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 can totally believe this. My (mostly) otherwise sane MIL nearly has a fit every time I dare eat. "Oh are you eating AGAIN? Oh I couldn't possibly...is that...<gasp> TOAST?"

This is usually after we have "feasted" on her idea of dinner which is a few salad leaves, a slice of tomato and a boiled egg, or a few rice cakes with a smear of hummus. I used to get wound up over the years but now I just bring groceries when we visit so DD and me don't starve and I tune out her nonsense, since she is otherwise lovely.

I'm sorry your meal was ruined OP.

christ I’d be starving

This you?

"I wanted to say MYOB fatty."

Ah sure I'm probably 'triggered' though.

I said I wanted to call them fatties, but didn’t. I’m relaying the story.

So are you like this?
Because I know EXACTLY what OP means and it is infuriating

That sounds like a full plate tbh.

God how tedious. I can imagine how annoying that must be. I’m lucky that my mum is ok about this sort of thing. I’d just nod along and think, ‘well it’s your bones that will break thanks to your self-inflicted malnourishment’ and chow down on my food with gusto.

why do you have to?

Where’s your cutlery from? Sounds much sharper than mine.

It’s insufferable

went on holiday with my sis

i only eat half a fish (me having a WHOLE fish)

i only eat one donut (me eating 3 sugary donuts)

i only eat one burger at the BBQ

fuckinghell…… I couldn’t wait to come home to eat judgement free. FUCKING GOOD FOR YOU!!!!! Yeah it gives me the rage.

Bingo!

They come from a generation of women where it was considered unseemly and undignified for women to take up too much room. And they were told that well behaved women had to keep a ‘nice figure’ for their men.

So yeah… misogny. A powerful thing. Still keeping women slim and knowing their place since the 1950s folks.

Cutting a pea in half performatively? Every family has their nuts, guess that's yours.

DH is same age and that's how much he would eat. His appetite has diminished as he gets older. He wouldn't say anything mind, he would just quietly eat it. He has a problem if a plate is too full for him as he hates wasting food. I easily eat double what he does.

The average brit is overweight. With little clue what a normal portion looks like. 2 pieces of salmon, peas, cauliflower cheese, potatoes for a 75 year old is most definitely a full plate.

and a quick advanced search always shows more than intended.

I've seen it all now! Women maintain a healthy weight because of misogyny! Maybe our modern gender equality is to blame for the obesity crisis!

God I love Mumsnet.

I hear you. My mum does it these days, but she's on WLIs. Christmas day as we were dishing up, (onto her small plate while the rest of us had normal dinner plates) she said in her most sanctimonious voice 'i just try to eat as little as possible these days.' she's done it again today - made such a big deal about eating off a small plate, yet as I went into the kitchen as she was dishing up the last bits she's shoving roast lamb into her mouth. I find it infuriating but in my gentler moments I try to be empathetic and remember how much conditioning there's been for women to think their worth is tied to dress size and ability to be restrained.

Not I’m genuinely not. I don’t have the hunger hormone. I’m very hyper, rarely relax and rarely get hungry. It isn’t a plan or anything I created but it does make me self conscious when people watch my plate and comment on it.
I wouldn’t monitor their plate. I don’t discuss how often I eat.

But that wasn’t what she had? 2 potatoes not 2 pieces salmon! she literally had a small piece of salmon, 2 potatoes (she left 1). A sppon of peas and some cauliflower cheese.
Not exactly a heaving plate full.

“It’s a skill she’s perfected “
and she’s done that because it’s hitting your last nerve. Or a very good one at least.
ignore it. Can’t spoil something that can’t be spoilt, no matter hard someone tries. You’re just letting her do it. Ignore it completely

@SatinPajamas

Have you been hiding under a rock? The diet industry was rooted in mysoginy. Keeping women small, starving and distracted. That’s not quite the same as being slim and healthy. If you’re cutting a pea in half you’ve got problems. That generation didn’t keep thin to be healthy. They kept themselves small because they were conditioned to do so.

My mil is the same bmi 14 and refuses to eat properly, passes out several times and takes laxatives but refuses to to accept she is anorexic

if you give her scampi she will scrape the crispy coating off - any pastry attached get scraped and pushed around the plate saying its too rich

once watched her eat a potato for xmas dinner

only way i can cope with this is to say nothing and tuck into my food

It could be worse, albeit it is infuriating.

My Mil used to demand bits of our lunch (in a pub) to make up a doggy box (for the actual dog) before we started eating.

Got a friend who did the whole penis portion thing too. My calorie intake is roughly the same as my DH, so it was very annoying.

I find commenting on someone else's food one way or another really irritating and down right rude. A small appetite person saying 'I'm so full, how could you eat so much' is equally awful to a larger appetite person commenting 'is that all you ate, you'll fade away, you must be starving'. Just mind your own business everyone. Also people commenting on the food in general eg that's full of addictives/ calories/ how can you stomach that, it looks gross, ugh the smell etc. I teach little kids and they eat their own lunch from home. One rule we have is it is bad manners to comment on another's food and we have made it a strict rule. It seems a lot of adults missed that lesson.

Why didn't you just laugh? And shove a huge roastie in your mouth. Next time serve her meal in an egg cup.