I'm NOT fat

[TheJollyPostmansWife]

Name change as about to give all details as too late to text friends for advice. Visiting DHs family today, out for lunch where I had a prawn salad. After I finished I reached over to nick a bit of my dds bread and as I did so My DHs grandmother piped up 'not watching your figure then?'. This is not the first time she has been rude about my weight and to be honest I am really pissed off. We see them very rarely and I don't think she has any right to make personal comments at all - last time she said something she suggested I would lose my looks and therefore my husband if I carried on the way I was. I don't think it's important as I don't think anyone should comment on others appearance but for context I go to the gym 3-5 times a week, walk the dog at least an hour every day and see a personal trainer weekly. I am five foot one, 9 stone 3 and size 8. I'm not normally so sensitive but I don't want to see the woman again, she is elderly and not in good health and adores my dds. Aibu to refuse to see her? I would never stop the dds but we live the other side of the country which is obviously limiting.

This is your dds' great grandmother ? Someone born pre-war who almost certainly remembers rationing ? Women were much thinner then 22" waists were not unnncommon. In any event she is a very old lady, from a completely different age. To take her comments so personally is very self-agenderising don't you think ?

Agree with the posters that have said its a generational thing. I don't know how old you are if she's a great grandmother I'm going to assume she's pretty elderly, and comes from a time where women were expected to watch their figure for a man.

Oh and don't put so much stock in a BMI, it bears no relevance on whether or not you are fat. Being fat is nothing to be ashamed of, but you are clearly not.

Waist to height ratio is said to be a better indicator of whether a person has an unhealthy amount and distribution of fat

Please, OP, don't take the comment to heart and don't stop your DD's seeing this relative. Everyone says we shouldn't make excuses but it is a different generation brought up in a different way and isn't life about making allowances sometimes? Let's wait till we're all elderly and the hundreds of posts on a forum about how we put our foot in it, there will be our GC saying the same, betcha!

FWIW your size 8 sounds wonderful, I bet you are great and well done you for your gym visits shame my gym doesn't work for me like it does for you!

When I read your post I thought of my lovely elderly aunt (sadly no longer here). I lost a huge amount of weight and when I saw her she hugged me and said "oh Rous, I so much prefer you fat!" I laughed a lot and my DCs did too. and luckily she got her wish, I've put a lot back on!

Stillwisihadabs No. I think it's a perfectly normal response to be upset when someone continually comments on your appearance. To be hurt by hurtful comments does not make you self-important. Ffs.

So by all means maintain your weight at 9 stone 3 for life but don't get up to 10 3 or 11 3

Or else what? The Mumsnet weight police will come after you?

One thing I will say though - going to the gym 3-5 times a week doesn't necessarily mean you're muscular. You could go and do cardio and it wouldn't mean shit as far as muscle tone is concerned.

And to suggest that great grandmother doesn't know any better is rubbish and actually pretty ageist because you are suggesting that past a certain age there is no scope for learning.

My DM thinks I am underweight(I am not) and should gain at least 10kg and then I"ll look good. The way she counts it- so my height is 164 so minus 100 makes it 64kg and that should be my ideal weight. She brings the subject up quite often.

ProteusRising - you've made yourself look like a massive twat let yourself down on this thread, seriously.

Sympathies, op Tomorrow I will see my 81 year old Aunt at our regular family annual gathering. She will comment on my weight (to be fair I am fat - not much taller than op and 2 stone heavier) as she always does. Last year I actually said to her "every fucking year I get this! yes, I know I've put on weight, yes I have given up smoking and gone through the menopause, yes I know I'm too heavy and how are you dear Aunt?" that told her. We'll go through the same again tomorrow, no doubt.

You just need to bit back and put her in her place! Quietly.

It seems that some older people just didn't get the memo that these days it's not polite to comment on other peoples weight.
Is it worth cutting them off? No! We'll all be old someday and will commit probably different faux pas.
My MIL does it. I'm overweight and don't diet for the simple reason that when dieting I'm obsessed with food, but when not dieting I'm not.

DartmoorDoughnut
"Oh FFS the OP goes to the gym 3-5 times a WEEK, she's a size 8, she weighs what she weighs because of MUSCLE!"

She said herself it's because she ate too much on holiday.

She's said that several times.

Her thread is called "I'm not fat" and she gave all her stats which was always going to invite opinions on that.

I go to the gym more often than that, am a size 8-10, and weigh the same as op. Difference is I'm 7 inches taller.

I have discussed weight occasionally with other women in the gym and those who are around 5 ft 7 - 5 ft 8 like me tend to weigh around 58-60kg. (Around 9 stone)

They are all very dedicated gym goers and are lean and muscly.

Bmi is just a measure of your height compared to your weight. Eat what you like, weigh whatever you want, but it's irresponsible to push the myth, on a public forum, that going to the gym will make you heavy/fat.

There's a poster up thread who's saying that she's not fat, just muscly, at 5 ft 1 and 13 stone. That's seriously distorted body image. We've lost sight of what normal weight looks like.

