Can't get through a meal without..

[poopsqueak]

My mum mentioning her weight/food habits in a circumspect way EVERY meal. Btw she's not over weight and neither am I.

AIBU to find this really really really irritating.

Sometimes it's 'can't eat that, that, that' as reading a menu.

Sometimes it's a 'ooh that's very carby/fattening (ps I hate that word)/heavy'

Sometimes she gets some food, then purposely says (in a loud voice) 'oooh I can't possibly finish that!'

Sometimes she shoves her food on other people's plates in a very obvious way 'you finish that, I cant'

Sometimes to the women in the group 'you aren't going to finish all of that are you!'

This week we were at a BBQ and she ordered a pork kebab, chips and a flatbread then said 'only a soda water please, lager is really really fattening' I thought that it wasn't the lager that was unhealthy in that situation.

I just change the subject whenever she goes on about it, especially when she is in front of my DD. It's brought up all sorts of weird memories from childhood that she used to have this bizarre commentary on food.

Does anyone else's mum do this? It's driving me bonkers.

I have actually said something to her at the time about not speaking like that in front of DD and she got really defensive about it and said 'well she needs to know what's what' but I think it's was a reactionary statement because I don't think she really thought that.

She does the thing about stopping eating when you do too! I forgot about that. If I'm finished she'll stop eating. I do think it's a competition.

My gran was probably anorexic. I have never had an ED but she seemed to only get really bad with her food when she was stressed out. Also she smoked 40 a day! So no guesses as to why she wasn't that hungry.

Agentcooper that's so sad. I have a friend with ED and I distinctly remember her at school with carrot barons and hummus and an apple and something else meagre while we all had tuna sandwiches, penguins and a bag of crisps. Her mum really controlled what she ate and it turned out very bad for all of them.

O my god my mum does this. Took me til the age of 31 to realise she's got an eating disorder and her shaming of my totally normal teenage body (think putting my size 8 self in front of a mirror in a bikini aged 13 and pointing out all my 'problem areas then teaching me to calorie count) led to my disordered eating which - ironically enough- resulted in my being overweight.

I eventually just told her to stop commenting on my weight, which she did but still does this horrible passive aggressive stuff. Get your daughter a copy of 'fat is a feminist issue' if she's old enough, and either way talk frankly with her about how your mum's attitude is unhealthy? You have my empathy!

Well done in saying something, it's not easy! But you owe it to your DD to stop this cycle, just keep it up, every time, tell her it is not ok and she needs to stop.
You're being V reasonable to challenge her!

We have a young family member who has a very odd relationship with food, I've had to ask them to stop referring to certain foods as 'bad' in front of my children. I've asked just what exact evil two slices of bread will illicit if consumed but they can't answer.

As long as everyone eats and that food is on the whole not over processed I'm happy.

My mil is like that. I am overweight though, very much so, so I usually take it at a dig to me. If we go out she can't seem to not comment about how she couldn't possibly eat all that or does anyone (usually my ds) want half her chips as she can't manage them. Why she can't just quietly not eat what she can't manage and leave it on her plate I will never know!

Mine is a bit like that but with fake allergies discussed really loudly with blow by blow accounts of intestinal symptoms.
I'm fat and don't care but she'll tell me in public "one bit of cake won't make you fatter" or "you can relax your diet just once" (I'm not on a diet). Always loud enough for people to look round.

I have a group of friends I eat lunch with regularly and there is definitely 'competitive non-eating' amongst some (not all) of them.
The ones in question will order a starter, eg a couple of bits of fish or chicken on a few salad leaves, nothing else at all and declare that they won't want any dinner as they will still be sooo full 'after all that food'. Or order a sandwich, eat half and try to offload the other half onto someone else.
I can feel the waves of judgement as I order the beer-battered cod, mushy peas and chips. With extra tartare sauce.
We never have dessert -- it's just not the done thing.
Some of them struggle with weight but others don't. One, re a DD's wedding, said it was a shame that the DD's 'size' spoilt the photos.....
It is all extremely tiresome but I and a couple of others try not to engage. The ones who do take part definitely have food issues.

