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 had a colleague like this too, tbh she really annoyed others, when we were out for meals etc, always wanting to give her food to others, it gets very wearing and it’s just so unnecessary. Attention seeking of the highest order, so boring, no one cares what is left on your plate.

I have a colleague like this. (Personally, I'm not a foodie so don't give a shit either way, I eat when I'm hungry, stop when I'm full. The end)

This colleague has just started Herbalife 🙄 I've already had the lecture that it's not dieting, it's not like Slimfast, it's really good for you. Go. Away

They can say what like it doesn't affect how I eat, I love food so eat larger amounts, it is not my problem what they think

I think some people who very much value being very slim, can't understand that many, many women consciously choose being a cake eating size 14 over being thinner but having to regularly restrict their food intake. So they almost can't help commenting on someone eating a normal/full portion of anything other than salad, because they are baffled.

These people are the worst. Eat it, don't eat it, eat a quarter of it, whatever, just stop going on about it and spoiling the meal for everyone.

We ordered pizza recently and MIL made a huge song and dance about how she was the only adult to order a small. The rest of us had mediums that some of us finished and some of us had leftovers, whatever. We ignored her wittering during the ordering process. Pizza arrived, we sit down and open boxes, and she says, "I'm the only one to order a small because I'm not a pig!" Husband, who handles her well, said, "Stop calling everyone pigs, Mum, we want to enjoy our food." She said she hadn't, I told her to enjoy her pizza because we all would, but it was a bit strained after that. She kept asking me and my SILs how much we had had and if we had any left over.

I love you, MIL, you are a nice person, but stop performatively undereating. We don't care that you ordered a small, we just can't stand the way you turn the whole meal into a performance of how little you eat. Calling everyone else at the table a pig, really???

Some corkers here...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4748491-tedious-performative-under-eaters

Nope, I worked with a person like this, she also liked to police other people's food intake. Her most used line was to randomly tell people - whenever the subject of food, recipes, grocery shopping - anything at to do with eating was " I just have a weight watchers yoghurt for lunch every day. They are SO filling , couldn't possibly manage anything else to eat until supper"

Because she's overweight and assumes she's being judged.
I grew up with a secret eating mother who controlled everyone else's food. It's hard to ditch that feeling of judgment. I didn't used to enjoy eating in public for fear of 'fat person being seen eating' shaming.

You are doing that with your post, implying she is a big woman so she obviously eats a lot the rest of the time too. You may not be judging, but she feels judged.

Fat people feel obliged to demonstrate that they know you think they shouldn't eat so much

Exh used to do this -like asking song for a kids meal in restaurant 'That'll be enough for me' and mosnrdvay me for always thinking in advance about meals on holiday (yes because I have think about when/where/what to feed the kids!!)
Having said that, I hate the endless cakes being brought in to work. People insist you have to have to have done of their manky home made baked good do I politely ask for s small slice then palm it under other stuff in a bin in another room

Actually, when I politely refuse the deluge of junk food cakes at work, people can’t let it go. What’s wrong with you? Are you being good?(as if not wanting to eat huge Costco cakes is a moral issue). Go on, just have one! So people make judgment calls around food all the time. I just say I don't have a sweet tooth (not true) rather than shovel gloop down my throat.

Oh, I used to have a senior colleague like this at school but she expressed it more in a foodie kind of way - constantly asking what ingredients were in everything. Even when you were obviously eating a Tesco sandwich from the garage. I had to resort to getting the packaging out of the bin and reading it to her once or twice...

She was nice apart from the odd fixation on what other people were eating. She also mentioned once that she kept their microwave in the basement because she thought it looked messy!

My mil always complained about portion sizes in restaurants (amongst other things) never considering they were also catering for her growing grandsons. Ironically and despite being a terrible snob generally, she did favour those sort of pile em high sell em cheap type pub chains.

Tbf Costco cakes are rank (except for the chocolate muffins).

TBH, she’d fit right in on here.

I'm breastfeeding too and eating like a horse. 3000 calories a day, I love it. No daintiness here. My mum often has half a biscuit with her tea in the morning (for breakfast). It makes me so sad.

The mature thing to do would be to ignore it. Just act as though she said nothing. If she says anything about your food, look her in the eye, say nothing then carry on without saying anything about it. Anyway, have you seen the news about...

I was going to say I'd take the piss because I'm not mature. Oh you won't want any food will you, you had a sniff of a carrot yesterday and that'll keep you full for weeks. But then I noticed you implied she's fat. She'll be doing this because she feels embarrassed about being fat, I bet. I'd dwarf a hippo and while I don't pretend I hardly eat, I won't eat in front of people.

Your MIL sounds like a pain in the neck.

Going back to your original post, maybe people who do this have issues around food and think other people are interested in what they eat. Some people are really funny around food-what they’re eating, the portion size they’ve got and looking to see what other people are doing. I eat what I want and stop when I’m full so would find it irritating to be constantly around people like this.

My MIL is a bit like this. I often catch her eating stuff while hiding in the kitchen.

I am a person with a tiny appetite but I never feel the need to make comments like this. Internally I am horrified at being served normal sized portions though because I don’t want to appear rude by not eating it all. Perhaps just serve this person small portions from now on or let them help themselves

It's not rude not to finish it. Just say, "Thank you, it was delicious, I just couldn't finish it. Could I take the rest home?"

It's not about having a small appetite. It's the performative commentary designed to make the occasion all about how much less you're having than everyone else. Don't do that and you're good.

Do u keep having my parents around for lunch? "Oh how big are your portions I can't possibly eat 1/4 of a sandwich" or "I only need 10 grams of porridge for breakfast and I'm full for the day" 😒 it's infuriating and it's got to the point where I can't eat around them any more.

My ex MIL is like this- along with more direct comments to make other women feel like the greediest pigs ever, and it’s insufferable to listen to. But… she also used to wait for everyone to go to bed and then munch her way through share bag of Doritos/whole pack of biscuits/etc while watching tv late into the night while drinking an entire bottle of red wine. I know this because I’d find the packing neatly folded up down the side of sofa cushions the next day 🙄

Absolutely infuriating woman. Ruined/ruins countless dinners for other people with her nonsense then eats my stuff in secret and leaves me the rubbish to pick up 😤

Yes, it's unusual for someone to comment.

But she's talking, and we have no reason to think she's lying, about the portions being too big.

Perhaps they are.

After all, we're living in an obesogenic society, and the normalization of over-large portion sizes is one factor in that.

For as we can see here, commenting on over-large is considered very rude.

I used to have an ED but would never comment on food or how much i/other people were eating because I didn't want to draw attention to myself

There's always someone on these threads who thinks rising obesity is caused by people not being sufficiently obnoxious at dinner gatherings.