DSS GF told DD she needs to "lose some weight"

Very well said.

I agree.

The girlfriend shouldn't have said it but girls do say such things to other girls. I had i said to me quite a lot when I was a teenager and, frankly, it was true, I did need to slim down and by my late teens I had, felt better for it too.

It's not unusual for fourteen year olds to be a bit chubby but they generally become aware of and take it in hand.

Your daughter, while I sympathise with her, has to learn to take a few knocks and I doubt this one was meant unkindly. She is not a little kid and will have worse in life.

I think she was rude. If she’s planning on staying in the UK surely it’s up to her to learn our culture.

Cancelling them seems an overreaction. If wasn't pleasant but fairly tame when you take the cultural aspect into consideration. I would tell the GF not to discuss weight with DD,
i think you could also be storing up a wealth of issues (not connected to weight) with DD if you allow her to get her own way over Christmas. Family relations will definitely take a hit. SS did nothing wrong.

The girlfriend needs to learn that the weight of a 14 years old and her circumstances is none of her business.
The fact that she is culturally under pressure to stay slim, if so, is on her, not a card to make 14 years old girls feels bad.
Blunt, cultural or just rude she could have saved everyone a drama saying nothing.

It would be weird for you to go directly to the girlfriend. Yes, ask your DSS to speak to her though…

This is really tricky. What happens if he marries her, your DD might want to avoid her forever. I can’t say I’d be feeling all positive at spending Christmas with someone who told me I needed to weight!

Would a joint approach work? You and DH sit down and say you’re really sorry it happened and you’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again?

Ultimately if she doesn’t want to be around her at Christmas, I kind of think you might need to support that.

Not true. Russia has an obesity rate similar to our own. It’s a total myth that telling people they are fat is helpful. All it does is make people feel like shit.

Make DD have a family Christmas and get over it, would be my instinct. You cannot encourage her to fall out with in-laws and extended family over silly misunderstandings.

BTW son's girlfriend won't be bothered if you uninvite her most likely. Dec 25th isn't a special day to Russians- their big bash is at New Year and their Christmas is in January.

Difficult - it is a fact that some nationalities are blunt, our 'be kind' society isn't always a great thing. Poor DD at an age where reason doesn't really help.

I would definitely try to stop DD going alone to DF for Xmas. And try to get an apology or nice comments from DGF who should also be aware of national differences.

You can’t uninvited your step
sons girlfriend for the sake of your dd being dramatic. Your dd shouldn’t have been told that, but it probably was cultural and it doesn’t need to turn into a big deal. I’d carry on with plans as they are and if you really must, pull the GF aside on the day and ask her to be more sensitive.

This must have been upsetting but it sounds as though this was a mild comment not meant spitefully. The reality is that if DD is overweight people will notice - and there will be comments that are actually spiteful, unlike this one. (This is particularly so given her age - teens can be really brutal.) Plus of course the longer weight problems continue the more intractable they will be. (If weight problems all magically resolved at 15, the UK would not have the current obesity problem it does- a problem which causes health difficulties and misery for many people.)

I really don’t think it is doing DD a kindness, at this stage in life, to pretend that people don’t notice, and that her weight is fine - and it sounds like your approach hitherto is just not working. Maybe this should be a bit of a wake up call? To think about different approaches?

Excluding DSS and his girlfriend (because let’s face it excluding her does mean excluding him) will cause significant family division which may be permanent. I don’t think you should be encouraging your DD to respond to this comment in this way. It’s encouraging her to shoot the messenger, which is not a helpful approach in life.

I don’t think it’s a useful lesson to teach your child that if someone says something unintentionally offensive but well meaning that they can then withdraw from them completely, and change family Christmas plans! It’s not like she was cruel, she was just frank with her and it probably came from a good place.

Your DD will encounter lots of people who accidentally put their foot in their mouth and hurt her feelings, you need to teach her how to deal with that and carry on in the world. Not let her hurt feelings dictate a rift in the family!! I’m so surprised anyone would think that’s reasonable.

Also, it seems to have only hurt her feelings because it’s true - it would be unhelpful for you to allow DD to flee from uncomfortable feelings. You should instead just talk it through with her, ask her why it upset her, work on coping mechanisms etc.

I think it would be pretty dramatic to change all your Christmas plans over this. Yes the gf has overstepped and your DH should convey this to his son. But also your dd needs support to understand that people won't always say the right thing, that even though it touches a nerve, we have to learn how to get past these things. We all need to develop resilience if we don't want to spend life hiding from the world. Also if she's unhappy about her weight, does she want some support with that?

I used to live in Russia as a kid and worked with many Russians in an international airline.

They do tend to be very rude blunt when it comes to weight and have a different set of standards on what is a healthy weight. They like to think they have very superior health standards while many of them smoke. Before anyone blasts me I am part Russian myself.

For context, when I was working for the airline I was 5”7 and 52kg. Considered underweight in UK but I would still get snide comments off colleagues I’d never met before that my belly was fat. One lectured me for eating a white bread roll!

I found being blunt back to them works best. One once told me I’d gained weight. I breezily said oh so have you!

