Constant competitive undereating is giving me the rage

[Bettercallsalli]

Family Easter meal and once again ruined by my mother!
After 6 mouthfuls...o im so full. Cutting peas in half...just makes us all that eat nornally on edge.

Why do you let it wind you up? You do you. She wants a reaction. Don’t react. It really doesn’t matter. And it “ ruined “ your Easter? Really.

😂😂

Devastating riposte!

Yup! My mum too. Regularly comments about how tiny she is, how she weighs the same now as she did at 15 etc. She also has one solitary small version of her normal dinner plates just for her to eat off. My 6 year old gets a wagon wheel for a dinner plate and she’s got this theatrically small one just for her! It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

My octogenarian mum is the same and has been my entire life. This manifested yesterday with her coming for lunch and bringing me crappy garage flowers instead of chocolate (I don’t need it apparently), commenting on how many eggs my 21 y.o DD had been given and how many calories that would be, but not making the same comment about DS’s eggs, not saying thank you for the very small chocolate egg we gave her, but sad facing and sayings how many calories are in it. Her favourite pastime is to tell us she’s only had cottage cheese for lunch. I now say everyone give Granny a round of applause for eating a food stuff she doesn’t like. It’s exhausting. She very much equates thinness with worth.

Good grief! Some people are just insufferable and you have to try your best and ignore it. Hugs.

Ooh I like this approach, might borrow it for my MIL. She is now very elderly and genuinely has a small appetite but still insists on sticking to a low fat diet despite the osteoporosis, the low body weight and the fact that she is cold all the time. When my SIL and the kids visit they stay with her but we do all the catering as she can’t manage. Constantly mentions that we are cooking too much food ie a piece of salmon each or a chicken breast each. But then insists on putting out three different puddings for both lunch and evening meal if we eat in for both meals.
The amount she eats comfortably fits on a side plate and I might downsize to an egg cup the next time. She will also cut a baby new potato into four pieces and eat only one, never seen her carve a pea but that is because none of the kids like them so they don’t usually feature!

No. You don’t have to leave her some. You choose to do so. I wouldn’t. My mother has form for being like this too.

What is this phenomenon? I know an older couple in their late 70s who love to tell how they share a ready meal for dinner and when they go out split a pub lunch. It comes across as bragging about it (if that’s the right word because it really doesn’t have the desired effect). Yet one of them in particular will always have seconds of an home-cooked meal and eat dessert very easily!! Is it competitive, trying to prove a point? I really don’t get it.

@GetOffTheCounter thats absolutely awful. What a way to view things.
Having been brought up in such an atmosphere with a mother who values being slim above most things, I’ve developed some unhelpful eating habits myself which I’m still working on in my 50s.
It’s definitely left its mark on me and I feel resentful quite often but try to tell myself that I’m an adult now and entirely responsible for what and how I eat but it’s not easy.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8619336/

https://share.google/DgTDT8YDrwAvUKt8S

Here are some studies if you can be bothered to read all of them, they are quite long.

The basics findings are that men eat more meat because they think it's really masculine and as they become more educated, higher social classes and have higher incomes their meat intake reduces, which is observable in other hyper masculine behaviours too. Women are much more likely to be vegetarian or vegan and more concerned about the environmental impact of meat and the health consequences of excessive meat consumption, especially red meat. So actually it's not about women feeling too ashamed to take their fair share of meat because of the patriarchy. Men want more meat than they need because they think it's Uber manly, until they become educated and affluent enough to not really care about that anymore. Women eat a normal, non exaggerated amount of meat because they don't care about looking Uber manly and don't want to have a heart attack young, get bowel cancer or contribute to environmental destruction which is a known problem from mass farming cattle. It's not that women need more and aren't getting it, it's that men need less but are overdoing it anyway, to their own detriment. But please, don't let that stop you waving your arms round shouting patriarchy!

And as for the shit hosting and getting the ratios wrong, a good host gives each guest a different ratio off everything because they know what they want. I know my dad and brother want a huge pile of meat and not much veg. I know I, my husband and mum want a big pile of toasties and parsnips, and just one slice of meat. I know my gran wants very small amounts of everything. It would be utterly stupid to cook a whole extra chicken just to give everyone a pile of meat equal to my dad and brother, just for it to go in the bin, because we can't have penis portions in the house and my nan WILL HAVE TO FORCE DOWN THE CHICKEN IN THE NAME OF EQUALITY.

You’d hate me. I had about a fifth of a plate and I didn’t finish that. I have a tiny appetite. I think it’s an age thing as I wasn’t always like this. I’m 53, so fully expect to be halving peas in my 70s.

