AIBU to think (some) overweight people feel the need to comment on portion sizes

[Bernadinetta]

AIBU to think that (some) overweight people feel the need to comment on portion sizes to overcompensate for the fact they’re imagining people are looking at their food and thinking “well no wonder she’s fat”, even if they’re doing it subconsciously.

Have just spent a weekend away with my parents, I see them often as they look after my kids after school two days a week, but rarely spend mealtimes etc with them. DM isn’t obese but is on the overweight side. Every single meal out was full of comments such as:
”Oh wow, that’s huge isn’t it!”
”We didn’t really need one each of these, we could’ve just shared couldn’t we?!”
”Its lovely but it’s just soo much bread” (proceeds to eat sandwich open-faced without top slice of bread)
”We’re going to sink like stones in the pool now!” (there was a pool where we were staying)

And so on, multiple comments every meal. I feel like slimmer people probably get their food, if the portion is too big they eat what they want and leave the rest, no need for the whole performance. I feel like bigger people feel the need to make the comments to try and deflect. Or is it a generational thing? Or is it just my DM?

Yes I think quite possibly they do - get their word in first thinking this is what people are thinking.
However I also notice slim people taking a tiny bite of something and saying 'far too rich for me' or ordering soup, eating half and proclaiming 'oh that's a big lunch for me'.

Its incredible isnt it!!

In my experience there is a mix of ages and sexes who might comment on portion size or mention that something is too much for them

I think younger people, in general, police their language more around food. Preventing fat shaming, body positive language is used to a degree unrecognised to teens in the 1990s. Most of us now with children today are really careful about what attitudes we wittingly pass on.

It's ok to acknowledge a past wrong, it makes me judge the boomer generation less harshly when they tell me I have hollow legs or a healthy appetite to see them as a product of their time rather than cruel in this moment in time not having quite kept up.

I work with 0-18s and their families and my colleagues are all younger than me, I can tell you there is no such thing!!!

I suppose the only impact I can think age might have (which is different to the younger generation) is twofold, firstly that much much older people will have grown up under rationing and rationing only finally ended some time in the 50s or 60s (?) so there was less food around, it would have been something you got used to, physically and mentally. Secondly, over time portions sizes are huge, pubs especially are enormous and they are enormous for a business reason, its to pile it up with the cheap bits of a meal which dont take any particular skill (like bread or chips) and charge more and more money for it.

So if you're older, you've seen this increase and are likely to a)not manage it and b) comment on it, why wouldnt you?

It’s not a generational ‘thing’.

Your mum could be concerned about how much you are eating if you need to lose weight or have been trying to lose weight in the past?

But some overweight people do eat fairly small portions. I can think of several people who weigh a lot more than me but who eat less than me at meal times.
For example, I could eat double what my DH eats for dinner, yet he's overweight, and I'm not. He always comments on portion sizes being too big. The difference is that he's constantly snacking and eating sugary foods between meals. I don't snack so I weigh less.
I don't think all overweight people are faking it when they say a portion is too big for them.

I’m fat and I never do this, I find it irritating when people talk about food this way. Eat it or don’t eat it I don’t care. I don’t always finish my food, if anyone says this infront of me I just say “well you don’t actually HAVE to eat all of it”. It’s so tiresome. I keep my food neurosis to myself because it’s boring.

Like previous posters have said it's a defence mechanism - if a large person has a big plateful they know they will be judged so they get in first with the " oh what a huge plateful, I can't eat all this!" comment or decide to eat a lot less than is on their plate to make a point about portion control etc.
It's annoying but I leave them to it. I've been both the under and over eater at various points in my life.
The under eaters among us have our little tricks to take the attention away from how little we're eating and the over eaters have theirs. Just don't comment on anyone else's food. It's not necessary.

THIS!!!

I used to do it all the time, and it was definitely a defence mechanism because I’d had so many catty comments in the past when large portions arrived (“oooh are you going to eat all that, I thought you were on a diet” etc) that I felt the need to defend myself before I was judged.

Nowadays, I don’t do it as I’m perimenopausal and don’t give a fuck what anyone thinks, and tend not to go out to eat with people who are arseholes anyway!

They're getting in first. Us fatties know we're fat. We're used to people giving us the sideways glance when we order a pudding. Making comments like you've described is a way of trying to deflect.