My SIL is a competitive undereater and it's wearing me down

[OptimismvsRealism]

I don't have weight issues and I don't really care what other people do but it really sucks the fun out of every family social event.

It's part and parcel of her being "the beautiful one" in her youth and now just a pretty ordinary lady in her 40s. Like ok not ugly but who cares. She needs to be the thinnest and it annoys her if other people don't care who is thinnest. She is the only person I know who cares who is the thinnest!

Anyway I know a person should have compassion for eating disorders and I would except she tries to drag me down too.

@NonPlayerCharacter I don’t even want to talk to you at all, why on earth would I want to talk to you by PM? I’m not engaging further.

Well, because you clearly want to tell me, repeatedly, how evil I am for recognising and disliking a disordered behaviour designed to make people miserable (and which succeeds, if the experiences on this thread are to be believed.) So all I ask is that you do it in IM. That way, the thread avoids a derail and I'm the only one who has to be bored by it.

Once you realise that what people say is really about them and their issues you don’t take this kind of stuff personally

The OP isn't taking it personally. It is annoying her. As it would me.
I would continue to ignore though@OptimismvsRealism as hard as that may be. Order what you want, eat what you want and enjoy it!

Lol topical

I reckon nonplayer is either the SIL or a competitive undereater herself…

No you don't.

Please shore yourself up ahead of your next meal together by listening to Jonathan Richman's "I Eat With Gusto, Damn! You Bet"

I know someone very similar to your SIL.

It's exhausting, tedious and does put a dampener on any meal. She's not close enough that I have to endure her relentless 'I couldn't manage more than a starter,' 'that breakfast will do me all day,' 'I don't understand how you can still be hungry' often, but I try to avoid sitting next to her.

My mom is now in her 80’s she has done this my whole life, she would hide food so I couldn’t eat it. She gave me a picture of a big fat woman ‘we bought this because it reminded us of you’ I was 16yrs about a size 12. She paid for me to do the Cambridge diet eating 300 calories a day just started nursing working shifts. Think it is a generational thing I have a colleague who is her 80’s does the same thing. Not until my 30’s did I realise I was eating to piss her off. I have been on steroids for 4 years & put on weight the first time she has kept her mouth shut regarding my weight the looks however she cannot help. You are not on your own OP.

That bollocks really damages people.

DP had it from as soon as he could remember because he was a healthy baby - but a healthy baby from two sides of teeny tinies, both male and female. They hid his baby photos because he looked massive when being held - well yeah, when you're a normal 9 month old being held by somebody not even 4'10" and about five stone, you're going to look like a changeling.

Stories at the dinner table of how massive he was that they took him to the doctors to ask if they should water his milk down and the doctor told them to wean him instead (so he got proper food), how they made him exercise all the time and how huge he was compared to everybody else's children....the photos of him as a kid didn't show a huge, obese lump of a child - he looked like his legs were two bits of string with knots for knees and he was easily head and shoulders shorter than everybody else.

They got their wish in the end. He developed an ED that still comes back every time he's round either of them. 'Oh, I've made extra potatoes, I'd only cook one for me but I know you eat so much more than I do', 'I can't eat more than half a (cherry) tomato, so you finish it off, I know you're always hungry', 'he just ate and ate and ate, a whole 8oz bottle of milk was gone in minutes and then he'd be complaining until dinnertime and wanting more than one vegetable,' <DP pushes away the single chicken wing he was toying with> 'Would you like half a crumpet? I can cut it up if you like' no he fucking wouldn't, he'd like three with butter instead of that watery spread shite

I'm made of sterner stuff - growing up being the monster child in my family of not quite so teeny tinies (4'11" - 5'3") and always hearing how fat and horrible I was for being over 6 stone with thunderthighs/tree trunks/not dainty like my half sister at 16 led to me deciding that anybody who is shorter than the average 11 year old in 1980 can fuck right off when it comes to comments upon food and size.

Yeah, we get it, you have to buy children's shoes because you're soo small, you have to use a toddler's cup because your hands are too tiny to manage a standard one, of course you're absolutely stuffed after a quarter of a Babybel and two Mini Cheddars. That's great, it makes you cheaper to feed...oh, shit, it doesn't apply to the amount of booze you can put away though, does it? Or the cream cakes you mainline when nobody's watching (which probably answers why you're a) type 2 diabetic and b) going fucking blind). Being small should not be your personality and identity, any more than you should try to make others be identified by not being as small as you.

I have to say I enjoyed your rant lol.

Though your poor DP.

Yes because annoying the shit out of people with “ooooh I couldn’t possibly eat all that!!!” Will definitely fix the obesity crisis.

It’s not for anything other than to make the person saying it feel superior, it just makes them irritating rather than helpful.