Aaaargh this does my head in. My MIL does this. I have struggled with my weight all my life, have times when I’m very healthy and active and I’m not at the mo (but am doing something about it). My MIL constantly goes on about how she “couldn’t possibly eat all that”, asks “you’ll never eat all that will you”, goes on about how disgusting overweight people are.

She’s incredibly insensitive about this topic. I ignore and ensure DD (also 6) eats healthily and a mixed diet and knows I am being healthier.

I hate the competitive not eating that I see/have seen with female friends and relatives. It’s super crap, disingenuous and is basically a form of trying to demonstrate some form of superiority over others (no matter how small and silly). Really boils my piss.

Good luck with ignoring your DM.

My DH's grandmother does similar, except she is obese and demolishes everything on her plate... Its almost like she's trying to prove to people she's not actually obsessed with food, says oh no I cant possibly have that, its so fattening then she'll blame someone else for 'forcing' her to order it!

My mum is like this. You'll slave over a gorgeous dinner, but before she can actually eat and enjoy it, she has to go through what my dad and I refer to as "the parade"

Oh I couldn't eat all that
Oh no, just the tiniest slice. Half of that. Smaller.
You have some of mine. I couldn't eat that. No, take it, it's far too much for me.
This meat is underdone. I like my meat very well done. I'll just eat this little bit from the side.
Ooh, this lunch is just far too big. I'll not eat anything for the rest of the day now. Maybe a little bit of fruit later.
Oh no, no more. Nononono. I couldn't possibly.

Yet she always finishes everything and ends up with seconds

My sister is like this. Every mealtime is a commentary on what she won't be able to eat, what she'll have to do to burn off the calories, how long it is since she had something so fattening, etc. Her two DDs have been brainwashed since birth that food is bad and every mouthful must be paid for.

DN1 is now hideously thin and looks anorexic but Dsis would never admit to me that she was. DN2 has started nagging my DD2 who isn't as skinny but isn't overweight and leads a very active lifestyle about how easy it would be to lose a few pounds.

Being thin and attractive for men is the biggest goal for all of them and I'm not OK with children being given that message. We'll now be seeing even less of Dsis and her family than we were before.

My mum does this too, it drives me insane. Every menu she looks at she’ll say ‘ooh I couldn’t even eat anything that size’ or ‘who would be able to eat all that?’ or ‘ooh far too stodgy’. Then when the food comes she’ll eat the main component but leave everything else or put stuff on other people’s plate, before complaining that she’s too full and there was far too much food. Drives me doubly insane because she never ever pays when we go out, so basically is complaining at the food being provided to her!
I then catch her eating food off my children’s plates.

Do you think it's a generational thing? I am in late 20's and she is in mid-50's.

No - I am 50 and have never done this.

My mum is like this. She doesn't have an ED as such, just terrible fixations on foods. She's never been more than 10 stone and at 5'6 a size 10-12, so she's always been slim and healthy, but bloody hell does she go on about it.

When I was on a fitness kick I once had avocado with my salad and she said 'i can't BELIEVE you're eating avocado, Red, it's FULL of fat, SO bad for you'

She's ever so slightly less annoying now but I tend to just change the subject when she does it as it's so effing irritating.

She had a disordered approach to food and eating. Given what her own mother was like, it's not surprising. It might be better to talk to her about not commenting and saying things about food away from the dinner table. It really isn't healthy and you don't want your kids taking on board what she is saying and doing.

@poopsqueak I'm ashamed to say that I was glad I had a son, not a daughter, because it made me think there would be less chance of the cycle continuing, of me unconsciously passing any of the beliefs I internalised into a DD.

