A controversial food/manners problem

[Riverz]

I acknowledge I likely have a degree of misophonia around food noises, but this is a sensitive topic and I am unsure how to manage it. I feel like they have no manners or awareness and I don’t know if I am being unreasonable.

I am not commenting on anyone’s body shape or size. They are a mix of male and female. I eat 3 meals a day, and snacks if I am hungry as I assume a lot of people do. I don’t want to make people feel bad about themselves or give a lecture but it’s not always good social manners is it?

There are 3 different adults in my life I have no choice but to be in close proximity to regularly who all separately appear compelled to be eating almost continuously and this is really affecting me being around them.

Person A will start around 9am and eat continuously until 5pm. This includes a large breakfast and lunch. They will eat a variety of different meals and snacks. I will often wear NC headphones (which works well) but I can’t wear them all day as I sometimes have to talk to people. This person frequently talks with their mouth full of food whilst I am talking to them or other people in the room. Sometimes I am able to go elsewhere.

Person B is also constantly snacking and it’s usually almost always crisps, and it’s often taking place MID conversation with them which is really annoying. They will also often be making their meal in the kitchen, moving around getting in the way of everyone else, while chatting and still shovelling crisps in their face while they talk to you and waiting for their food. If there are biscuits in the jar, they will just keep going back to the jar and eat their way through the entire jar pretty rapidly

The last person C I do not have to see as often as the others but last time I invited them to my home to host them, they sat at the table and just continually ate their way through an entire buffet over a couple of hours leaving behind a huge mess of crumbs. Whenever I visit their house they are always eating or talking about food.

Is this socially normal nowadays or am I the weird one?

I don't think it sounds normal and I'd like to think that most people have a basic level of manners around eating food. Person A and B seem to have missed this. Do you have to work with them?

If someone is talking to me with their mouth full of food, I usually interrupt and tell them I can’t understand what they’re saying in the hope they’ll swallow it before continuing the conversation. It’s utterly gross.

People over eat these days. That's why everyone is fat.

It would bother me a little too. I find watching this behaviour makes my appetite fade.
I think I'd just avoid them wherever possible.

I understand OP. It drives me up the wall that my husband is always snacking between meals. He cannot come into the kitchen without having a biscuit, some crisps, a handful of nuts. Sometimes I feel the soundtrack of my life is him munching, which he manages to do quite loudly. He is about 4 stone overweight too.

They’re probably eating more than is good for them, but I don’t think it’s anything to do with you, and it’s not their fault that you’re annoyed with them and don’t like it. I don’t think anyone should feel like it’s bad manners to eat in front of others as a general rule - eating isn’t a private activity. Only if eg others are fasting for Ramadan, or if it’s a serious meeting where full concentration should be visible.

None of these examples sound normal. Are these colleagues or family members?

I do relate to this, it feels like a soundtrack of torture all the time and it is exactly like this with just mindless constant eating, all the time.

I don’t want people to eat in private (just at mealtimes) but they are eating constantly, I barely speak to them in interactions without seeing them with food. It’s always in the room with us being consumed and if makes me feel uncomfortable like i am a voyeur to their binge eating it feels I am being the invasive one

I feel I am a little more sensitive to it as I find the noise to give me an aversion but I don’t think they are aware how much they are doing this so it’s not their fault. I’ve watched it escalate over a number of years

No wonder so many people are obese in this country. Everything seems to revolve around junk food and constant snacking on god knows what, crunching, slurping, burping and often chucking the rubbish down for some poor sod to clear up.

Were you trying to check everything off your MN bingo card in one post?

If someone's talking to me with food in their mouth, it's ok here to say chew your damn food or don't talk with your mouth full of food, ew.. You could try I'll talk to you when you've finished eating. That's disgusting.

I'd stay out of the kitchen until snackers are done or ask them to give you space to make your breakfast or lunch or whatever. Ask them if they try to come in to please wait until you're done cooking.

Or move.

I’m not going to comment on their size that’s not what this is about

This is the funniest thread.
You need to live with different people, OP: diet people.

Continuously? Really? Never stop eating from 9 until 5? How many bags of crisps a day can they get though then? It takes me about 5 minutes to eat a bag, that would be 12 bags an hour, 96 per day … sounds expensive and … unrealistic.

I bet they are having something like one in the morning and maybe one in the afternoon but because of OP issues, she calls it constant.

Family share bag size crisps are often involved

the person I had round to a buffet ate 2 large bags of kettle chips to themselves plus a lot of the other food

examples of snacks

from 9-5:
huge bowls of cereal
yoghurts
nuts
rice cakes
crisps
cakes
baguettes & sandwiches
Tupperware’s of pasta
chocolate bars
biscuits
crackers

it is possible for people to graze food all day

I don’t eat on a diet or asking people to diet I am asking to be in peoples presence or conversations without the constant presence of food

You invited them round to a buffet?