To think sister is starving herself?

[ScaryBiscuitz]

Sister is living off a bowl of Shreddies and one small meal a day. The Shreddies is her lunch. Small meal for dinner.

She’s lost a lot of weight and was not overweight to start with. WIBU to tell her she’s basically starving herself?

I would be careful if it is ED. For my bulimic friend this was basically saying the more she loses the prettier she gets. It was interesting to later listen to het thought processes.

Nice things were totally changing context in her brain.

Yes that is very true actually!

You don’t want her associating weight loss with compliments!

So much misinformation on this thread.

You can eat four mars bars a day and have an eating disorder, you can be fat and have an eating disorder, you can eat cereal for lunch and not have an eating disorder....

Doesn't matter what she weighs, if she is restricting her calories to this extent (assuming that a bowl of shreddies and small dinner would be around 800 calories, coupled with the fact that shoes losing weight) then it could be an issue and I think it would be worth a sensitive conversation about whether she is ok.

What a lot of people seem not to be getting is that an ED isn't just about calories and how many meals and how over or underweight someone is. It's about an unhealthy relationship with food, a preoccupation, it being a cause of anxiety. Someone who has anorexia may love food and literally look forward to their meal all day, they might adore baking, they might not even be visibly underweight - but they can still be anorexic.

I am objectively underweight and sometimes skip meals but I'm not anorexic. It's (a) genetics and (b) laziness and disorganisation.

This sounds like the special k diet that was around a few years back which was quite popular.
2 meals of cereal a day and an average sized meal.
She may have an eating disorder but may be just doing it as a simple diet, it's similar in theory to slim fast. It's easy to pour 300 or more calories worth of cereal into a bowl, along with a 600 calorie meal could make it 1200 a day.
I don't know ins and outs but it's not necessarily an eating disorder

Sorry misread, I thought it was 2 bowls a day

I was just trying to show the portion size. DH thinks I eat like a bird. It’s nonsense. Sorry to have offended you. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Anyway, it’s a pointless thread as OP has disappeared so we may never know.

But your portion size has absolutely no meaning in here. Unless you are also slim and losing weight. You are just making yourself look like a dummy

Sigh. I don’t know why I’m bothering.

MN is so weird about food.

We don’t know whether the OPs sister has gone from a 12 to a 10 or is six stone. There is literally no info. People jumping to anorexia is bizarre.

I saw my sister last week and she said all the same things about me, that I’m too skinny, don’t eat enough, eat tiny portions. So that point of view was what I was putting across. For her, it’s because she is actually overweight, hates it, and feels the need to tear me down to make herself feel better.

I felt the need to defend my two meals a day habit is all. Triggered etc. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Two meals a day isn't necessarily restrictive, but I'd argue that one bowl of (the same) cereal plus one 'small' meal is.

My dp has eaten less than that for years. He is slim but not skinny, and works a physical job

If your DP has eaten less than1000 calories a day for years while exercising that's a serious issue.

Everyone jumping to suggesting it is an ED, but it might be that she is struggling for money and to feed herself properly.

You need to take a life more into consideration. Perhaps OP didn't deem her as being overweight, but maybe her sister did have some to loose. There can be quite a wide range of healthy weights for a person's height.

Perhaps some people would say I have an eating disorder because I only have 1-2 meals a day. But if you look at the caloric I take of my meals they total of up healthy standard amount given my height, age and level of daily activity.

I don't eat breakfast, sometimes can't be bothered with lunch will have a big dinner.

Today I didn't have breakfast, but for lunch had 200g ground beef with taco seasoning with grated cheddar, cauliflower cheese, some veg, and 3 slices of bacon and a few squares of chocolate. For dinner I was in a rush and really not hungry from my late lunch so I had a protein shake.

It could be compared to OP's sisters food intake, but actually it was quite a lot of calories.

So there's a lot more to consider with such a basic amount of info we've been given

*a lot more (not life)

Too many variables and too subjective.
If she has a low BMI, is tall, young and active, her food intake sounds insufficient to maintain a healthy weight.
If on the other hand she is short, middle aged and sedentary and within a healthy BMI it may be all she needs.

To demonstrate that people's opinions vary wildly on what is "worrying" or "teeny tiny"

I lost 2 stone a few years ago and had a few people telling me they were worried about me along the lines of replies in this thread/OP. I still get comments on it. The thing is I had put on that 2 stone while depressed and not exercising and it needed to go. Now I am back running 20 miles a week and doing weightlifting I need to fuel that so I know I am eating enough to sustain and maintain. One of the people who keeps telling me she is worried is a colleague who is very overweight but also tall and broad shaped. I am very short and have no hips/a cup boobs so clearly we have very different nutrition needs between us. It's frustrating that she feels able to comment on my body and food intake but if I did it to her it would be fucking rude not to mention nasty. Context is very important here.

That said I echo the posters who have said seek advice from ED charities. You need to be very careful with how you approach conversations like this no matter how well meaning you are and could make things worse if you don't do it right.

Well shreddies keep hunger locked up until lunch. So it’s keeping her full to dinner, which she eats and a lot of people don’t bother with breakfast.

YABU OP

BEAT May be able to help, Google it

Wish I never clicked on this thread... I'm currently in the very early stages of recovery from anorexia and the views that anorexics don't eat etc are very triggering and quite disgusting actually.
Obviously anorexics eat or we'd all be dead. So by some peoples views the fact that I eat 1000kcals a day means I can't be anorexic even though I have a very disordered view of food and my bmi is 15... okay then 🙄

@Josette77 he has about 1000 calories in energy drinks a day so wouldn’t worry about that

he has about 1000 calories in energy drinks a day so wouldn’t worry about that

so we’re you intentionally trying to mislead saying an active physical man survives on a bowl of cereal and a small meal a day?

clearly he isn’t. He’s getting calories from energy drinks and likely other sources.

@Reallyreallyborednow and so could OP’s family member. Point is we don’t know someone’s circumstances. My DP still eats way beyond what he should be for someone over 6ft that works 9 hours a day in a trade job

Meant to say below

and so could OP’s family member

except she’s noticeably lost weight so is clearly not eating an excess of calories.