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.

That's a clever gotcha, isn't it? 🙄🙄

OP clearly isn't talking about weight in the medical sense, is she?

My mother (aged 80) is sadly also like this. She now has dementia, but that's not the reason- she's been like this as long as I can remember. Everyone is judged on their weight, fat or thin, and commented on. I recently lost six stone, and she eventually said, "oh, you've lost quite a bit of weight, haven't you?" Yes mum, yes i have. "You look quite ill, you'd better not lose any more". For the record, I look bloody good, I do not look ill, but she can't bring herself to compliment one of her own children on weight loss. Instead she said, "oh you'd better not have a piece of cake with your coffee, you don't want to put it all back on!".

I didn't want the cake, but after that little barb, I had it anyway.

We’re definitely living in an obesity crisis. Obesity is starting much earlier in life compared to what it use to be.

Maybe it's because all of this body positivity has encouraged younger people to think that being fat is ok. There are so many young fat women wandering about. They dress up like a goth or in Hello Kitty gear and bunches as if that detracts from their obesity. It's their " safe space" . Maybe that's why you @ByZanyRubyOrca don't hear it there?

yes 100%. Not exclusively older people, but a strong majority.

probably because they’ve lived through so many periods where weight was the be all and end all.

i remember my ex showing a pic of somebody he knew in the paper to his GM, she said “what a nice girl, nice and slim” and it’s always stuck with me because wtf.

all my older relatives comment, it’s like a big anticipated moment if you’ve not saw them for a while because when you enter, it’s immediately going to be followed by a visual scan and update on your weight. Tiresome.

that said, so many people are fat now and “body positivity” has a lot to answer for.

I would guess she didnt have many people to talk about in the 70s, now its fairly unusual to see someone of a slim build/normal weight. Perhaps thats why she's talking about it more

I feel your pain ❤️

My cousin's grandad met his then girlfriend for the first time. She was bilingual, a very successful barrister and pretty good at surfing. The only thing he could think to say about her afterwards was 'she's a big girl'.

My gran was obsessed with my auntie's weight as long as I knew her. It destroyed their relationship.

Nobody else in our family ever seemed to notice fatness so on my experience alone, I can see where you're coming from.

I'm 67 and have never knowingly commented on someone's weight unless they bring the subject up. Some older people presumably do, some don't. It's rather like young people - some of them think that it is imperative to remain in physical contact with their phones 24/7, others don't.

No, I didn’t have an over critical family. Just one nana who would mention people’s weight. I mentioned to a PP my mother was never like this, who is in her 60s now. My great nana never made any comments about weight/appearance.

Yeah 60's seems a bit young to be classing as 'old' and weight obsessed. My parents are 70's but definitely have goldilocks' notions about weight. Having grown up with parents affected by war, my parents have very set notions about weight. My Mum still tells me I have done well if I finish my dinner - I'm 42! On the flip side, they'll tell me it's an ill wind that blows no good if I lose a few pounds due to a vomiting bug. There's a 6 pound window before I get random comments either way.

Could be that? It’s bloody mortifying though and it’s said with such utter venom. It does make me want to spend less time with her in public as a result.

If you'd said people of 75 or 80 then I might have agreed, up to a point. I think that some (by no means all) women of that age, do lose their inhibitions. And yes, they grew up in a different time when there was still rationing. I have had women of that age comment on my weight, my skin, my hair or what I'm wearing. It's a sort of Miriam Margolyes thing that they do. A put down but they say it as if its friendly.

But the thing is, I'm 61. And I would never dream of commenting on anyone's appearance. So I'm not all that happy about being called old or spoken about as if I was affected by rationing (which actually ended 10 years before I was born). And really, you can't pass judgement on older people being rude about your weight, when you are being equally rude about their age. How is being sizeist any more offensive than being ageist? Two wrongs don't make a right.

Yeah, my mum does this all the time, age 73. It will be one of the first things she comments on if she hasn't seen me. Weight plus what people do for a living. It seems in her eyes thus equals people's worth. She also comments on strangers weight etc. When I was younger I had an eating disorder. So yes, I have experienced this first hand OP

Suggest you look up what prejudice actually means. But here you go.

Preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

MY experience 👏🏼

"Older generations are obsessed with weight........"
I'm of a similar age to your mother, and I have no interest whatsoever in other people's weight.
Neither do any of my family, friends, and acquantances of my age group.
Just because your mum and aunts were ignorant twats regarding commenting on your weight, doesn't give you the right to stereotype a whole demographic.
Your opening comment is ageist and extremely insulting.

Having said that, I'm genuinely sorry you had to experience that behaviour.
I would argue that your mum and aunts were more or less guilty of emotional child abuse, honestly, and I hope you know that you didn't deserve that.

I’m a nurse and have previously worked in older peoples care, so usually around 60+ and find they (mainly women)

I think you have the age group wrong. I think there is a point to be discussed, but it is in some people over 80. I am surprised that you work with so many 60-year-olds in older people’s care?

And because of the difference in life expectancy, when you work with older people, there just happen to be many more women than men around. I’m not sure these behaviours you describe are particular to women.

So, in your 50s is ‘not old at all’, but people who are 60 are ‘older people’? What a load of ageist shit. You do know that one day you will be 60? I bet then you’ll be outraged if someone spouts this crap at you! ODFOD

Yes. I remember my nana saying this when I was young, no one was fat. But when i was in primary school, early 90s there weren’t many fat people either. Was probably one fat boy in my class and that was it. Then as years went by it became more normal.

You need to mix with intelligent people in order to have positive experiences . . .

Many were relatively slim during their lives and can't believe that youngsters are going into adulthood carrying so much weight

There was a lot of undiagnosed mental health needs, manifesting as very disordered eating - right down to putting their own children on restrictive diets

Diet culture was strong during the 60s, 70s and 80s, with the cornflake diet and the champagne and boiled egg diet quite famously the tip of the disordered eating iceberg

The joke is of course, many of those commenting are pretty obese themselves...

oh dear god <scrabbles around for smelling salts> I was born before that....

"older generation" 😱. I still have older family members though, in their 80's and 90's so I still don't think of myself as the older generation - THEY are😆

I don't know anyone my generation who comments on people's weight, but it certainly was more common for that older generation above me to do that.

to be fair to them the contrast must have been quite shocking between the slim people of their youth in the 50's and what they were beginning to see all around them. Old photos of my parents and their friends show they were all very slim.

Do you have any comments made to you about your weight or appearance at this age now or when you were younger?

Fifty nine year old checking in. Oh deary dear. Next year I’ll
he turning into a judgemental old trout according to some on this thread!
I do think the generation above me (my mother’s generation) went through rationing and were by and large a very slim bunch. Women were also judged on appearance more than brains. Must have been awful for them. Crazy diets abounded.
by way of contrast I’ve never owned a set of scales, and never commented on anyone’s weight. And yet my 27 yo daughter has an eating disorder. Shit happens whatever you do

i wish posters would quit with wild generalisations

My mum, aunt and uncle all in their 70s and 80s constantly comment on people’s weight, but they always have. I think it came from my grandmother who did it too. I remember the women in the family on every diet possible in the 70s/80s and a general obsession with weight. Sadly all obsessed with mine as a child and felt they had rights to comment on it, causing lifelong issues and very much influencing how I feel about them now and the emotional distance I maintain. Generationally they think it is the norm, or they would if they thought about it, really they don’t even notice they’re doing it. It certainly won’t be true of everyone from that generation and many who might have done it previously will have moved with the times and reframed their earlier views, or may never have held those views in the first instance.