Are older people obsessed with commenting on other peoples weight?

[ByZanyRubyOrca]

I’m a nurse and have previously worked in older peoples care, so usually around 60+ and find they (mainly women) are obsessed with commenting on other people’s appearances such as how they look, if they are attractive/not attractive but mainly weight comments.
Examples of real life comments “Isn’t Kirsty putting on the weight? Laura has lost too much weight and looks gaunt. Charlotte needs to wear more make up if she wants to find herself a man. John is getting too big, how can he even walk?

I also noticed when I was around 14, my nana would also make comments on everyone’s weight, even her grandchildren (girls and boys) so she would have been around mid 50s then so not old at all. Comments would be made to add context I suppose, but then she would just make comments without it being relevant to what she was talking about.

When I was 20, I visited my then boyfriend’s nana for the first time and she made comments to him about my weight, right infront of me, as if I wasn’t there. Saying how I was fatter than his sisters 😂 I wasn’t fatter than his sisters at all, in fact I was several stone lighter ( was a size 8 at the time) but even if I was heavier why even mention that or bring it up? She then offered me several of her size 20 jumpers, as she thought they might fit me as they were too big for her, despite her being a size 20. Nothing wrong with being a size 20 at all it’s more that she’s saying they were too big for her and I would fit in them, despite me being a size 8 and there’s clearly a obvious difference in size.

Has anyone else experienced this? I work with people in their 20s and people older than me and have noticed they don’t really talk about weight or make comments on appearance.

Surely it depends on the person? My Nanna (born in the 20s) was a great biscuit pusher and would always say “oh, you’re like a lat” if you declined (even if you were very much not like a lat)

And I’ve never heard men talking about but I’ve heard many, many women talking about someone’s weight

This is my experience with my parents tbh. They are obsessed with weight. My father commented recently about a journalist on the news 'I don't want to sit here and watch some fat cow reading me the news'. I challenged him strongly. My mother is the same. Both are short and dumpy with apple body types- as am I. My sister is more like my paternal aunt- very slim and slight. She never gets comments but I have had them all my life. My mother when she stays with us now goes into my closet and checks the size tags of my clothes so I cut them out before she comes. Apparently I am 'too sensitive' and it's just because she cares. My mother also recently mused sadly that it was so sad so and so had died of cancer because she had lost all that weight in the months before her death and was 'looking the best she's ever looked'. It's sick.

I have 2 DCs and they have taken after their father who is very tall. My mother comments all the time how 'wonderful' it is they have inherited his shape and not my 'hobbit genes'.

I am 52 and a recovering bulimic. I can't stand people seeing me eat but have managed to force myself to eat main meals with my family (I usually hide to eat breakfast or lunch) and i have to keep telling myself that being overweight is not due to any issues with my worth as a person.

I'm so sorry but this is all kind of fucked up. Cutting off your clothes labels so your mother won't see them. Guess that's reflective of how their negativity has pulled you down mentally. It's not you with the problem, it's your toxic parents. I hope you've managed to find some kind of therapy.

I hear men talking about it as much as women. Sit near a group of blokes in the pub and you'll hear it, about each other, themselves, other people.

That's very true. I remember hearing about the pull a pig contests. Awful.

Thank. You. 👏

My mum and my aunts all pass judgement on weight as the very first thing they say when they see each other or other female family members. I hate it!

Some people seem to think it's ok to comment on other people's weight. My own experience is that it's not age dependant at all.

This is terrible. But please, EDs can spring from any family. We’ve never owned scales, never commented on weight, always been happy in our own skins. Yet we have produced a daughter with a pernicious ED. She herself says it’s entirely her own. She’s a slightly autistic perfectionist. And her bad influences were more from social media. She has never once blamed us. And I believe her.
shes 27 and 10 years into her ED. Functions highly, but I fear like yours it’ll be a long haul.
your family sound difficult but it’s not always about comments made about weight. It’s so very complex.
my best wishes to you xxx

The idea that saying "older people" doesn't mean "all older people" is a bit batshit.

How when you expect them to add “some” or other words when you could take it at face value and not assume it means “all”.

There's a lot of push back in the replies and I think it's because people now know it's not acceptable to comment on people's weight/size/whatever.
I'm in my 60s and my parents' generation wouldn't have hesitated to comment. A friend and I laugh now about comments from our mothers indicating we were too fat/likely to get fat/whatever. I think it was just more the norm. Both mothers were on a semi-permanent diet.
My mum was 94 a couple of months ago as an indicator of age band. They didn't worry about offending people, just said what they thought.
I'm not saying it's ok, just what was, I think, the norm for a lot of people. To make a horrible generalisation, those people are generally over 80 now, I think.

Other way round surely? On face value, the OP is talking about all older people, by saying "older people". No modifier means we're talking about everyone in that group. The OP could quite easily have avoided this, chose not to, and then doubled down on "you should understand that I didn't mean that"

‘Scroll on if you don’t like the thread, love’. !!

Seems to be your reaction to anyone who does not concur with your opinion.
Is read and disagree no longer an option on MN? Maybe you should make it clear, love, that only those who admire your wisdom are invited to respond.

My mum is 74 and is like this. Has been all her life. She would comment on people in the street, people she knew, anyone really. She’ll comment to me about my brother ‘putting on the beef’ and I know she’ll do the same about me.

Mumsnet really loves the opportunity to “bash” older people. Which usually means “over 50.” I suppose the admins have tightened up a bit on the abuse other groups used to get, so the oldies are all that’s left.

I do think there has been something of a generational shift in the acceptability of commenting on weight/appearance in general. My parents, and other relatives of similar age, would definitely comment that someone had put on/lost weight, or was looking 'quite mumsy these days' or similar comments like that (not to the people concerned, only in the third person). Younger people don't seem to make these comments generally. Anecdotally, it's much more common to hear comments on weight in some other countries too, so the shift perhaps hasn't happened to the same extent across cultures.

I'm 79 and I certainly wouldn't ever comment on people's weight. I think young people are far more judgemental about things like that.

😂😂😂 the grannie’s will be coming after you now 😬

Excellent point @phlebbo 👏🏼

I think it depends on the person 's frame of reference. I am 61 but have been blessed with a good education including higher education plus seen plenty of wealth both in the affluent of South East where I grew up plus in London lived there many years learned loads about the world. I do observe plenty of overweight and obese people but I only care for their health plus the massive strain that is on the NHS from this. I have the manners not to open my mouth over this.

My ex husband's mother was like this , always commenting on weight. She had one daughter thin as a rake and one short and fat,and another an average size, the short and fat one was better looking, but she was still mightily jealous of the thin one cos the mother revered her the most. Fucking hilarious well rid of them all weird fuckers 🤣

What’s a very small number of people? I interacted with around 18 patients per day, that’s just on my bay, not including the other patients in different bays. So that’s 112 people per week, over 6000 patients per year, that just I interact with. I would say that’s quite a large number of people to met for only one person.

I think you’re confused at who needs to show compassion.

This has obviously went over a lot of people’s heads. But let’s ignore the question asked and instead let’s get our knickers in a twist because some assumed I meant “all”. So much pearl clutching over their own mistake.