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.

I had peas with dinner, can confirm you can cut one in half. It was a bit awkward but it was my first try.

Thank you for your kindness ❤️

It’s very difficult because my mother is not the kind of woman who ever admits any of her “faults”, so admitting to having disordered eating is not something she’d ever do. In her eyes, her way of eating and her body are better than those who don’t eat or look like her. Everyone else is just lazy, gluttonous, disgusting, lacking in willpower etc.

I feel that perhaps my posts might seem a bit dramatic for this thread, but when it comes to eating; unless I have a serious, legitimate concern for somebody’s health, I’m keeping it zipped!

I agree with you wholeheartedly. My GM was the one who would cast an eye with asperity over my food choices and comment that she couldn’t imagine eating “that much in one go”. She would frequently state that, at a size 12, I was “far bigger than I ever was at your age”.

My DM (we’re now NC) was constantly on a diet throughout my childhood and would warn me about eating too much and getting fat, which was practically worse than death in her eyes. She is now obese.

The happiest I’ve been with my body has been in the years since I stopped talking to her.

My younger family member has just been diagnosed with pretty severe anorexia. This shit sticks, cuts through each generation like a fucking knife.

Everyone should just mind their fucking business when it comes to someone else’s food choices.

Some of the stories on here are really sad. I feel as though I say this rather often but sometimes it is more polite to be direct - when someone comments on how much you are eating say something like “Yes, I’m hungry. There is no need to comment”. I think the mum who tried on her daughter’s coat to show how big it was on her shoulder have been told that it was rude. Pretend to be an English speaking German / Dutch / Swedish person.

It’s fine to have a small appetite. My Mum does and she couldn’t give a shit what other people eat. But times have changed - it’s now very aging to make a fuss about how you couldn’t possibly eat all that or it is “too rich”.

You clearly haven't read the thread, OPs replies and the many others calling out mothers, friends etc. for competitive undereating. Good for you for having a good attitude to food and zero trauma related to food today. Unfortunately, that's not what some women experience and carry with them.

My friend/landlady has a step sil that had a gastric sleeve a good few years ago, every time she is at a restaurant/family meal, does she say "not much for me,you know what it's like with my sleeve i can't eat much"
She such a bore with it, that and her constant bragging about what's she's got,and how she buys other people things as they can't afford xyz but she can, how she only flys first class blah blah blah, you just see people eye rolling the whole time

I’d be tempted to make a joke of it. "Oh look, it’s the "who can eat least?" competition again! What’s the prize? Presumably not a Mars Bar!"

That is unhinged 😂 I'm so sorry you have to deal with that!

No one needs meat. Lots of vegetarians are perfectly healthy.

If someone doesn't understand basic nutrition that is a different issue, completely unrelated to their meat consumption to which 'eat more meat' is not the only solution.

Won't work. These people have no sense of humour.

So sorry to hear about your family member 💐 sadly, I cannot see this generational link ending anytime soon. I thought it had seemed to level out but from what I’ve on social media recently, it’s rearing its ugly head again.

I think this is why I feel less and less “sorry” for my mum and my aunt as time goes on.
My sister was in remission for 18 months before she died.

When she was in remission she told me this;
Yes, she did have thoughts that she was better than me, or our other sister, or her friends who were heavier than her. She felt repulsed by us sometimes.
Yes, she felt good about chopping her food up and mushing it up into tiny pieces so it looked like she’d eaten more than the rest of us while knowing she was smaller than us.
Yes, she did feel great about the fact she finally became a smaller dress size than our mother.
Yes, she felt brilliant about knowing she weighed the same as her 5 year old son, and felt better than him when he ate an ice cream while she ate ice cubes.

But did she ever once vocalise these thoughts in the vicious way my mum and aunt did/do? No.
She NEVER vocalised it because she knew how horrible those thoughts are and the damage it can cause. I look at my nephew (her son) and I feel so bloody angry that something that seems so small to some (commenting on what someone’s eating) can lead to a child having to grow up without their mother!

I was having Sunday lunch in a pub with a friend, when a woman walking past looked at my plate and said, “Oh, I could never eat that much! I couldn’t even finish the children’s portion!”
I looked her square in the eye and told her, “Well, I can.”
My friend was livid. At her, not me. 😊

This is what my grandparents are like. Would probably prefer me to be a murderer than fat. All other achievements are extinguished by a raised BMI.

Sounds familiar

i can’t possibly eat dinner; i had lunch 5 hours ago!

I”d have to be a cnut and announce to the table laughingly that “obviously granny still her her eating disorder”

xx

I'm 68 and my appetite has declined but I'm pretty sure this will never be me. My Mum was a terrific cook and loved her food, and we ate well as children. I once took her out for a meal when she was in her 90s. She ate almost nothing of her main course, but wolfed down a big portion of tiramisu! She taught me that food is a joy and not something to fear.

You certainly would be a Cnut by saying that.

This.

Prats the lot of them

My mums like this. I had an eating disorder that she knows full well about as I was a child but still comments on my weight now, how much I eat, she could never eat that much and now my adult sister has started doing it and it enrages me. The people who gave me shit about having an eating disorder can openly flaunt their disordered eating and try to food shame me.

I choose to not spend time with them.

Dear me. It's ok to admit you made a mistake in attributing something to me I didn't say, or even just ignore the correction and not make yourself look a tit by doubling down. I'd have let it go. But I'm not going to now, particularly as you're also attributing other things to me that are pure invention. It really is tragic when people are reduced to this level of bullshitting.

The fact that you don't give a fuck about women needing more iron, whilst being Very Concerned Indeed about them needing less calories, is exactly my point. The overall health needs somehow become a concern when it comes to wider societal obesity, but not the significant problem of iron deficiency in women.

Thank you again for spelling it out so beautifully for me just what a laughable double standard you and people who make this argument are perpetrating. You quite literally are the evidence.

Oh no. I'd eat it all out of spite. You want dinner? Order dinner!

Got to be honest - the baby voice would annoy me a lot more than the performative undereating.

Eating disorder

I have crohns and during times of flare up (now) I eat so little it makes me feel sick, but if I eat much I end up being up all night in pain. But I HATE anyone noticing or commenting. Only my DH knows how little I actually eat in these times. And only because he cares.

It would irate me too, someone playing silly buggers like this. Fine if you don’t want to eat much, but stop the attention seeking. Some of us have had a life of genuine food problems.

That would drive me insane too OP. It's hard but I'd try ignore her comments and divert the conversation, she can always leave the table whilst everyone else eats and enjoys their meal.