Tedious performative under eaters

[SlimPig]

The thread about the PIL's measly portions reminded me of this, and how iritating it is. I remember once at work they bought us all fish and chips on one friday afternoon. When it arrived the two other women started their bs as soon as they were handed their box - oohh the weight of that! I'll never eat all that! Hadn't even opened it and looked at it yet.

Then, once opened, both of them, oh my god, I'll never eat all that (measly takeaway cardboard box portion, not a massive, in paper, large portion) ooh dear, we won't need dinner, or breakfast tomorrow now will we! Don't think I can eat my peas too, I'm so stuffed. I'm going to need to go for two runs tomorrow now! On and on, through the whole meal.

I was starving and had to make a conscious effort to eat it slowly because they were fucking about and pushing it round the box and I didn't want to look a pig, I'm a fast eater anyway, but that meal was just so god awful! In the end I just ate it at my normal speed.

Why? Why do people do this? Why can't they just eat their food normally? Why does everything have to be justified and offset? Just strikes me as so sad that they couldn't just eat their food without a whole performance (infront of all the men in the office, only 3 women there, me and them) of how birdlike they normally eat 😥

I haven’t missed the point at all. I was just joining in with my thoughts and experiences. 🙄

The OP doesn’t give a shit what people actually eat, so long as they don’t bang on about it. I get that.

The poster moaning that a woman quietly eating a little salad affected her is mental, though.

This, along with your OP, indicates to you having a real issue with your own weight/eating habits. The constant performance (assuming you've not exaggerated massively) is annoying, but it's quite clear you're resentful of how little/slowly others eat compared to yourself, and how they should monitor not just what they say but what they eat in order to make you feel better about your own insecurities.

My dad constantly commenting through my younger year on how much I ate and I think that's a big part of why I ended up with an ED. I don't eat much now however when I was staying back in my childhood home recently, and making a sandwich for DH, my dad said "geez that's enough for breakfast, lunch and dinner for you isn't it?" Smirking. It was so triggering - I hadn't realised it until then, what a big role he played in my ED. I also then realised why my MiL talking incessantly about what she eats constratsd to what "fat people" eat is so upsetting for me. I changed the subject last time and she managed to turn it back within minutes. She is obsessed with it.

I lived with an anorexic flat mate. She used to say things to me like “more bread? You had a piece of toast yesterday!”

I didn’t mind particularly because I knew she was I’ll, had horrible issues and she obsessed about food 24/7.

So I think when people “perform” they’re just suffering from unhealthy relationship with food at a minimum.

* "someone gobbling fish and chips like a pig at a trough.*"

That's utterly horrible language, particularly on a thread where people have disclosed that they've had eating disorders. So someone eating a normal portion of food at lunchtime is to be compared to a pig? At a trough? You should be ashamed of describing a person on that way.

One of my worst food memories from office days is when I was working FT with a toddler at home and 6months pregnant, bought myself an M&S club sandwich and smsall packet of crisps for lunch and was told I was eating “like a man”. No bitch, I’m eating like a pregnant woman now off you fuck!

I don’t have much family myself so Christmas, Easter etc are almost always spent with my IL’s - and I have constant, low level anxiety in the run up to events, that I’ll be judged on how much I’m eating.

DH used to sneak out and eat - I haven't stayed in years now and I find it easier to manage on our turf as it were.

From the other side:

They think about food every minute of every day. They grew up with a clear message that anything less than a perfect figure was failure, fat people are lazy and less than.

They can never enjoy a meal without an instant smack of guilt the minute it's finished. They wake up and instantly think about what they ate last night and were they 'good' yesterday and do they have to squeeze exercise into an already full day to work off what they see as excess and unnecessary calories.

They are permanently either hungry or full of shame if they did eat.

The only way they can justify eating a normal portion of such 'terrible' food is by making sure that everyone else knows they're not normally 'like that' for fear of being judged for their appetite or size which has been ingrained in them since childhood.

It's annoying, I know.

I try to keep my inner monologue secret as I can see how fucked up it is.

But give them a bit of a break as it's all directed at themselves, not you.

Tbh, any takeaway I’ve ever had has been enormous. You’d have to be pretty greedy to eat it all-even if it comes on a box. Fish and chips is a really stodgy takeaway and makes you feel quite ill when you’ve eaten it. We’ve lost sight of normal portion sizes and now think that gigantic ones are normal. So I’m with your friends although wouldn’t make such a song and dance about it.

From what I understand, men like a woman that likes their food. How annoying of them.

There’s an even more evil kind of people: the ‘are you going to eat all that?’ type. ‘The only thing you should have on that plate is…’ ‘You’re picking that? It’s full of carbs??’ I hate those people, too.

A whole pizza (assuming it's the standard supermarket size) is a huge amount of food! I do think we have lost sight of what healthy/reasonable portion sizes look like.

