To tell ex and his wife to fuck off with their orthorexic bullshit around the DC

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DC are not overweight. Not by sight, not by NHS BMI test, not by year R or year 6 weight checks. They fit in their age clothes, they all take after school sports classes. They are FINE.

I am super stick skinny. Exs wife is also super skinny. One DD is also super skinny and the other one (who's weight is fine!) is normal, not skinny but not fat. Lovely curvy bum and hips (puberty started last year).

Ex and wife are uber healthy, clean eating, crossfitting, yoga going, nutribullet drinking, vegetarian gluten free obsessives.

We maintain a healthy relationship of surface conversation, how are you's, clap for DC and leave type behaviour.

Two weeks ago exs wife/step mum starts talking to me about how "brave" DD is for wearing leggings and a crop top, not many teenagers would unless they were super skinny, isn't peer pressure so hard on them. Then says she worries at how easily DD puts on weight and what a struggle it will be for her when she's older if she doesn't moderate her eating patterns. Especially as I'm (me) "so thin" .

Other incidents include: all food at their house is now gluten free (no celiac dx, but just because its healthier?!)

Replacing meals with smoothies (nutribullet stuff instead of breakfast/lunch)

Telling DD she needs to eat a specific amount of protein/fats before an exam and EXACTLY to the minute how long beforehand.

An obsession with how thin the girls 'should' be. Normal weight not ok, thin/skinny is the goal. DS seems to have escaped, just the girls will be happier if they are thin. This refers back to the conversation concerning how difficult it is for teenage girls who aren't the 'ideal'. DD is not a naturally skinny person, she has an arse and hips but is well within the healthy weight range.

The comment that has brought it to a head is DD coming home v upset from weekend contact over a joke made by her dad at the table about how much DD eats and that everyone should guard their plates . I tore a strip off him and he says it was just a joke and DD knows it was.

Their life revolves around exercise and food and I don't think it's healthy for them to put their issues onto children. The oldest of who is 9!

Ex says he is just trying to set them up for the healthiest life he can. I think they have huge control issues around food and exercise and need to back the fuck off.

AIBU?

Cereal is grass seed
Have that talk about people projecting their own issues, do everything you can to increase self esteem and independence. do it with all the children. They will see through them before long. A useful life skill!

Grains are from the plant family graminaceae
Legumes (peas, beans etc)leguminaceae
AFAIK each compensates for the amino acid deficits of the other

Leguminosae

My stepmother is like this. She hasn't yet cut out gluten but she might as well as her food is horrible now. She used to be a good cook although was always nuts about food and would announce when we were children that we weren't having lunch today as we were having a big dinner.... This was from the age of 7 or 8.

She absolutely thinks her food choices are her own and they don't affect anyone else. In fact her need to control food (and mad exercising) has a big impact on the rest of us.

I'm not sure you can do that much about the food and as they are not there all the time, physically they'll be ok. From experience controlling people can't adjust their behaviour around food v much. I would put an outright ban on the talk though.

Tell your DC and ex that the next 'jokey' comment about weight or meal that doesn't include carbs, protein and full fat calcium (which children need for healthy growth) will result in unsupervised contact being stopped until your DC are old enough to cook their own meals.

I'm not sure you can stop contact just like that. Your ex could take you to court and they would take a dim view of you preventing him from seeing them. Even though he sounds awful.

Your DD, however, would be considered by the court to be old enough to make her own decision about whether to continue contact and you could remind her of this.

When you eat something you chew it in your mouth and mix it with saliva which starts the digesting process, then you swallow it.

If you liquidize/juice veg, then swallow it straight to stomach it makes me think 'poor stomach' being bombarded by undiluted cold veg.

YANBU in telling them to fuck off with projecting their issues onto your emotionally developing DD. The best thing you can do is bombard her with positive role models and promote self confidence and self esteem.

You brush your teeth with H2O2??

Yep me too, my dentist recommended it, is there a problem?

The food stuff aside- speaking as the not naturally thin sister of a very naturally thin mother and sister- it's hard enough. My mum and sister are 5ft 6 with size 4 feet and 32A boobs. I'm 5ft 10 with 36HH boobs and size 8 feet. It's not easy being the one who sticks out and my family have never made a big deal of it, so I'm worried they're setting your "not thin" daughter up for a life time of problems.

YANBU. no way. They really must fuck right off with this damaging nonsense.

I would be livid about this. Your ex and his W sound totally bonkers and very unhealthy.

Keep reinforcing to your Dd, how weird and unhealthy her dad and step-mother are in their eating obsessions, and how wrong it is of them to inflict this utter bullshit on others. encourage her to take the piss out of these ridiculous notions.

