AIBU to think (some) overweight people feel the need to comment on portion sizes

Great idea for a thread. Let's bash fat people and older people.

<slow hand clap>

Your problem is your mother.

There is also a culture of celebrating massive plates of food, especially in pubs doing pub grub / Sunday lunches etc. plates come out with huge portions of potatoes, chips, Yorkshire, everyone goes ‘whooooar look at that’ and then makes comments about sinking in pools, bursting out of clothes, this would feed the 50000’ etc , including self deprecating v British comments about their own weight… and then demolish the lot. Or not, depending.

But the culture is celebrating quantity not quality.

My mum is like this too and constantly says 'ooh I couldn't eat all that' the half an hour later snacks on chocolate or pastries.

She told me I was 'well built' when I was 8 and was constantly dieting but making it performative, so everyone knew she was dieting. I ended up with massively disordered eating as a result.

I understand what you mean, op. It's the performative aspect of it that's annoying.

It's like - if you don't want to eat everything, just don't eat everything, but you don't need to make a big thing of it'

But I don't think it's just people who are overweight who do it, it's people with a complicated relationship with food that do it.

I wonder why an overweight person who society generally views as a greedy so-and-so, and who probably feels the judgment of people around them every time they eat in public (even if it’s imagined) might feel the need to do this…

Hmmm, that’s a real head scratcher, op 🤔

It's not a generational thing or a fat people thing. It's an eating disorder thing. (I have had an eating disorder myself many years ago). When you have an eating disorder you're preoccupied with constant food calculations and considerations (is xyz OK? Can I eat abc?).

Side note - this is why I'm personally against lots of complicated rules-based diets, you know the ones I mean "take one protein from healthy list A" etc. It can make some people obsess

Does she speak like this about food and portion size in front of your children?

I have a BMI of 20 and I comment on my food a lot. I also comment on other such mundane topics as the weather, what I'm watching on netflix, my commute, weekend plans, how nice it is to see daffodils, what sort of mood my dog's in, the baftas and football.

I mean, honestly. It's just passing comment. In a time when childhood malnutrition and starvation are rocketing, I count myself lucky that food is so plentifully available to me that I can regard it as a mundanity and leave lefttovers at the end of a meal.

People with food issues do this, whether they’re fat or thin.

I think some overweight people do actually eat quite small portions and can feel overwhelmed by seeing a big plate of food. They eat too much not in meals but through snacking. My MIL is like this. You can give her a standard plate of food and she's genuinely overwhelmed by how much food it is. She always wants to share her food with me and she can't manage to eat much in one sitting. However, she'll later eat snacks throughout the day
She's overweight. Actually my. Mum's the same! Gets full really quickly and eats small meals and then grazes throughout the day. Also overweight.

People who don’t have a healthy relationship with food don’t have a healthy relationship with food.

It’s not a surprise that something which is bound up with so many feelings, expectations and rules causes people who have difficulties with food and weight to behave oddly around meals. I am overweight due to a combination of medical factors and using food as a reward and a way to help manage my exhaustion, and the amount of judgment in society around food and weight, while advertisers and retailers shove food at us all day every day, makes it hard to navigate the right path.

Food has been given moral value in our society and it’s so, so wrong.

I had lunch with my mum yesterday and yes, she said all of these things.
She's also repeatedly reminded me she was very skinny as a teenager and as a bride. Even yesterday!
She was obese from my teens to now my 50s and unfit.
I've put on a hell of a lot of weight in the last few years but was slender and running fit for most of my life.
Once I started thinking about narcissistism, I realised even the portion size is about her.
It's fine to detach and just observe.

Oh, god, I think I do this 🙈

Sounds like your mum is trying to lose weight and was finding eating out all the time difficult. Does she do slimming world? The only eating one slice of bread thing makes me think of that.

My mother makes these comments almost verbatim.

Ironically, she frequently mentions how her mother used to say things like that while scarfing down the food regardless, and now she does the exact same.

I’ve heard slim people talk about portion sizes , saying oh my ! I can’t eat all that !! (To a small salad) or “sometimes I forget to eat!” This does my head in. I’m not fat, I’m somewhere in the middle and I always eat. I have forgotten my phone, car keys and once my oldest child’s name (after birth of my youngest!) but I always remember to eat 🙄

My mum does this too but she’s very slim so don’t think it’s an overweight thing.

It's not overweight people. It's some people. I know people who do this and they're all different sizes.

I wonder if they were brought up to never leave anything on their plate.

So whilst they understand it's too much food for them they feel the need to finish it, especially if it's enjoyable food that's easy to overeat - which many foods eaten out are.

That's entangled with our view of more food = better value for money

I'm not sure it's their being overweight - it may be more to normalised food behaviours for them which were set when growing up.

I think it is partly a generational thing but also I'm very fat and also feel self conscious about eating in front of people. I don't comment on portion sizes but I easily could if I let myself. That's because I know from what they say that lots of people assume I eat really unhealthily. I don't but they take my appearance as proof so it's a constant practice to block the actual and perceived judgement out.

Great idea - start a thread ridiculing the habits and insecurities that that those who are overweight may have. Lovely idea for a thread OP, great compassion skills you’ve got.

YABU

If I have something nice, will it trigger me to go and eat icecream all afternoon? If I deny myself something nice will it trigger me to go and eat icecream all afternoon…

It sucks.