To think this parent was incredibly rude?

[Sparklyshoes16]

Just got back from supermarket today as have friends and their children coming over later that we haven't seen for ages.

I was in the pudding section and picked up a selection box of patisserie cakes and was looking at something else to get so everyone could have a bit of choice! A girl aged around 8 was next to me and was very excited about all the cakes, she went over to her Mother (who was stood talking to another woman about 2 meters away) and asked if she could have the Victoria fresh cream sponge, her Mother then very loudly said "No go and put it back now is that what you want to look like when you're older?" At which point I looked up and over and all three were staring at me!...the girl put the cake back with her head down and went back to stand next to the trolley and looked away.

The two women kept looking at me exchanged sly grins and then carried on their conversation...now I know that I need to lose weight and I am doing so in my own time and happy with the amount I've lost so far my goal is a 14-16 (as that's the size I didn't feel so unfit) I'm currently a size 26-28...I've never felt so embarrassed and wanted the ground to open up...I've had much worse said but this really got to me the other thing that got to me was the girls face she looked incredibly sad when her Mum said that. I really don't understand the need for some people to comment on other people's size?

AIBU to think that parents need to be more careful about what they project onto their children and the Mother was incredibly rude?...I can see this little girl having a lifetime of food issues.

What an effing bitch. She'll get the ugly face she deserves one day if she didn't have it already.
She is as low as a school bully.
I would have been very hurt, but she is a nasty cow.

Yes, I was really shocked by how sugary muslei is over here. May as well be eating granola. I try to make my owm when I can. Godiva is good, I buy hotel chocolat more often though because there is a shop near my house. Recently discovered their pistachio chocolates, heavenly. Ah, yes tin soup/powder soup can have a surprising amount of sugar. I don't have a microwave and I'm too lazy to heat it on the stove. I don't make hot chocolate anymore for the same reason. Pot noodle is another one that I have had to buy myself from buying. You can get really nice imported ones in waitrose but its just empty calories. Pot noodles are super nostalgic for me though-we used to have them at school during the winter as our packed lunch option before the school banned them for being too unhealthy.

As someone who has a Horrible relationship with food (I literally think it’s an enemy) this is awful children are so subjective mine started at around 15 when someone called me fat (I was size 8) and I couldn’t take it so yes they should be really careful as that can trigger serious problems! One comment can trigger it and when your parents are feeding you it’s harder to understand nutrition and how to eat a balanced diet when you’re scared anything you eat will make you fat!

Just shows how nasty some people can be - hopefully her daughter (as well as being upset about not being allowed a nice cake) will realise her mum is a bitch and may have been embarrassed by her bitchy comments. Enjoy your meal, cake, time with friends and be thankful the bitch-mum and her bitchy friend are not your guests. Some people are just rude, regardless of size. &

That parent was so so wrong for what they said. I am sorry this happened to you.

I like to think of this as my motivation. I too am a similar size to you and am trying to lose the weight ( recently diagnosed diabetic type 2 and I have PCOS) I also have a young daughter who I am DESPERATELY trying not to put myself down in front of, I hate being this size but feel helpless sometimes. Like previous people have said there are worse things to be than overweight. Chin up 👍

At least you can loose weight - she's always going to be a bitter old witch!

Nasty to you and to her kid - a nice cake isnt going to turn you over night.

I know how you feel, i get it a lot too. When i was slim people always felt the need to comment on my boobs - i cant help that they are naturally large but women openly bitched to my face, even strangers.. Now ive gone up to a 16 i get insults about that too, strangers looking at me when i eat out, passing comments about what i wear... Im only a flippin 16! It's because of medicine that ive gained weight but every Tom dick and Harry seem to think they can judge what i eat!

It's horrible for us and mean to project that to kids.

@bemusedmoose it used to be really frustrating when I was out in restaurants. I remember being in Pizza Express a good few years ago and our pizza and dough balls came...it was a 2 for 1 offer so was going to box up what pizza I had left and have it the next day for lunch.

As I tucked into the first slice a young girl about 18-20 and her boyfriend squeezed past our table on their way out to the exit (it was heaving from the offer and the tables were packed like sardines)...she very loudly said to her boyfriend "o my god shoot me if I ever get to that size" "o my god people there is salad on the menu" I was a size 18 then!! Her boyfriend replied "don't worry I will can't stand fat birds" they laughed and carried on walking as though they had done/said nothing wrong...I went to the toilets and cried...I didn't eat the rest of the food we just left and went home!

Now when someone rudely comments on what I'm eating out...usually a stranger...I put down my cutlery...stare at them for a few seconds in silence making sure I've got eye contact with them, my husband does it too and then continue to talk and eat as though nothing has happened...so far it has worked, they don't know where to look and squirm away.

The other day caught me off guard...as many have said on here you'll always get nasty idiots who want to make themselves feel better by putting others down I just feel sorry for them!

