To think my husband, son and daughter shouldn't have 'staged an intervention'?

[SoniaSwanners]

Last night, my husband, adult son and adult daughter and I were all in our car and my son saw a small pizza box under one of the seats. I'd had a pizza the day before, while on my own - as a treat. My son said, 'Mum, you've got to start eating more healthily, we all want you to live as long as possible and it's not good for your health to eat junk food', and there then followed an hour and a half of husband, son and daughter all saying:

• I'm overweight
• I should be worried about becoming Type 2 diabetic
• I should be worried about my blood pressure
• I keep saying I need to lose weight and eat healthily and then I don't do it
• I keep saying I want to treat myself occasionally, but then treat myself whenever I feel like it.
• It's easy to eat healthily - you just make sensible choices; what's so hard about it?
• I shouldn't make excuses or deflect - I should just do it and sort myself out.
• they're only going on at me about it because they care about me.

Now, all of this is maybe true. I have massive willpower in every other area of my life, but not in relation to food. I have always eaten too much and not as healthily as I should have. However...

• I swim every single day if I can, for an hour, which is very good exercise.
• I eat healthily (cooked from scratch meals, very healthy) most of the time
• my 'vices' are: lack of portion control, tending to finish off leftovers, and too many takeaways/meals out.

I felt very attacked and berated and kind of assaulted from all sides when they spent 90 minutes hectoring me about it last night - and felt a bit scared when they said, 'It's easy - just make different choices', because it might be easy for others, but it's decidedly not easy for me, psychologically - which is why I've never done it properly before.

Am I being unreasonable, and are they just trying to help me/ensure I live for as long as possible? Or is there something off/wrong about suddenly laying into someone over their weight/eating habits?

They're worried about you. Presumably you love these people and don't want them to feel worried. Eating pizza alone in you car is worrying. If it's a snack on top of your regular meals it's worrying wherever you eat it. The fact that you dont think it's "that" bad is worrying.

Warum postest du auf Deutsch? Das ist eine englischsprachige Website.

It kind of baffles me you have to ask this TBH.
People you love are coming from a place of worry.
Ask yourself why you're defensive.

There’s an intervention and then there’s an ambush. One of them having a quiet chat with you, suggesting ways they can perhaps help you to achieve what they’re suggesting, is one thing. This sounds a bit like three people finger-wagging. I might have offered to take on some cooking with you, try new recipes, go on walks with you, that kind of thing. You know, offering practical support. Telling you ‘it’s not that hard’ is incredibly dismissive. Some people, myself included, have really fraught relationships with food going back to childhood. I think that would have pissed me off most of all.

I see your families point of view. My DH has gained a huge amount of weight in recent years, he now has a diagnosis of sleep apnoea and I have worried on more than one occasion I’ll find him dead in the morning. He makes half hearted attempts at losing weight, but then will eat a whole pizza at midnight and keeps crisps by the bed in case he wakes up hungry in the night. I finally had enough and told him he either sorts it out, gets therapy, loses the weight or I’ll leave because I won’t stay and watch him kill himself. He’s just signed up to start mounjaro and has found a local therapist to support him while he works through his issues around food etc. my approach was harsh but the soft and kind method didn’t work, sometimes you need to take more definitive action.

Because the poster’s moniker was German… and TBH the comment sounded fairly Teutonic, too!

I think you haven’t given enough information, what’s your bmi?

Cause it’s a different conversation if your BMI is 25 vs if it’s 45.

It's probably better to speak English on an English speaking forum.

Also, don't assume we're on 'du' terms or use dodgy translate apps which capitalise verbs and 'du' in the middle of a sentence. Poor, poor try, C minus.

I do know that it's important to take accountability for changes in your life, and not expect others to do everything for you.

A pizza alone in the car tells me that you do have a bad relationship with food. You must have been trying to hide it ? I think they are saying it out of love and are worried for your health.

I know you feel attacked but it was probably difficult for them to say this.
I have been in your shoes in terms of ‘treating’ myself. I worked a long day- have a treat. I’ve done so much housework- have a treat. All emotional/ work/ personal stress- have a treat! I felt I deserved it. It became normal.
It may not be suitable for you but I’ve lost two stone on Mounjaro and it’s changed my relationship with food in a really positive way. Good luck

Indeed.
I think she thought she was being clever, she wasn't.

That would probably depend on how many times they've already tried a gentle approach and what they've already tried in terms of support.

Cooking and walking with OP isn't going to help if she's still eating secret pizza in the car.

It's more complicated than the YABU/YANBU question. They should not have talked at you for 90 minutes about it, and rather than talk about you making different choices, they could have talked about how they could support you or what you all could do differently that would help you. Rather than harangue you, which is very unlikely to result in any changes. They are obviously all concerned about your health and wellbeing, but have gone about expressing it in totally the wrong way.

All of this depends on whether you are actually overweight enough for it to be a concern though?

