What to Know
Old clips of the Duggar family hit differently now. Hindsight is 20/20 when it comes to the 19 Kids and Counting family. Because in a clip posted on Instagram, patriarch Jim Bob Duggar openly discussed punishing his sons with fasting over impure or appropriate thoughts about girls. Jim Bob claims it was all “voluntary” for his preteen and teenage sons, but that word may be used fast and loose with the Duggars and their rules for the kids.
The video is from a yearly conference for other families who are part of International Basic Life Principles from 2015. It was after Josh Duggar was accused of molesting four of his sisters and an unnamed family friend when he was a teenager. So in that regard, it’s safe to say Jim Bob knew plenty about boys and their inner thoughts. But he was still asked to speak to hundreds of people at the IBLP conference and now, people are talking about that clip big time.
He said he used fasting to punish his sons.
Jim Bob explains how fasting helped his teenage sons overcome temptation and focus their attention on something other than girls when they were teenagers. Yep, with a focus on food and being hungry all day, the Duggar boys apparently had little time to think any inappropriate thoughts.
“Something we’ve started doing, with me and my sons, is we have been trying to fast on somewhere, like, Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown, somewhere through there,” Jim Bob explains in the video. He goes on to say, “One of the boys the other day told me, [he] said, ‘Dad, that has really helped me in learning self-control.’ And what happens is, when you get to, you know, 13, 14, 15 to 18, you start getting this focus on girls. And it’s just like, it starts consuming you. But when you fast, it takes that focus off the girls and puts it on food.”
So the boys are so hungry, they are thinking about food instead of their next unwelcome and impure thought? That seems to be the logic behind this idea of withholding food or, excuse me, fasting, for the Duggar boys during their teenage years.
“Did he decide to use ‘fasting’ because they had tremendous food insecurity and this way if half their kids weren’t eating a few days a week, problem solved?” Someone suggested in the comments on Instagram/
Another user wrote, “Narcissists often use food as a form of punishment. This guy’s dark.”
Someone else sarcastically commented, “yep all thoughts re: sex/attraction go out the window and they only focus on food…who is he kidding??”
“You start denying yourself of something you want, and you learn self-control,” Jim Bob also says in the video. He adds that his sons would tell him that if they began to “have struggles” during weekdays, they would go to him to tell him they need to fast. So if a Duggar boy is hangry, you know it’s because he started thinking about girls, apparently.
The Duggars have had questionable food choices over the years.
@popculture_addict Replying to @Alex Whitton675 Jim Bob is ALWAYS awkward af #19kidsandcounting #jimbobduggar #theduggars #duggars #tlc ♬ original sound – Pop Culture Addict
Maybe the Duggar boys just welcomed a way to say no to another heaping spoonful of tater tot casserole or bowl of taco soup. According to a Reddit thread about old Duggar recipes that the family once promoted on TV, the taco soup recipe calls for ranch dressing packets as part of its base. The tater tot casserole is a pale blend of frozen tots and cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soups. Yum.
Also, the broccoli cheese soup involves lots of Velveeta and frozen broccoli. Maybe the teenage Duggar boys chose tater tot casserole night to suddenly need to fast, because some of the Duggar recipes made famous for the family on TV aren’t exactly breaking the mold.
There was speculation about other Duggar issues with food.
Outside of Jim Bob’s own admission about using fasting to redirect his sons’ attention from girls and inappropriate ideas, in Jinger Duggar’s memoir Becoming Free Indeed, she wrote about battling an eating disorder as a teenager. Michelle Duggar also opened up about struggling with an eating disorder. So for Jim Bob to place an emphasis on food when seemingly punishing some of the boys, it checks out.
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