I also get the sense that people who do this type of thing automatically think larger people have no feelings or are so thick skinned it doesn't affect them! They are the type of people who forget that everyone has feelings regardless of shape, size etc luckily deep down I know not everyone is like this and it's just a select few horrid nasty people that will justify their rudeness through being nasty and vindictive but they are usually the ones in life that don't last long!

I also get the sense that people who do this type of thing automatically think larger people have no feelings or are so thick skinned it doesn't affect them!

Let’s not forget the people who attempt to justify this sort of behaviour by claiming they’re being helpful because their cruel remarks will help their victim realise that they need to lose weight

As if every obese person is skipping around in blissful ignorance of the fact that they’re bigger than average

@4GreenApples yes that as well! My Aunt was the type you describe..."well she needs to be told...she's not going to look like me is she if she carries on the way she's going" this was when I was about 10 and was eating a slice of quiche from a picnic table.

I was the same size as my cousins...my aunt was incredibly thin and smoked a lot!

Jellybubba That doesn't really work. Fat is an adjective and a noun. Fingernails is only a noun.

Fat can be like fingernails - something you have.

It can also be like being tall, or dark-haired, or German - something you are.

OP Of course no one should be making these horrible comments. But I'm seeing a huge amount of justification here (from other posters as well as you) for eating cakes and pizza and dough balls and pastries and every time it's "I was going to take it home for later" or "I didn't have any lunch" or "I had guests coming".

At a size 18, or 28, or whatever, there has to be a degree of accepting responsibility and not denying the connection between what you choose to eat, and what you weigh.

That doesn't , of course, make it OK for people to make nasty comments about you being overweight, no more than about someone being ugly or old or a different ethnicity or whatever. It's incredibly rude.

But it's also not helpful to deny the connection between eating and weight. I wouldn't have eaten the cake in the street if I'd missed lunch. I wouldn't have eaten pizza and dough balls in a restaurant, even if I was saving half of it for later. I wouldn't buy pastries for my guests, and if I did, I wouldn't eat them. It would be healthier mentally to acknowledge that you only get to be extremely overweight/obese if you eat much too much, in a sustained way, over a long period of time.

@GorgonLondon I haven't once denied that what I eat is linked to my weight gain/loss?? What I will say is everyone is different and has different attitudes to food!

I do not like children being brought up on the obsession of size! I prefer them to be educated about the benefits of healthy eating and how it affects your body.

I personally don't respond to someone showing me pics of a size 8 person and saying you can look like this if you don't eat cakes and then see the size 8 person eating cake! Makes no sense!!

So am I supposed to eat beans, salad and pulses all my life and be miserable? Or do I educate myself about portion sizes and what not to have too much of?

I was going to ask for the rest of the pizza to be boxed up because I knew I couldn't finish it and most of the people on other tables did the same!! Blame the companies that make everything American portion sizes I could have kept eating and over eat...or thrown half of it away and still pay £15 or have half and then save the rest for another time...is there a distinction between a size 8 person enjoying and paying the same price the ie half a pizza and dough balls to a size 18 (at the time)?

So when you have guests coming over what do u serve...a pea?? I grew up in a household of offering mains and a dessert when guests came and on the odd Sunday if guests weren't there. Again everyone has different habits, growing up, different schedules etc.

I know what I eat isn't perfect especially in the old days when I was eating all sorts but now I'm more aware I'm slowly but surely changing it. I could be all I'll just salad for the rest of my life (been there done that and was incredibly miserable and failed horribly and ended up eating crap)...now like I've said before I just have something small when I fancy it to stop my craving it's worked well for me and stopped me wanting more of it.

Why can't someone eat cake on the street (which was another poster by the way)? Is it not the same as eating a sandwich on the go? I used to miss lunch all the time (ex Secondary teacher) and grab a quick snack after a lesson if I had ppa time...not everyone has the set up to eat perfect healthy nutritious meals 3 times a day 7 days a week it's just part and parcel of life. Some are lucky sons are not...I have been unlucky by many factors including not being able to self 'control' what goes in my mouth 'all' the time.

And @GorgonLondon if you could explain to my friend her connection of eating and having to drink the bulking up shakes she has to have because she can't put on weight or my other friend who is completely baffled including the doctors by not being able to lose weight which she's had monitored by a specialist team they would be most grateful!

Of course eating is connected to weight but it's not the only answer!

Don’t worry about the girl’s reaction. You said she was around 8?
So at school, she’s getting messages from adults about kindness, not being judgemental, inclusivity and using appropriate language. It’s being modelled by adults around her, and she is rewarded with praise, merits or whatever when she shows appropriate behaviours.
Except her mother is a judgy bitch who sniggers with her adult friends when making nasty comments. So the child doesn’t say anything, she ducks away, avoids eye contact and tries to deal with the difference between the messages from school and the ones in her real life.
She’s embarrassed.

