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 😥

And even if they do point out that they can't finish a plate of fish and chips for lunch, so what?

No one cares if they say it the once, there's just no need to go on about it through the whole meal.

My mother had always done this, and me and my sister often talk about how disordered it is.

For reference, we are all slim and healthy, exercise, and eat well. We’ll go out for dinner and have a normal sized portion of pasta or something. My mum will spend the whole meal going on and on about the size of the portion, how she’s so full already, she couldn’t possibly eat anything for the next few meals blah blah blah. She’ll have a few mouthfuls and pick st the rest. It’s so off putting and really affects everyone’s enjoyment of the meal!

The funny thing is that she restricts at mealtimes and barely touches her food. But then, will be ravenous and 2 hours later will snack on 2-3 sugary yoghurts, several biscuits, cheese and crackers etc. We’ve never said anything, but we all think ‘if you’d just eaten your lunch you wouldn’t be so hungry…’

My mum is an incredible woman but had a really tragic childhood and has lots of issues from that. Food is just one aspect of it. We went NC with my maternal grandmother many years ago, but I remember a few meals with her as a young child and they were rather traumatising!

I had a flatmate who cut a Mars bar into 7 pieces every Monday, put it on a plate in the Fridge, and ate a piece every night after tea.

Sadly it’s just these but I am seriously considering adopting a sequential pastry planting idea for the rest of the year!
This is honestly a genius idea!

fastelavnsbolle

Fastelavnbolle in Jan/Feb
maybe something lemony in Mar/April (for spring obvs)

May/June could be something with berries

July/August would be some new Nordic insanity thAt we can ignore the ridiculous of because we’re just so thrilled there’s actual sunshine

sept/oct can be polsehorns which not technically a pastry but tasty!

Nov/Dec will be anything cinnamon or cardamom based because it’s warming and winters hit and everything is dark so embrace the hygge (whilst simultaneously rising the need for fucking hygge because you’re trying to feel better about it being dark at 3pm)

yeah I am WELL on board!

So what? The Op wanted to enjoy her meal not be passively aggressively guilted into pretending she has a small appetite.
I take the opposite view I’d be eating mine then theirs! And enjoying a cake after, there’s a time for being healthy and a meal with friends ain’t it!

My parents share a satsuma. Pears and apples too, but the satsuma horrifies me.

I’m of the “is that it?” brigade. Never has a portion bested me.

I probably won’t live as long as the performative under-eaters, but at least I won’t have lived my life as a tedious twat.

Once you hit menopause it can be really hard to lose weight, so all these older women sharing satsumas are probably trying their best tbh.

I had a good friend that I had to distance myself from because of this. We flatshared for a while and I was under constant observation and commentary about what I ate. Whether it was too little, too much, too fatty or whatever. There were a couple of meltdowns about why I could "be so skinny eating so much".

Eventually I started eating just to appease her, which was totally fucked up. And then when I became bigger than her she insisted we go clothes shopping together and would take whatever I wanted to try on, but one size smaller.

So fucked up.

God, that’s just a joyless way to live.

Either eat it or don’t.

But that's an enormous portion!

If we ever get one of those on a Friday night, it's enough to feed me and DH (manual worker), our three teenagers and the cat, maybe with a little over to heat up for for brunch the next day.

Whereas a comment like yours portrays women so positively!

@SlimPig

to be fair op, a lot of people wouldn’t want dinner in the evening if they’d had fish and chips for lunch. It is a big lunch.
and also not everyone wants to wolf down their food as quickly as possibly.

Or eat theirs, someone else's then cake.

MIL would graze in the kitchen. Bits of fruit, small sandwiches, biscuits… no one else allowed. Then she would serve up a tiny dinner and go on and on about the gluttony. Next morning it would be ‘oh I don’t know how you are eating again after ALL THAT FOOD’ (no fucking food).

She loved my SIL as she was a performance eater who would order tiny meals going out. I remember once we had an Indian and she just had Chicken Tikka and some salad because she WAS ON A DIET! Then BIL mentioned they’d had an Indian meal the night before and SIL ate 2 whole Nan breads on her own as well as a full curry and rice and starters.

Totally with you on that!

YABU. It sounds like you are eating too much and trying to justify it by slagging other people off.

My mother is like this. Anything she doesn't want to eat is described as looking disgusting or sickly and "how could anyone eat that?". Punctuated by "look how good I'm being, I've only had one bowl of cereal" at the hotel breakfast (her bowls of cereal are massive).

Uts the commentary and performance that makes it annoying.m, ot the dietary choices I have a vegan friend...apparently an unusual one as she doesn't talk about it. Just brings vegan side dishes to parties for example. She eats exceedingly healthily but never comments on others choices.

I totally get it, OP.

I am recovering from an ED and honestly, I have to call these kind of comments out now. I just politely say that I am in recovery and find comments on portions eating very triggering (because I do - whether it's talking about eating too much or too little).

As for the person who replied, but aren't you a bit overweight to have an eating disorder ... 😡

I have posted this on MN before, but we have a big 8 day event near us that happens every year. Some of DHs friends stay quite often.

One of the wives is quite a supercilious sort generally. Between her coming one year and then coming again 2 years later I had put on 3 stone. This is basically due to me having binge eating disorder that combined with my depression that gave me a few bad years.

Anyway, when she arrived she was clearly taken by surprise and said to me ; 'I shall see I will have to teach you how to eat properly;' Totally unsolicited and the source of a great deal of surprise to me at the bare cheek.

The first morning I (as usual) made everyone bacon baps. She cut hers in half, put the other half back and held the plate aloft and said to me; 'Now, this is a proper portion size'.

Granted she is just a complete uptter cow of the highest order. But whenever I hear of performative under eating it brings this epiosode back to me in all it's technicolour horror.

(I won't start on how she also decided she needed to teach me about how to prune my roses and train my dogs. That is for another thread).

I remember Dot Cotton doing that on Eastenders. She cut up a Mars bar and offered slices to people

My mum is a bit performative with undereating, but give her a roast dinner at Christmas and she polishes off the lot!

If you want to eat like a sparrow (yes, you MiL and 2 friends) that's your choice, but STOP with the commentary:

"can we share?"
"how many calories?"
"how can you eat all that?" (my pasta dish in a restaurant)

or when I'm running a client event and I see women at the buffet halving individual mini quiches (like anyone is going to pick up the other half 😳)

MiL has now started on my kids - fuck off!

I don’t understand why their comments affected you so much.

If they do then why don’t you actually say something?

I'm not sure about this OP.

On the face of it the whole performance (if you can put your hand on your heart and say you haven't exaggerated it) does sound annoying, but your description of how 'small and measly' it was sounds as though you have a problem with other people's smaller appetites?

What's 'small and measly' to one person, will be either enough or more than enough for another person.

It sounds as though you might have a problem in thinking your own appetite is something to be ashamed of?

It's not and it's personal to you, just as other people's is to them 🤷