DM and her teeny tiny meals

[Trampley]

I think my mum has issues with food.

Cooked and served a roast dinner yesterday, she said she wanted a small meal. This is normal for her, as she's permanently terrified of putting weight on. But it's getting daft now.

I served her two small potatoes, a thumb size portion of chicken, two carrot batons, half a parsnip, a tablespoon of mashed swede and half a Stuffing ball.

She didn't eat the potatoes, parsnip or Stuffing. Things I know she loves.

A toddler would eat more!!!

She also commented on the HUGE portion I had, and told her husband he wouldn't POSSIBLY eat all his meal, she kept bloody commenting on HOW MUCH he was eating (normal size!) Until he just stopped eating it.

We went for a walk afterwards, had to turn back early because she was feeling tired. No wonder, she hadn't eaten!

It's annoying me - I'm healthy, I don't overeat but she makes out my portions are so awfully huuuuge.

Performative undereating on its own is just annoying - “oh look at me! What a delicate little thing I am!” and can be ignored, or you can do as a PP said and say yes mum, we are going to eat all this.

Your mother has gone way too far by going on and on about it so much that she put your dh off his food. If I were your dh I’d be furious. She can’t be allowed to carry on like this. Shut the comments down very firmly and if she won’t stop, stop having her over for dinner. She’s being incredibly rude.

A minute portion of chicken and a few grams of veg is not a dinner. If she’s maintaining 9 stone and not losing weight, she’s definitely eating much more than that normally. She might be snacking instead of eating meals, which probably means that she’s eating just about enough calories to maintain her weight but is malnourished in terms of protein, vitamins and minerals. That would explain the tiredness. It’s pretty much an eating disorder and I wouldn’t allow her to parade it in my home.

My mum can be this way and gave me snd my sister disordered eating. When my daughter was born 13 years ago I spoke to my Mum and said listen. No food chat, no diet or weight talk, no nonsense about what stupid eating pattern you're doing. And she's been quite good actually, sometimes she needs a reminder which is usually delivered quite bluntly.

I found this infographic & extra stuff from British Heart Foundation quite useful as a handy(!) guide for portion sizes. The start of a conversation maybe about generally eating enough nutrient rich foods rather than snacking on high processed easy foods.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/informationsupport/support/healthy-living/healthy-eating/healthy-eating-toolkit/food-portions

If you’re concerned I would suggest she gets a check up. Inability to eat/low appetite and fatigue can be symptoms of bowel cancer as well as lots of other things. I know people are pointing out that illness doesn’t make you rude, but it is possible to be both ill and rude.

otherwise, you have my sympathy. My mum can be like this too- if we ever meet for lunch, even if just for a sandwich, she says “how wonderful we don’t have to cook tonight now- I’ll be full all day!” (Because obviously a cheese sandwich is such a massive feast who could possibly want anything else?)

I’d put food out and let everyone serve self. If she comments negatively on yours then I’d say it’s rude to comment. You eat what you want I’ll eat what I want.
Walk/tiredness is there a compromise eg she waits in cafe part way.

We call ours "little bird" and laugh at her when she starts this crap.
"oooohhhh I can't manage all of that"
"Don't worry little bird, just pick at what you can manage, I won't be offended"

She has a ridiculous amount of children and once did 1 chicken for 14 guests. We laughed and laughed and sent DS to the co op for 2 cooked chickens. You need to stop taking it seriously and treat her like the odd ball she is acting like.

I'd also want her checked out to rule out illnesses.

You need fewer calories as you get older, but you still need to eat and your requirement for things like protein actually gets higher. If you don't have enough, your muscle tone reduces faster and it's a slippery slope towards frailty.

If she was making comments about other people's eating, I'd say 'you're stopping us from enjoying our meal'.

I'd be worried about her being unable to cope with a short walk.

You might want to show her stuff about ageing well https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/health-wellbeing/mind-body/10-tips-for-ageing-better/

Healthy diet (not too much, the right things), activity and socialising are all important things! Maybe she needs more social contact to reduce anxiety which is feeding into disordered eating?

But in your 20s generally (well mine) your metabolism is naturally faster and if you commute etc then you burn more calories.

I recently worked with people in their 20s, didn’t seem to be on diets but certainly were aware of healthy snacks (eg snack organisation sweet chilli rice cakes) and gym, yoga and cycling to work is par for the course). In my 20s I did a few exercise classes occasionally (always aqua aerobics once a week), clubbing a lot and diet fairly good but we did have Snack a Jacks. Ate and drank far more rubbish!

Its very sad but eating disorders in the elderly are usually just ignored rather than dealt with. My MIL was the same, we had a silly joke about her and chicken drumsticks as sometimes from what we could see she would eat a drumstick two cherry tomatoes and a roast potato and that would be it for the day. The reality was it did kill her in the end as her body started shutting down (eating itself as she wasn't giving it enough nutrition) and her blood sugars crashed causing her to pass out, she was hurt and sent off to hospital in the pandemic and couldn't be got back up to normal as they didn't have the limited range of foods she ate in the hospital. I had a bag of food to take in as agreed by the nutritionalist and they were going to let me in to feed/care for her and I got a call 7am the morning I was due in, to go in urgently and get Hubby down (2 hrs away) and she passed away at 2pm having never really gained consciousness that day. I was really upset as this is what I have been telling them for two weeks on the phone. I still feel awful about how it went, she had been neglected by the Dr surgery and they refused to come out to her the Friday before she was rushed in, I had the pharmacy refusing to package daily meds so I could get carers in and go home for a few days, it was all a mess.