@GorgonLondon I wouldn't have eaten pizza and dough balls in a restaurant, even if I was saving half of it for later. I wouldn't buy pastries for my guests, and if I did, I wouldn't eat them

So you've never had pizza in a restaurant any restaurant? I'm confused and my guests would be if I bought/cooked a meal/dessert and I didn't have any..."come over to mine but I'm not going to eat with you just sit and watch you eat" which I think is more damaging to just watch people eat...but each to their own.

@JumblieGirl very true was just sad to see her reaction not from being told no but the other part...like you say hopefully she is being taught different at school.

That's such a sad story for so many reasons.
The mother clearly has issues with food. She may having been having a bad day for whatever reason (probably hungry because of dieting) so took it out on her daughter and you.
Hopefully the daughter will grow up to enjoy cake in a healthy, happy, guilt free way.

Horrible woman. Next time (hopefully there will never be one) smile and say "I can lose weight but you'll always be ugly). Nasty creature.

@gorgon thanks for the English lesson and for trying to destroy something that I use to help myself feel just a little bit better about myself, that’s been so helpful 👍 it’s meant to help someone who feels bad about their situation not be completely grammatically correct, I do hope you feel better for it. I too am perfectly aware that I need to eat better and exercise more but unless you have been overweight/depressed/beaten down by people over your size then you have no idea how hard it can be, when the voices in your head tell you you can’t do it and if you do fall off the wagon how the voices punish you even more. It’s people like you that makes me wonder why I ever bother reading anything on here, I thought this was supposed to be somewhere to get advice and help each other out

Gorgon what a twattish post that was and has made you look. I'm glad that Jelly has pulled you up on it and your patronising twaddle.

Jellybubbamama, Don't make the mistake - either here or in real life - of paying any attention to people trying to make you feel small. They don't have that power, don't it to them.

The best advice I ever heard for trying to control your weight is that: If you're struggling to lose it, hold it steady. It doesn't matter if you don't lose for a bit, just try not to put on extra pounds, just hold steady.

That and:
Treat weight loss like any other never-ending task (like housework), sometimes you'll do a bit, other days you'll have massive energy and do a spritz from top to bottom - and other days you just don't wanna... All of that is fine - just treat each day as a new day and don't let what you did yesterday influence what you'll do today; it's a new day.

Stay and post. Generally there's low tolerance for shitty SPAG, most of us hate them and tell those posters they're being twats. :)

*don't give it to them.

It would be healthier mentally to acknowledge that you only get to be extremely overweight/obese if you eat much too much, in a sustained way, over a long period of time.

I'm sure this attitude feels right and gives you a wonderful feeling of superiority, but it's simply untrue. There are many ways to become obese, morbidly obese, and plain 'overeating' is just one of them.

I found this article fascinating, particularly this bit:

In 2016, Farooqi published a study where participants were allowed to help themselves to an all-you-can-eat buffet of the UK’s favourite curry, chicken korma. There were three options, manipulated to look and taste the same, but in which the fat content varied between 20 to 60% of the total number of calories. Despite everyone saying the kormas all tasted the same, participants with a particular genetic defect ate twice as much of the high fat korma as their lean counterparts.

I'm not even looking for excuses or justifications for myself. I have PCOS, which means nature has decided I should in fact look like a fat pubescent boy, coupled with a rather compulsive relationship with food. I have made peace with this and am doing what I can.

But those are two more ways for you that means it's not just about 'taking responsibility' or 'stopping making excuses'. Chuck in a few thyroid problems, medications, poverty, public attitudes and other kinds of illnesses and it's a perfect storm for a lot of people.

Obesity is a complex problem with potentially multiple complex solutions.

It's not a one-plus-size-fits-all.

I'm confused and my guests would be if I bought/cooked a meal/dessert and I didn't have any..."come over to mine but I'm not going to eat with you just sit and watch you eat" which I think is more damaging to just watch people eat.

You're a size 26/28, I don't see why you think your guests would be 'confused' or 'danaged' if you chose not to eat a high-calorie dessert?

Surely if they are people who care about you they'd be supportive and not even slightly confused?

And no, I don't eat pizza in restaurants (or elsewhere). Why is that confusing you?

To be fair to gorgon, I don't think she was trying to be twattish, maybe it wasn't phrased correctly but I think her point was that the there is a lot about eating very fatty unhealthy food and a justification for doing so, friends visiting, missed lunch, two for one deal. She clearly stated there was no justification for nasty comments but her point was that there was little to no personal responsibility being uttered, it is all there was another reason for having the cake and pizza. .

I think the op is doing a fantastic job in managing her weight down, two stones lost this year is great, and clearly someone being horrible is unacceptable, no matter what your size you should be free to eat what you please when you please and where you please, but I also don't think it's fair to attack gorgon for her observation as I think it was meant well.