food co-op (a job i just started) and he thought it was really tasty, and we've decided to start making really healthy food for each other. yay!!!!!!

 

I don't even like the way really fatty food tastes anymore. I think as far as his pallete goes, its going to have to be a gradual changing of his tastes, but you seem to be on the right track. You should bring home healthier food and make sure you do the shopping, so he won't be as tempted.

The best thing for him would be cardio exerciese, it might be easier for him if you went with him, and just have fun with it. Jogging and swimming are both very good choices.

 

i think your doing a good thing by bringing home healthier choices for him to eat. keep that up. but like Lodui said, cardio will be good for him and also for you. jogging, swimming, biking, roller blading...get him to have some fun when exercising and hopefully he will change his old habits.

Mmmmmmmmmm, exercise.

 

Ii really was not offended at all. Just that it isn't because he's Italian that he eats like shit. He chooses to eat that way. It has nothing to do with his heritage. Not offended. No problem.

 

Yeah, you can't really force him, too...just let him start eating healthier little by little. I did...then I started feeling more energetic, etc...and I was like hey this is groovy! lol...anyway...good luck!

 

I agree ~ you cannot beat a dead horse.​

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All you can do is make NEW FOODS!​

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Get some recipe books & experiment ,,,, if he likes it then he likes it ,,, oila ,,make it again often! ​

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If he doesn't like it then he doesn't like it ya know!​

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My fiance is a meat & potato man from the midwest.​

Canned veggies,, lots of meat,, boxed mashed potatos ,,YUCK!​

It's all he knows and anything out of his "norm" is not good.​

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My thing is NOT TRYING NEW FOOD!​

I HATE IT WHEN HE WON'T EVEN TRY SOMETHING.​

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So if your man is willing to at least try things then you are one up ahead of me ​

At least you can KNOW ,,you made something and he tried it ,,, thats all you can do ya know.​

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Try doing things differantly but similar,,,, I got my guy to eat more ground turkey INSTEAD of beef. OR Turkey Bacon,,sausages ya know.​

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It's NOT completly heathly but at least it is better then the ground fat beef.​

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Find similar things like that ,,, black beans are healthier then any other beans ,,,,, vegan mayo tasted EXACTLY the same.​

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Tofu mixed with ricotta cheese for lazagna is better then ALL ricotta cheese.​

Stuff like that.​

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he doesn't eat beans because he is allergic to them. if he eats beans, his throat will close up and he will die. i don't think that's going to cripple him eating healthier stuff, though. he can still eat soy and chickpeas, but any other beans or legumes are not an option for him. we've been both trying to be healthier lately. the exercise is already a given because we don't have a car so we both walk everywhere we go, and i work out regularly because i'm trying to get the last 30 lbs of unwanted weight off (i used to be extremely overweight and have been getting rid of it for the last 3 years and only have 30 more lbs to go! yay me!). so we exercise and we go for walks together a lot. i think it's going to be fine. just have to modify some of the new recipes i found to fit his pickiness (he likes some veggies but not others).

 

"Healthy Food" means different things to different people.Some people for instance think that margarine and soy milk are healthy.There is also such a thing as biological individuality.I am for instance highly allergic to bananas but I am not going proselytise to other people that they should not eat bananas.See also what I wrote under the quitting smoking thread in this forum.