Sorry that turned into an offload. So it very defintely can be disordered eating, and whilst not critical at that age it leads to long term deprivation to the body of needed supplements. And yes it was defintiely a 50s mindset of not being "large" as well as a religious conviction regarding greed and fasting which was not healthy

Taking the piss will probably be the only way forward!

Appetite does tend to reduce with age. However she might have bowel or stomach problems that make it tricky for her to eat enough.

Doesn't matter as not really relevant to the thread but it's more that in our teens and 20s it feels like women of my generation (older millenials) were obsessed with being thin, we obsessively read magazines etc, talked about it constantly, commented on what others ate, offered up information to our friends about what we had ate (whether we'd been 'good' or 'bad'). I don't think this was just me and my mates, it seemed to be everywhere and was just normal. That's what I think has shifted, there seems to be (and I hope I'm right) more of a shift to body positivity, wanting to be strong not just thin, wanting to be healthy not just thin, food as a good thing to nourish us not a collection of evil food groups to be cut out.

DMIL is like this, competitive undereating is a definite thing. She’ll help herself to a tiny portion for dinner, claim she’s full then go back for more 2 or 3 times. Rather than just take a normal portion to start with, every meal.

Interesting I have two boys and have noticed SO MUCH how my friends who have daughters are constantly policing sugar and fat and portions. Where those with boys are just like 'oh well what's another portion of pasta, he'll run it off at football'. It's such a shame and you can absolutely see how disordered eating passes from one generation to the next.

Sounds like my MIL... huge issues with food, ignore it x

My Mum is like this. But with her she thinks she eats a lot less than she actually does - she and my Dad eat really high calorie Indian food for breakfast and lunch. Then they eat huge portions roti / rice / curry / dal everyday & don’t exercise. We mainly ignore her and she doesn’t get to spend time alone with DS.

This, i'd pull her up on, she shouldn't be judging anyone and her poor husband leaving his meal because of her.

I hardly eat anything since being post menopausal (52)

I have really gone off meat too. Just like fish and veg.

Each to their own. Wouldnot bother me.

When was the last time she had a doctors check up? could her thyroid be hyperthyroid, making her tired and with a very small appetite? As we age our thyroids do slow, is it worth pestering her to get checked?

I'm in this age group and my appetite has decreased massively.

@user1471505494 I was wondering it it's just a decrease in appetite. But I would be concerned she isn't getting enough energy.

As someone recovering from a binge eating disorder I would find the showy off y virtue signalling "oh look how little I'm eating" comments about portion size very difficult though.

I’m definitely turning into this person. I order starters instead of mains in restaurants as I get full almost instantly.

I have always disliked big meals, but it has definitely got worse (or better, depending on how you look at it!).

If my husband cooks a roast, I will have one little roast potato, a slither of meat and tiny amounts of other veg. I can’t stand if we go to friends and they plate up food, rather than have serving dishes on the table. I end up leaving half my meal which looks like I didn’t like it.

I am 52 and peri-menopausal, I think there’s a link. I do exercise loads though and have lots of energy for that. I think I just need far fewer calories than I used to.

I think I would talk to her, as some PPs have suggested, but first do so outside of meal times. Along the lines of how she is very welcome to eat with you, but the comments about portions sizes and what other people are eating are having a detrimental impact on your enjoyment of the meal and so she should not make those comments in future.

Then, if she does so anyway, point out in the moment that you have asked her not to.

If genuinely she could only fit in a tiny bit of chicken and 2 carrot batons and then had no energy to walk I’d be suggesting GP asap. Bowel cancer like some have said should be ruled out. My grandma died from this and couldn’t eat normally as the cancer affected her stomach capacity. She started off eating more snacks and soft food so eg Kipling cake slices, half a cheap mushy fish pie ready meal. At end she couldn’t even tolerate complan.

My mum turned like this. Our whole life she’s been on a diet, constant food talk whilst I was in my teens. If I got fat it was a terrible thing to her. She was overweight quite a bit whilst I was young but now she weighs about 7.5 stone. Told me the other week she accidentally went up to 8 stone and was devastated! She then dieted a lot and went back down. Asks me every time she sees me how much weight I’ve lost when she knows I’m not dieting. She is obsessed with me losing weight even though I’m not overweight just bigger than her. When my dad retired he was overweight but only slightly. Within a few months he had lost about 5 stone. He looks so poorly now, really thin and a bit sick tbh. She doesn’t let him eat anything except fully healthy food. My MIL saw him a few weeks ago and commented he looks a bit poorly. She said she’s going to get him chocolates for Xmas to fatten him up 😂