One of my competitive undereating relatives once started a fire with her performative non-eating. She liked to put food on to cook, go away, let it burn and then make a huge song and dance about how she completely forgot about it because she was so unconcerned about food. She let it go on too long one day, the grill/hob caught fire and the smoke alarm wouldn't stop. I wasn't there but I heard about it later and the rest of the family was unimpressed enough that while she remained a competitive undereater, she didn't pull that particular shit ever again.

Can just imagine her simpering about how she just can't help eating so little while her family tried to put the fire out.

One of my sisters was anorexic - mostly due to my mostly harmless/well intentioned but somewhat batshit parents - and my Mum (probably the main protagonist in it all to be fair) hugged me once after hugging her and said " omg you're so big and fat and solid" or words to that effect.

I am 5'5 and a half and was a size 10.

She would make comments about people's weight all the time, the realised it wasn't PC in recent years and so started saying comical things like "she's a big girl, but fair play to her, she doesn't care, she's very confident, she's always dressed up etc etc".

Eating disorder and control issues. Poor her, not a happy bunny.

My mum speaks like this, but about people on the street. Am sure she’ll be punched in the face at some point. It’s the faux camaraderie that gets me. ‘She doesn’t let it hold her back, not every large girl can pull off cycling shorts’. I feel certain she doesn’t mean it too, so is rather spiteful however you look at it.

Young, beautiful thin women are given so much status that it must be difficult to have to get used to a different way of life when the looks fade. I suppose it’s her way of trying to maintain that status. I wonder what would happen if you told her that you had huge admiration for her restraint and self discipline. If you told her that she looks fabulous. just let her have that if she needs it. Let her win the futile competition. I wonder if she would leave you alone. Might be worth a shot. Otherwise, just leave her to it. We all have annoying traits.

Most people will eating disorders are not at all vocal about it. They have deep shame, denial, secrecy, do whatever they can NOT to draw attention to themselves. This woman doesn't sound like that at all.
Let's not start throwing around the term eating disorder like people have started to do with OCD - oh I'm a bit OCD about that. Both are serious mental health conditions.

Awareness is good, but saying someone has a serious MH condition when they don't isn't helpful for those who do i.e. lack of understanding.

Eugh that is painful, my MIL does this a bit. I always seem to know when she’s ‘forgotten’ to have lunch, there is no way I’d ever ‘forget’ to eat a meal 😂

I do pull her her up on it in a ‘WHY would you do that?! You have diabetes, you need to eat regularly, that is so silly MIL...’...feels good. 😂

Can't stand all that 'oh I'm so abstemious and it makes me moral' shit and it would annoy me too. Whatever her reasons, as others have said your best bet is to take the high road, not engage with weird shit, visibly enjoy food (and laugh at stupid comments if directed at you) - best revenge is to enjoy life and show how great it can be without embracing all the nonsense. You can't control her, but you can control how you react to her (and ranting is a valid way to blow off steam!).

She’s like my mother, competitive undereating, ‘Oh, I can only manage half a slice of toast then I’m full . I don’t need lunch.’ Probably cos she’s still full of booze from the night before. She was horrified at 24st me, always putting me on diets, but made me do the usual stay at the table til the meal is finished, even if it was something I hated, because you know, starving children in Ethiopia. I’ve always had extremely disordered eating and finally had a bypass last year. Despite this, she’s still telling me she’s a size 8, weighs only this and is now worried I might end up skinnier than her!

@OptimismvsRealism do you never tell her to stfu? Or that you are bored of her banging on about food/dress size? I’d absolutely have to tell her.

She's so passive aggressive it always feels hard to just come out and say it. Also, she KNOWS I hate all that shit and she's doing it to provoke me so I feel extra compulsion to just bland it out.

I have a friend who always suggests meeting for lunch and then waits till everyone has ordered and then orders the soup with no bread citing I'm not terribly hungry . She is lovely and slim.
Should annoy me so much but it does.

I know the feeling, it's just relentless bullshit, but I cannot keep my mouth shut if someone's behaving like an arse. I'd either call her out on it very rudely or have an extremely quiet serious word in private, telling her to give it a bloody rest and tell her how completely fed up of her endless drivel you are. You must be incredibly tolerant not to have taken the absolute piss out of her thus far!

Uni friend was always:
I’m size XXS. I’m so small, nothing fits.
You are soooo lucky you have big feet, it makes your legs look slimmer.
My pores are soooo small! You’re so lucky you can squeeze stuff out if yours, I can’t because my pores are sooo small.

I worked at a lingerie boutique. I was complaining to my boss about my friend always saying “I’m xxs” nothing fits me!! My boss said give her these - several exquisite hand embroidered underpants, in beautiful glossy boxes with tissue and ribbon - size XS/S. They were a “defective” batch, too small for adult woman. Boss suggested as a joke, because they were so small.

Presented to friend who was dismissive at size XS/S - saying I don’t think they will fit, but thank you so much.

Later, asked if she liked them, boss did when she came in shop, she would never admit they didn’t fit. “Oh they’re lovely” etc etc We thought she would be laughing… OMG, they are sooo small, but she just couldn’t !