Clothes are vanity sized and someone of 5 ft 1 at a healthy weight would surely be expected to be somewhere from a size 6 to 10. 5 ft 1 is tiny. With a bmi of 16 I was a size 6 because I'm tall.

Oh and old people make rude comments. As do lots of posters on this thread who like to throw around personal insults (dick, twat etc.) If they disagree with someone.

Interpreting "Not watching your weight?" As personal and insulting IS self important. OP is a married mother of 2 not a self-conscious teenager ffs.

You sound in the perfect range. Both my own Dm (mid 70s) and my grandmother had an obsession with weight. I reckon it comes from the fact that when they were younger everyone was thin. I have had to try for years not to let it bother me.

It's true though that people who are obsessed with weight, including other people's, whether in their company or firing shots at them from behind their computer screen ... they are just insufferably dull eh?

I don't think it was just older people who didn't get the meme about it not being appropriate to comment on people's weight

I am so fed up of this on here.

1. Dress Sizes Are Different mumsnet posters eager to inform someone that they might think they are a size 10, but really, they are a lardarse because Sizes Have Changed and What Was A 10 Years Ago Now Isn't.

1. Being Obese Kills we know. We know, we know. Repeating it doesn't help us, seriously.

1. Eat Less, Move More is wrong, actually, exercise makes a paltry difference to weight loss (apparently) and many people need to eat MORE to lose weight. More vegetables, and the like. Plus, a lot of people seriously need to cut down on the booze but that's ok

1. You are borderline overweight - so NOT overweight. So sod off. And I spent most of my adult life marginally overweight at around 10'2 (5'3) and I really didn't care and I'd love to be 10'2 again!

I am fed up of the pomposity and the self righteousness and the utter arrogance of 'I look like this so you must look like that.' Body sizes are very different. Some of us store weight in and around the middle, or the bottom, or legs. There's a race element - Asian women have lower BMIs and tend to be more petite than Caucasian women. Height is even different - I unfortunately have a long torso and short, sturdy legs. I'm not willowy or twig like which isn't the same as saying I'll never be built to be slim - I can be and have been slim and healthy. But some more swan-like woman would probably look at my stats in disgust.

I agree there's a problem with obesity but since when did that involve tearing into a healthy and slim woman and 'pretending' to be 'confused' she was a size 8?

What kate said

Ok being bothered enough about it to post on a public forum is self important. It's just one of those things people of that generation say, like " isn't he good " when dh does a perfectly normal thing like changing a nappy. Or " what a good baby" because the baby sleeps 8-6. It's just a generational thing, it's silly to take it to heart, and fewer women of 5'1" weighed over 9st 50 years ago, so it looks bigger to those who were around then. To take it so personally is displaying immaturity and insecurity IMO.

"many people need to eat MORE to lose weight"

Nope.

I read that Jessica ennis has a bmi of 21.6, now she does have quite a muscular physique (by average standards) but that's a pretty low bmi...certainly not high enough to put her in the overweight category

Male bodybuilders would routinely have enough muscle that they have a body mass index over 25 whilst having low body fat, but women even if they strength train are rarely able to gain sufficient muscle mass to be 'overweight' whilst still having low body fat

Yes muscle is nearly twice as dense as fat but the ceiling for muscle mass in women is pretty low no matter how much strength training they do.

"I don't think it was just older people who didn't get the meme about it not being appropriate to comment on people's weight hmm"

Starting a thread called "I'm not fat" and posting your stats does somewhat override that, doesn't it?

"Sizes Have Changed and What Was A 10 Years Ago Now Isn't."

Which is actually true, so using a meaningless measurement like "I'm a size 8" to make definitive comments about someone's weight is pointless.

It's funny how people think being a size 8 means something (a number that could be stuck on anything you want) but BMI, an objective mathematical measurement using actual figures, means nothing. It may not be 100% perfect but it has a hell of a lot more meaning than dress sizes do.

Haven't read your thread yet, just the OP but I think you're being a bit oversensitive. You say that this isn't the first time, well why haven't you got a witty repost worked out yet? Saying you 'don't want to see her again' because of these daft comments is just ridiculous. Adults don't behave like that in RL, do they?

... and why are you taking food off your daughter's plate. Why not get your own bread? I never think of that as anything other a parent being controlling when I see it, ie. "Yes I know it's yours but I'm your mother and I can take some if I want".

It's possible that this lady has known hunger in her lifetime through wars and the rationing afterwards and was a bit shocked that you, a well-nourished (not starving) woman would do this.

Or she may just think you're 'fair game' for a bit of a verbal joust with as you don't stick up for yourself. I know that you shouldn't have to verbal spar with relatives but sometimes you have to make yourself be counted. If it bothers you then say so, quickly and pointedly and leave it with a smile.

Why are you defending this grandmother Proteus? I completely fail to understand.

Which was healthy Proteus so quite what you wished to achieve I won't even try to understand.