Poor DD. It really is awful. I remember someone called me fat at that age and it really stuck with me. I’d be having a stern word with DSS and the gf.

Can’t believe all the comments saying you are over reacting. Absolutely stick up for your daughter here OP! If you don’t, she will know her mum and step dad didn’t stick up for her!. How dare an adult comment on a child’s weight! From a medical professional pov these type of comments stick with teen girls and cause eating disorders!. My uncle used to comment on my weight as a child and I remember my mum never stuck up for me but I remember my aunt did!. Uninvited her from Christmas OP l, it is a hill I’d die on im afraid of your husband wants to spend it with them let him go to them. It’s disappointing he’s not sticking up for his step daughter here.

Dont they have 14 year old girls in France, Spain, Russia, East Asia then?

(any other country where they dont pussy foot around obesity)

All the people on here saying ‘well maybe it would be better if we were more upfront about weight so we have fewer fat people’ have obviously completely forgotten what it is to be a 14 year old girl.

At that age I went from being an average/slim child to a chubby teenager. I had greasy hair I couldn’t style and I was short compared to my friends and I hated everything about how I look. My Grandma (who I now suspect looking back was autistic) was always telling me how overweight I looked and it was excruciating. But by the time I was 15/16, I’d grown nearly a foot and the weight just sorted itself out completely. Add some new shampoo and some ghd straighteners and I was a different person. I’ve destroyed every photo of me at that age!

You cannot know that a person’s weight at 14 will bear any reflection on their long term shape as everything is in flux, and that comment (cultural or not) was cruel and dangerous.

I agree with the posters who say you must talk to the GF. Either she will understand, apologise and promise to behave more sensitively, or she will double down on her point of view and you’ll know she can’t be trusted around your daughter.

You say your daughter is a bit overweight but you don't draw attention to it. Perhaps your daughter feels she is overweight compared to her friends but also doesn't mention it and has now been confronted by someone else actually mentioning it! She obviously took the comment hard and it upset her.
I don't think the GF meant any harm by saying what she did, some cultures are just more honest with each other. She just said it would be healthier .....which it would be.

Now is the opportunity perhaps to address it by saying that we all need to eat healthier.

Yes this. Unbelievable that someone would see this as a massive slight to the degree that christmas plans are going to change from it

OP do you think your daughter doesnt hear this in any other form at school? Which wont be said as factually as this woman said it?

But she didn't say anything negative related to looks, she simply said slimming a bit might be healthier, which she probably already knows anyway.

Cultural my arse. Maybe the girlfriend needs a heads up on manners and not being a cunt.

You dont need to contact her, and yes ot was not nice but your daughter needs to move on which she cant do if you are both being dramatic about it, that is life people say unkind things you cant protect her from everything

How will ahe learn to cope woth normal life if ahe cant handle this

Regardless of whether she meant anything by it, thats exactly the kind of comment and scenario you hear women in their 50s recalling as a significant trigger point for a life of awful body image issues.
I've seen it all the time on threads on here, teenagers have a rough time of it emotionally and physically and on threads you will see things like 'a boy called me porky to his mates when I was 15 and its stuck in my head since' 'my aunt told me id be such a pretty girl if I didnt have such a chubby face and ive struggled to have photos taken on me since'. Its such a tricky time.
'Its cultural' doesn't mean its not hurtful, and you can definitely use this as an opportunity to talk to your daughter about how different cultures behave and how regardless of that, people are wrong to talk to her like this and she must pay them zero attention. But also, that you understand why its hurtful. Maybe share anything relevant from your own past, as its helpful for her to not feel isolated in these feelings.
You need to show your daughter that its not acceptable for people to make unsolicited negative comments about her body, so id be tempted to uninvite girlfriend on the basis that your daughter needs to feel like you are on her side. It might feel silly to others but a firm show of 'this is unacceptable' is what your daughter is saying she needs. But its a tricky one.
Teenage girls and body image are a topic that need to be dealt with differently to any standard application of 'teaching resilience' but im not sure there's a one size fits all solution.

I guess my main question would be, does your daughter want an apology or is that just going to add to her embarrassment?

Working with people from across the world it is definitely a cultural thing. Some other cultures do not sugarcoat things.

In the nicest possible way DD is not too far away from the big wide world who will expose her to things she doesn’t like to hear and in some ways it’s learning curve for her.

I agree speak with DGF to see if she could rephrase her comment and chat with DD again about how she wished the comment to land.

Sometimes the hard truths have the biggest impact; and I say this as a mother who is overweight and has 2 children who have also struggled with their weight.

The world won’t protect your children from reality and maybe your DD does need to face up to her weight, she isn’t a baby anymore, maybe it does need dealing with.

It IS cultural - in a lot of countries, people are open about this out of genuine concern and love.

What they're saying isn't untrue.

And the way we tiptoe around this issue in the UK and pretence not to notice when people are overweight or obese is not healthy.

Its why we have an obesity crisis!

Maybe if we were honest too then we wouldn't have so many people stuck with bad habits that are so difficult to break, which were often formed from childhood, and which make them miserable and cause serious health issues later in life.