To wish my relative would stop harping on about portion sizes

[Averagesizedsalad]

I have a relative who is doing my head in with their repeated "Oh I'm so teeny tiny, oh this is so much food however will i manage" dramas. I need to rant before I explode! Share with me your infuriating virtue signalling teeny tiny stories? Maybe I am just extra cranky because I am HUNGRY everytime I see them because I'm breastfeeding 🤷‍♀️

Said relatives recent examples:

• When served a totally average sized salad for lunch, lamented "Oh this is so large, however will I have room for dinner later? I shall have to skip dinner, this salad will keep me full until morning" (I WISH I was joking, but alas I am not)

• Recently cooked a meal of pasta for lunch, in which I could count the number of pasta pieces on one hand. Of course accompanied by "Oh what a large meal, I shan't want dinner later at all!" It equated to about 1 normal sized portion of pasta dish split between 2 people, so fair enough that might be considered a light lunch if you're expecting a big dinner later, but not so much food that you wouldn't need to eat later on!

• Lamented that after having a normal sized slice of cake at a party that they were "Being sooooo naughty and would need to go on a big diet afterwards". It's a single slice of cake at a birthday party for goodness sake! You're not eating 1/4 of a cake everyday for dessert!

Obligatory: relative doesn't suffer from any health issues that might result in a small appetite blah blah blah. They are just insufferable and enjoy attention.

Thanks for listening to a hungry lactating mother complain after having about 10 curls (pieces? Squirls? What is the correct term here??) of pasta for "Lunch"

I cannot stand this sort of shit.

I always say “leave what you can’t eat then”, or “don’t eat it then”.

One time a family member made the mistake of commenting on what my child was eating (my 9 year old served herself some roast potatoes and they said “pig”.

They got told to stop, apologise to her or they could leave. I am now the devil, but I won’t have my daughter called derogatory names over food.

they will instead make a song and dance about how large the pieces of food are for their tiny tiny mouth.

Can confirm utter bollocks, as if confirmation were needed. I have a small mouth. All it has got me are orthodontic problems and a resemblance to Henry VIII. I can still eat, no problem.

It's the predictability that makes this sort of thing so annoying.

I wouldn't be able to resist jumping in before them with a sarcastic impersonation of one of their set phrases.

Or quite simply spell out to them in tedious detail just why they are being annoying, tiresome and boring. Often people like this think they are charming and feminine - and it would be a real home-truth to tell them how much of a stuck record they've become. Just tell them to take whatever they feel comfortable with, but to spare you the usual script...and indeed, get a 'swear box' for them so they can pay a financial penalty for annoying you!

Well, this is just fcking weird. This person would irritate the heck out of me and its no wonder its irritating you.

What a bizarre thing to harp on about

I'd express concern about this lol

"oh my goodness, is that normal?- maybe you should see a doctor about your tiny mouth, I'm really concerned there might be something wrong"

What a tedious bore

😂 (sorry about your orthodontics though!)

Hate this, I always make sure I associate it with things they find not very complimentary (no offence intended to anyone else).

"oh, yes my grandmother always says that, must have been hard growing up with rationing, so many old people still have that mentality".

"I grew up poor too, it's very hard to get out of that mindset isn't it?".

"It's sad how many older ladies had to wait for their father and brothers to be served first, must be awful having that sort of family"

I don't let no small mouth stop me. Actually it's awesome. More bites, same amount of food!

(Orthodontic issues are fully resolved now. Resemblance to Henry VIII, sadly, wasn't something they could help me with.)

Is she a fair bit older?
The diet culture of the 70s and 80s was totally insane, and I know of a lot of women who were teenagers/20s then, who still have very warped attitudes around food.

It wasn't much better in the 90s. Eating disorders everywhere, shitty fad diets in teen magazines. I'm so glad it sounds like Gen Z has broken free of those shackles.

Like the breakfast cereal diet. Bonkers.

I've worked with women who dieted in the 80's, they can tell you the calorie content of everything on your plate.

Ha ha yes, remember the special K diet? Two bowls of special K and one proper meal a day? How weird!

They were still pushing that one in the 2000s and 2010s, I'm sure of it.

Horrible stuff. The strawberries were shrivelled and covered in sugar. Just put fresh fruit in your cornflakes!

The problem is, sugar is fat free, so they can play that up without mentioning how calorific and unhealthy it is.

Yeah it’s a weird and pointless cereal really, very sweet but pretty much no goodness in it at all.

I only eat bran flakes or porridge, most cereals seem to be sugary and pointless.

It’s been replaced with “instant experts” - people who watch documentaries with titles like Is Your Lunchbox Killing You? and regurgitate the spurious details as if it’s gospel, or with zero context.

I remember some woman at work waxing lyrical with great confidence about how bananas are the absolute worst thing you can possibly eat and that apples “KILL me. They literally KILL me.” I longed to say “If apples literally killed you, you’d be dead and I wouldn’t be listening to this drivel.” But you don’t, do you?

Oh God, I did that and I gained weight 🤣

Turns out, I really bloody loved special K with hot milk. This two bowls were gigantic and more calories than what I would usually have eaten for breakfast and lunch . I went through boxes of the stuff.

The 90s were awful- that was when heroin chic was in (eg very very skinny) and models like Kate Moss were in vogue, she openly said back then in interviews she kept slim on a diet of diet coke and cigarettes

I’d serve her half of what she has been commenting on. If she still does it, ask her to serve herself as “it’s difficult to judge the right portion” for her!

😂

Ask her how many swirls of pasta she wants next time. Offer 3 then ask if she could manage 4! She would be doing my head in as well.

😂🤣

The only way is to let them serve themselves isn’t it?

I offered pil a Yorkshire pudding with lunch, horrified looks you’d think I’d offered a kitten on a bun.

Do it 😃

Why are you serving portions put whatever it is in big dish and everyone helps themselves
simple

CS Lewis' grand old demon Screwtape would have called this "gluttony of delicacy":

She is always turning from what has been offered her to say with a demure little sigh and a smile ‘Oh please, please … all I want is a cup of tea, weak but not too weak, and the teeniest weeniest bit of really crisp toast’. You see? Because what she wants is smaller and less costly than what has been set before her, she never recognises as gluttony her determination to get what she wants, however troublesome it may be to others. At the very moment of indulging her appetite she believes that she is practising temperance. In a crowded restaurant she gives a little scream at the plate which some overworked waitress has set before her and says, ‘Oh, that’s far, far too much! Take it away and bring me about a quarter of it’. If challenged, she would say she was doing this to avoid waste; in reality she does it because the particular shade of delicacy to which we have enslaved her is offended by the sight of more food than she happens to want.