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"

It seems quite eating disordery - it sounds like she’s very preoccupied with portion size it and not putting on weight - it clearly makes her anxious.

My mum does this, it makes me want to cry every time

I think also a way to ‘win’ by being the person at the table who eats the least.

Ah yes, my nana is like this 😂 every time we go for a meal she will, without fail, ask the waiting staff how big the portion is “…because I only eat like a sparrow”. When they collect her plate at the end, she’ll say loudly “I’m sorry I couldn’t eat it all. It was FAR too much as I only eat like a sparrow”…yes, I think they heard you the first time.

She has, in recent times, upped her game by decreasing her appetite further to that of “a flea” 🙄

She has always commented negatively on the weight of all the women in the family.

It's narcissistic behaviour designed to draw attention to themselves and put you down and make you look greedy in one fell swoop.

YES! This drives me mad too. Like, I dont care how much you eat, eat only one bite if you want, it doesnt affect me one jot, but why make a huge announcement about it? Noone fcking cares.

Hmmm. I’m on the fence about this one. I used to work in work place where lunches were provided as part of our contract. Expensive food but very calorific. I never ate them and always went out to buy sushi. Birthdays were always celebrated with donuts/pastries/cake, again I either never ate them or shared a half with the one other slim person on my team. I always had a running commentary from my workmates about why I didn’t eat what they ate. However I wasn’t at all performative about it, quite the contrary, my colleagues were the ones making a song and dance about my not eating the food. I’m a normal size 8-10, everyone in my office was a size 18 and over.

I some people might be saying that out of guilt, my generation were taught to empty their plates, maybe she feels guilt she leaves some of her lunch to bin. I’m

I am guilty of this at the moment, but I'm pregnant, and the baby is like a gastric band. I'm only six months gone, so god knows what I'll be like by the end.

Weird thing is though, that my husband joins in. Eats about half/two thirds of his dinner then pushes it away. He wanted to lose weight anyway, but seeing me push away half my food every night seems to have got to him.

With my DM its how "sickly" and "rich" food looks. "How could anyone eat that?"

Sometimes I just get no cake/dessert as I want to be able to enjoy it without the commentary.

I'm going to be observing my own behaviour with other people and food, having read this thread, as I'm genuinely wondering if I do any of this commentary about other people's food.

I expect most of these habits are laid down in childhood and are hard to shake off. I remember reading in 'Gone with the Wind' about the girls eating before they went to a ball, where food would be served, because they could only nibble food in public. It was 'unladylike' to be seen actually eating.

One thing to try is putting the food on the table and people serve themselves. Then they make the decisions about how much etc and hopefully won't bore the pants of everyone else with their performative daintiness. .

I'd want to one up her by eating one speck of food via a toothpick and then announce "wow- I couldnt manage what you're eating, I have the appetite of the nucleus of an atom and that would make me feel absolutely stuffed, I dont know how you do it!!"

It’s just boring. MIL was the same. I remember having a tiny Christmas dinner one year with her going on about us ‘gorging ourselves’ and we would all need to go on diet’s immediately.
Next morning I was taking some medication and she asked if I was ‘stuffing myself again’.
Guess who spent all day in the kitchen grazing all the time, a biscuit, a small sandwich, some toast…that didn’t count though.

When she got old and her muscles started disappearing (she was the least active person I’ve ever met) she was thrilled because she could buy smaller clothes.

I don’t think she actually minded people eating but she wanted them to say they were a fat pig and going on a diet. She loves my SIL because she doesn’t eat in front of people (unfortunately BIL tells everyone what she eats at home).

Interesting. Going against the grain, but IME the women who do this tend not to be 'teeny tiny' at all. My office is full of very slim young women who eat plenty without comment. Usually however to a running commentary from larger women about having 'hollow legs' and how many 'syns' they're consuming and how they themselves couldnt possibly....
When I was OW I confess to some cutting things in half and refusing foods I'd have liked, maybe from some weird idea that if people didn't see me eat a lot they'd maybe not notice my weight. I'd not comment on other people's food though. But it does seem to be something my colleagues who are heavier feel compelled to do to slimmer women.

I don't know if someone has already said this but you do lose your ability to eat large quantities of food when you are older. I look back on the days that I used to be able to eat a three course meal fondly 😂 There is a reason behind OAP meals. On topic though - a friend who would always say "Oh i could never eat more than one scrambled egg" 😂😂😂😂

Having a small appetite is not the issue though is it? its the repetitive, loud announcements and the judgy looks at anyone who dares to eat more than them thats the issue. If people dont want to eat much but dont make a song and dance about it, noone would care

I have a relative who does this. She is obese and it’s clearly something about not wanting to appear to be a greedy fat person. I rarely see her eat in between meals and if we go out for lunch she always mentions that she will only have a sandwich/salad for dinner.

Its disordered eating and very sad because we can see that she overeats by her size but she wants to appear to the world that she eats like a bird. I feel like it’s stopping her from admitting (even to herself) that she has a problem and trying to be healthier.

I'd find this irritating and have to say something. I couldn't not.

Not another one of these threads!
MN land is so weird. Never met anyone like this in real life.

There was a woman at my old workplace who was very similar and she was tiny. She was an acquaintance so a friend of a friend who'd sit with me at lunch if our mutual friend was around.

She would have a box of salad leaves, some Cherry tomatoes and cucumbers without a dressing for lunch. Then tie herself into knots about how many calories it would all be. The last I heard, her dd had developed an eating disorder. I can't help but think that she was the reason for it with her disordered eating.

This is very irritating, I have a colleague at work who does this and as PP has said wants to cut things in half and offer the remaining half to someone else. No one wants it, either eat it or leave it.

My mum comments on my eating though and it’s equally annoying. She is a very slow eater, we are often all finished and she is still working her way through her plate. As soon as I finish my food she will say “ooh, you must have been hungry/you must have needed that/were you starving?” No, I just like to eat my food as it is intended, nice and warm. I don’t eat faster than anyone else. She is however excessively slow. I don’t comment on how long she takes. It’s grating.

My mother does this. Apparently a piece of protein such as chicken, salmon etc is just so overfacing and makes her stomach turn.

She did it once really loudly at my birthday lunch in a Japanese restaurant and in front of my friends. She had a bento box that included a small salmon fillet.

She did the whole 'oh I can't eat this, do you want it? Please take it, it's just so overfacing'.

So I asked her why she had ordered that meal? I think that having a load of my friends there made me brave!!

To give her credit she laughed and said that I was right!

LMAO this is reminding me of the 4 yorkshire men sketch from monty python!

Just say, ‘Feeling a bit chunky today, Margo? Must admit, did think you looked a bit fuller round the face, but it suits you’. That’ll shut her up.

I notice a lot of older people seem to do this.Maybe a throwback to rations when a child or whatever .Very Annoying! I love food ,and want to eat mine in peace thank you! Women in particular do it ,maybe they are so used to small sizes as their menfolk have the penis portions or something!

I get the opposite of this from my dp.

I have a small appetite, so I’ll eat what I want when I want but I find a large portion of anything overwhelming. On top of that I work until 8 some nights so I really don’t want to be eating a massive meal at that hour so will often just have some soup or scrambled eggs etc. And he goes mad. Wanting to know what I’ve eaten all day and saying things like “cheese on toast for lunch is hardly enough,” even if I do eat a bigger meal later.

In contrast he has a big appetite and will e.g. help himself to two packets of crisps just as I’m about to serve dinner, which will be a decent portion size so I’m not under feeding him by any stretch. It infuriates me.