If even a few of the points they made are true then yes that have reason to bring this up with you.

It’s not normal to secretly buy a whole pizza and eat it to yourself and hide the box in the car.

They obviously love you and want you to be healthy and alive for as long as possible.

sometimes when a mirror is held up to our behaviour we automatically go into defence mode.

Take a moment to think about what they’ve actually said and what changed you can make in your life to be healthier.

I hear understand what you're saying now. I understand it would be humiliating to be talked to like this. People often think they can say what they like to someone who is overweight/obese. Especially obese.

Both really I think.

They were probably coming from a place of love, but going on at you for 90 minutes crosses into bullying/ lecturing.

I actually think eating alone in your car and them feeling entitled to lecture you for 90 minutes are connected - it's unsurprising to me that you eat in your car on your own specifically because you anticipate a judgemental audience at home.

For some of us (especially mothers but not solely) over eating is actually not really about food but about having something - a moment of time as well something that as an isolated incident is harmless yet "forbidden", like the wife and mother eating alone instead of thinking about her entire family's meal - selfish, entirely for ourselves and not for the family.

I've gained and lost far too much weight in my adult life and I'm pretty sure it's never been about food really. My parents controlled food to an unusual extreme (not due to money) when I was growing up, as well as not respecting my privacy as a teenager and my disordered relationship with food started there, but my years as a young mother of multiple children did cement it - sometimes two minutes alone in the kitchen eating leftovers when I was clearing up was the nearest I got to "my time" - someone else always expected something from me. It's hard to shake that when your only time entirely to yourself is still the commute to and from work.

I actually think your family are probably making things worse, invading the only private space you have and criticising what you do in your car on the way home from work!

They probably come from a place of love, but perhaps suggest that they can best support you by giving you more time to look after yourself in other ways. At least your swimming time is time to yourself - perhaps you need more time like that, and then you'll feel less need for ten minutes alone with a pizza!

As @SilkCottonTree says, your family have all been worrying about this and finding the empty pizza box was the last straw. They're not entitled to nag and nag you but they're allowed to not be happy you're eating yourself into a sad and restricted old age

An impromptu whole family intervention doesn't feel very sensitive TBH I can understand why you feel defensive. However, being overweight is bad for your health and listening to someone repeatedly talking about losing weight and them not following through on it must be worrying for them. I would take this in the manner it was intended and use it as a jumping off point to make some changes.

Good luck

Maybe. But I’m recovering from BED and I can promise you that the very last thing that would have helped me get to this point is three people upbraiding me for an hour and a half about how fat and undisciplined I am, and how the thing I’m battling is actually an easy solve.

This is the problem with these "interventions". They may come from a place of love and good intentions but it must be so hard for the person involved not to feel everyone's ganged up on them and is now listing all their faults. Shitty self esteem is often what's behind the behaviours they're trying to prevent so I think they often do more harm than good. Especially since there are some people who say it's done with love etc but actually just want to tell someone off while feeling virtuous.

I don't know what the solution is. I think people change behaviours in their own time and the best thing to do is to show support for that all the time rather than a big performative show of an intervention, so they can start making changes when they're ready and know you aren't going to be judging them, just going along supportively. Ultimately you cannot force anyone to change.

It enrages me when families pussy foot around their unhealthy relatives' feelings when their habits are toxic and damaging to their health.
I know someone who had had 2 new knees and now needs a new hip purely caused by being overweight. And each time she needs support and 'looking after' during recovery. And who does that? The family of course. She can't play with her granddaughter as she would like.
And the family have never said 'come on, take yourself in hand'. It's all 'you're fine as you are' nonsense.

For some of us (especially mothers but not solely) over eating is actually not really about food but about having something - a moment of time as well something that as an isolated incident is harmless yet "forbidden", like the wife and mother eating alone instead of thinking about her entire family's meal - selfish, entirely for ourselves and not for the family.

I do this with wine - I can totally identify.

Expecting a lecture about food would be a good motivator to eat in the car, wouldn't it?

They're not being unreasonable. You are.

They're all united in feeling worried, concerned about your emotional state, your behaviour and your health. They've been feeling this a long time, and they all feel the same.

Hiding a pizza box will have been the last straw.

They're doing this out of love, concern and fear.

They're right.

Stop sticking your head in the sand and do something. I'm over 60, have elevated blood pressure and was over the NHS obesity line. I'm doing something and it's working for me.

Climb out of denial, and seek help, first for your mind then for your body.

They love you and they're very worried about you. Can't have been at all nice to hear and I'm very sorry you were upset but their points do sound fair. I think take it as sign they really love you and look to make changes; with their loving support you can make some really good changes. (As someone who has been there - exercising fantastic, but it's changing to satisfying portions of delicious, nutritious food with a strong emphasis on protein and veg that really helped, plus focussing every single day on why I was doing. (In my case reasons of health not to look slim for particular event or whatever). ). 💐💪🏻