I know DM has these issues but it still makes me so mad - trying to convince me to come off anti depressants because of weight gain, saying I was never 'overweight' when I lived with her, always mentioning how underweight she used to be, she was only 7 stone when she got pregnant etc.

I find it so, so irresponsible when people go on like that in front of children and I've got no time for engaging with it. If someone wants me to tell them how lovely and thin the are, how I wish I had their willpower etc, they're not going to hear it from me because I'm not engaging.

Do you think it's a generational thing? I am in late 20's and she is in mid-50's

TBF to the OP I think she asked this in response to my post.
I am 50s and never say it. I am sure there are loads of women this age who don't. BUT get an average group of 50 something women together and you will hear this language used relentlessly.

I do think this particularly behaviour is generational. That is not to say other generations don't have issues, I just think they express it differently.

All the clean eating bollocks is 'oooh shall I be norty' by another name.

Oh god yes, my Mum would do the "Oh my goodness, I will never be able to eat all that" in a loud voice when in restaurants or in company, then guess what she would manage to finish it all & eat a pudding . In the end I found the best way to manage it was just to poke (gentle) fun at her by saying, oh of course you won't be able to eat all that Mum we all know you have the appetite of a teeny tiny bird. I also used to feel that I had failed her, although she never said that to me, by not being slim & very feminine, unfortunately for her I was born with big feet & a big frame & then went on to become overweight. I was always obsessed with losing weight from my early teens. I don't know if that was something to do with my Mum's attitude to weight & food or due to the fact that Twiggy was the idealised look when I was in my teens. I do remember quite clearly during a period in my twenties when I had lost a couple of stone & was very slim she admitted she didn't like it as she "had always been the slim one" & she did once suggest me having a gastric band fitted. I know she always admired slim women. I think for my mother being slim and pretty was important when she was young in order to get a man & those ideals were ingrained. Oh well: They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.

When I was a child my dad couldn't get through a meal without telling me how the animal had been slaughtered.

My DM developed Type 1 diabetic after I was born and my DSis was the usual very large baby born to a diabetic. My DM spent most of DSis’s childhood battling with her appetite - at least that’s what DM said she was doing. I was a stick insect like my DF which seemed to make DM even more determined to restrict my DSis’s food intake.

But my DMs action wrecked my DSis’s metabolism and for all of her life she has been overweight and had a really awful relationship with food.

On a separate note my ExILs were all overweight and constantly made comments about me being anorexic (I was a size 14 ) and constantly tried to pile more food on to my plate at family gatherings.

TheFirstMrsDV I think you've hit the nail on the head there.
My 50+ friends do the "oh I mustn't, I've been good all day" routine.
My DC's friends who are 20 something are all gluten free, vegan, low carb, paleo or other such fads.

All boils down to massive obsession with food. For goodness sake just eat proper food, only when you are hungry and don't go on about it.

My mother was exactly like this. It was a competitive thing around food as she wanted to be the most virtuous and most controlled - but I think all the virtue signalling obscured a disordered attitude to food and eating.

It made eating out really hard -especially as we lived abroad and had to see her for longer periods. I think it also tipped over into disordered eating. I remember staying at a hotel once and arriving early for breakfast to see her cramming toast and butter into her mouth. She didn't know that I saw her but when we sat down to breakfast she was all "I don't know how you all eat so much"! Rather scarily she was also very jealous of her friend who was anorexic (actually broke her leg on stairs).

I had to really put my foot down when she started on DD when she was 3.

My mother was like this - some of the lines others have written made me wince and laugh in recognition.
Unfortunately losing weight for her was such a positive that she didn't go to the doctor until the cancer was stage 4.
I am so angry that her obsession with being thin killed her.

Tarty - I so agree about going out for lunch with (some) friends and then having a great discussion of how they can't possibly eat anything else all day - or they only have a tiny starter as I will be eating with DH later.

Surely most normal people eat three meals a day - I know I do with snacks in between. .