It was just hilarious though. There's no point in arguing with someone very rude and clearly bitter from fat shaming about reasonable food portions, so you keep entertaining the OTT delusions of people literally serving food with garden tools and starving their guests instead of recognising figures of speech as just that, and I'll keep laughing at it. Because it's honestly ridiculous.

A good host knows what their guests like. I know my mum and grandma don't want half a chicken and ten roasties so I'm not going to put it on the plate in the name of equality so they can force it down or throw it away. I'm also not going to give my dad one slice of chicken and three roasties in the name of equality so I can listen to him complain about still being hungry for the next three hours. I just give them what they've always eaten because that's what they want and the family dinner table isn't a political war zone where we need to make points about patriarchy. But you do you and carry on doing that if it makes you happy.

MIL can be like this - some of it's performative and best ignored - comments pushed back on and model doing that to kids so teen girls do it themselves - and a real loss of appetite as she ages - FIL as well - so letting her get on with ordering from kids menu.

A lot from her upbring which was weird round food.

She also eats more calories throughout the day then she's aware of - large latte from coffee shops and 4 meals a day but claims to want to lose weight.

I did used to get uspet with it all - especially when a lot seemed directed at me - but it's just at any woman in her vicinity and she does stop when ignored and I honetsly not sure how aware she is with it all.

Fuck that, I would eat it all despite her. What a strange situation.

And as for the shit hosting and getting the ratios wrong, a good host gives each guest a different ratio off everything because they know what they want

What's funny about this is that you spent several posts a few pages ago (and again, actually) telling everyone on here what they want. But OK, I give you a pass for your family who you eat with all the time whose preferences you genuinely know. But that's not hosting in the traditional sense, or what you meant when you fantasised about using garden tools as cutlery to shame women who eat more meat than you deem acceptable, is it?

It's so weird how people will do things like serve women smaller portions (you don't mention measuring guests or quizzing them on exercise so I assume you do not also adjust for height or activity) or complain and start cat's bum mouthing at people in restaurants, and then take mortal offence when you suggest they aren't great hosts or dinner companions. Was the intention to be sparkling, joyful company?

Totally performative. Normal people get full, stop eating and make table conversation until everyone is finished. You don’t cut peas in half.

My mother was the same. Built like Audrey Hepburn. Picked at food like a sparrow. All her life. But as she aged she definitely could not eat even as little as she ate when younger. Appetite diminishes with age. You cannot contemplate eating what seems like vast amounts when you get older.

That generation also had rationing. And I think see the servings in restaurants and find them off putting. Grotesque even. More is not nicer. They find it off putting.

Women were also raised ( some ) not to have their face in their plate. And so mindful of this they ate carefully. It was the social norm of the time.

To be fair, they remained slim. And did not eat as much as their husbands.
What is difficult is to hear comments about weight and size. Without realising the world is a different place where food is concerned.

I cut my mum some slack where this was concerned. She was of a different time. But a part of me also listened. She was slim. I wasn’t.

Exactly this. My DM often says it’s weird but she just can’t eat as much these days.

Obviously if she’s going on and on about it then that’s annoying but I think you’re being a bit judgemental OP. Leave her alone (and maybe sort your own food issues?)

But does she cut peas in half…?

I’d say ‘goodness me, if I ate as little as you I’d be very slim’.

Ah this is my mum’s partner. She controls food for both of them. Frankly, he’s a twat so can choke on his one pea, but I digress. He will just sit at the table (even at other people’s houses, BBQs, plate your own food situations), waiting for her to serve him his permitted food. She will make small plates for both of them.

Then when he finishes, he will start asking everyone at the table if they’re going to eat that extra sausage or piece of bread, literally while we are all still eating. Even people he doesn’t know. It’s grim. Like some scavenging dog. Neither will get seconds. She will shove extra food in while clearing plates or will pick it out of serving platters after the meal. It’s a weird disordered dynamic. Not the only one of their relationship, I will add. 🙄

I simply say, yes, I am eating that sausage, thank you! And am grateful I have a happy, healthy relationship with food.

If you have lots round for dinner the easiest thing is to put food into dishes and everyone helps themselves. Not decide what serving everyone is going to have.

I agree that it has left a mark on me also. I am also in my 50s and currently have binge eating disorder. I used to be bulimic but thankfully got over the vomiting.

I still make sure i cut out all the size tags of all my clothes when I go visit her or she visits here because she will secretly go into my closet and look at what size I am.

Is it also possible that MIL has a hernia or some kind of reflux issue?

I am 48 and have found in the last few years that when I sit down to a full meal I feel overwhelmed. Whereas before I would hoover it up, now I almost catch my breath half way through. This has a massive impact and I can't believe I used to eat a full plate of chilli con carne or roast dinner etc without leaving loads of it.

I think I have a hiatal hernia which is causing it. Maybe your MIL has similar.