That was supposed to be a joke... Instead of overstuffing myself at lunch and then having a lettuce leaf for dinner I had two normally sized meals, doesn't make any odds nutritionally but it means that I was comfortable and full in the afternoon and the evening rather than feeling horrible in the afternoon and then starving later.

If she wasn’t dead I’d say you know my ex MIL! Performative wasn’t the word for it. She could never find anything she wanted on restaurant menus so ever the martyr would sit and watch the rest of us eat. Picked at tiny bits of food at mealtimes. However, she was prescribed temazepam to help her sleep and having taken her nightly dose an hour before bedtime, proceeded to cook herself a huge fry up every night as once she’d taken her sleeping tablet she apparently didn’t know she was doing it! 🙄

Fusion that sounds so hard. It's easier to slag people off than have an iota of understanding for some people though.

I lived in DK as a teen and don't remember fastelavnsboller at all! I must ask my stepmum about these. I do remember aebleskiver season though 😋.

I think the difference is that Danish people are just generally more active and eat more healthily than Brits. Every time I visit I'm always amazed at how slim most people are despite all those long lunches and dinner parties. It's a different culture. Don't see many kids riding a bike to school here, but nearly all of my friends rode a bike to school when I lived there (except me - I couldn't ride a bike! 😂)

OP those women do sound incredibly annoying. I personally hate anyone commenting negatively on what another person is eating either way. Especially when someone thinks what I'm eating is 'gross' - keep your opinions to yourself! I tend to eat smaller portions and used to get a lot of comments from others. What they didn't see was that I ate little and often and probably ate more than them in a 24 hour period. I just didn't like the feeling of being over full. I would never have sat there talking about how little I ate though. Generally I try to avoid eating in front of others because I can't stand the judgement.

I fucking hate it when people comment on other people's food. Its so rude and unnecessary. Sometimes I might want to eat a large portion, other times I might not want much. Neither needs commenting on but often people will. I've also come to realise I eat more slowly than most people. This gets commented on as well. I sometimes end up leaving food I'd have liked to eat because other people have finished and are now commenting on how slowly I eat and/or gawping at me. I don't want an audience.

Then there are the people who try to persuade you to eat certain things. I don't like garlic but you can pretty much guarantee someone will try to convince me to eat garlic bread if it's on the table. A simple "no thanks" won't suffice, they want a full explanation.

Then don't eat it! Surely just say no thanks or "just a small chips" than eating it while whinging how huge it is then after about how sick you feel. It's not the fact of sizes or portions or how it makes you feel, it's the going on and on and on about it

I've never felt unwell after fish and chips, if I did then I wouldn't eat it or I would buy a small portion

Some days I say yes to a cake or grapes or a takeaway, some days I say no. Nobody cares which I pick because I don't say "oh no I had a takeaway, god the portions are huge, I'll get so fat, won't be able to eat for days..."

Maybe not, but they have a choices - to decline the food, share it between them or to eat what they want from it and leave the rest. This is not the point of of the thread. The point was that they were going on and on about what little they ate in some weird competition and in doing so, making others around them who were quietly doing their own thing, feel bad. A sort of stealth way of fat shaming others who may not even be overweight.

But a healthy/reasonable portion size depends on who you are, what you're doing and what else you've eaten doesn't it.

A whole pizza wouldn't necessarily be a lot if say you were a riding teacher say running around all day and you hadn't had time for lunch, or if you were a 6'6 man who goes to the gym a lot.

What a horrible, shaming comment to make. People can eat more than you without "constantly shovelling down food." Shovelling down is such a dehumanising description of someone eating. Do you think people who eat more than you are less human? People larger than you can also wear lovely, well-fitted clothes. This comment is truly a reflection on who you are as a person, far more than it is anything to do with the women you are trying to shame.

That’s not for you to say. If I want cake I’ll have it!

My mil asked me if I had a weight problem at the table in an restaurant.

She can be awful sometimes

I don't eat a lot, I rarely finish portions in restaurants and takeaways etc. I've lost track of the number of times in restaurants as waiting staff take my plate away, they've asked me in a concerned tone: "was everything ok with it?" because there's at least half left on my plate. And i've answered with "yes it was lovely thanks I just don't eat a lot". Or friends when eating out or sharing a takeaway: "is that all you're having? Are you sure?" etc ...

As a person with a small appetite you get constantly asked if you're sure you're not going to eat more and/ or if there's something wrong with your food. That gets tedious, too. So some people pre empt it by announcing "I won't be able to eat all this". I do sometimes, so I then won't have to field the tedious questions about why I've left half my plate.

Yes you have a very valid point, and some people ARE like this (and cannot help it.)

However.... they have NO RIGHT to comment on what someone else is eating.

And SOMETIMES it is just people who are rude and obnoxious and think they have a right to comment on what someone is eating.