In fact start an active campaign to encourage all of your DCs to see this 'lifestyle' as ridiculous and unhealthy. Undermine like crazy. All the dcs need to see that this is utter bollocks. Otherwise, your skinny dcs will start to think of their normal sister as fat. It will damage all of them, not just the dd it's aimed at.

Very fucking stern words needed to your ex, again and again, until he understands you and the dcs will not be standing for it.

Crazy fuckwits.

DD needs to love herself and she needs her Dad & stepmum to love her too -as she is

DD needs her Dad & stepmum to teach her how to love her body, but stepmum is teaching her how to hate her body

DD needs her stepmum & Dad to teach her how to enjoy a healthy balanced diet, but instead they are teaching how to constantly obsess over food, weight & weightloss

Agree with everyone else that the comments are potentially extremely damaging.

I suspect that their incredibly restrictive diet isn't as healthy as they like to believe either. From what you've said they don't sound like they are educated or informed where nutrition is concerned.

Your ex and his missus are nutters

I like to eat clean and go to the gym
but kids need to enjoy being who they are

tell them to back off completely at least until the kids' bones have stopped growing

My mother is obsessed with weight. When I was a little girl, she'd pass comment on my 'puppy fat', would keep on sticking me on the scales, talking about how she was always naturally very slim, but I was unlucky as I took after my nan (who was morbidly obese and wheelchair bound at the time).

I look back at photos of myself as a child, and it makes me so angry as I was a skinny little thing. When I got older, I did put on a bit of weight after having to give up martial arts (due to injury, and I also didn't know at the time that I have an underactive thyroid and PCOS), and this was snidely commented on by my mother, with frequent references to my 'sweet tooth'.

It coincided with the breakup of my first serious relationship, my (admittedly already not great) self-esteem was shattered and I developed an eating disorder for two years. My sternum, ribs and hips became prominent, and my mother congratulated me on how well I was doing, although pointing out that I still had 'child bearing' hips and a tendancy to carry weight on my thighs.

Tell your ex and his missus to fuck right off. Kids don't need that poison in their life.

Your ex and his wife's lives revolve around eating 'clean' and exercise?' What joyless, pointless lives they must have.

Definitely nbu
I would be furious over this. You sound very sensible and they have no right to foist their (loony) views on your children
I agree re keeping a log and restrict contact if this continues. Well done for standing up to your ex. It really annoys me how this is always aimed at girls when they have enough bombardment of images of very thin women in the media.

Ditto everything midsummabreak posted just back there.

I was brought up in an environment where my mother went from one diet to another ant the house was full of weight loss magazines. I was the sort of kid who read anything and left lying about and while I was still in primary school I remember reading stories about various women and how slim they were. I knew the calorific value of food too but didnt really wonder about whether I was eating too much or too little; I was a skinny kid into every sport imaginable.

Long story short, the minute I did put on weight (translate as 'hit puberty') I had all the tools at my disposal to loose it but understood little regards healthy weights. This continued for some 25yrs.

Due to the medication I am on ironically I'm too thin now. At one stage I fainted on a regular basis.

In my previous line of work I met many people who had become obsessed with health, fitness and diet - many of them seem to be very keen to the next new thing, as opposed to tried and tested methods.

Given the focus I experienced on weight loss from my mother - I can remember many, many comments made to me about my weight over the years, all of which feulled the disordered eating and poor body image.

For your daughters sake sort it our with weirdy ex and his wife; before she carries his comments with her, however joking and thinks on them before she makes food choices.

Best of luck

I wouldn't worry too much about the weird diet or exercise obsession, but they absolutely must stop commenting on DD's weight or appetite. It will really dent her confidence.

Haven't read whole thread but isn't withholding medicine from a child mildly abusive? (No calpol for chest infection)

They really do need to be careful re Dds weight.

My mother has never recovered from her own mothers Weight comments. I'm pretty convinced she's got mild anorexia. Spend whole life being down about it.

Awful, corrosive and WRONG.

Since you won't change their behaviour you need to proof your dd against it. Go into the inter web and find all the good science blogs ( Ben goldacre's bad science is a good place to start...) find out the reality behind their claims. So for example the exact percentage of the U.K. Population with genuine gluten allergy ( tiny) etc etc. You need to introduce your daughter to the word orthorexia and you need to give her the information and critical thinking tools she needs to understand why they are doing this and how wrong they are

In fact, why not link it in with a general education on statistics in science, eating disorders, cult behaviour etc etc?

How awful for your daughter. I'm seething

oldest dd is old enough to vote with her feet with regard to contact.

you also need to arm her with proper scientific advice. some of what your ex will be saying will be ok some not. picking out what is and isn't will be hard and you need to arm dd with the skills to do this. now will be a good time to teach youngest as well as she will get it soon too.