Older generations of women and weight

[CoffeeMumForever]

Do you think older generations of women, eg 60 plus attach more importance on be-ring slim and frowning on heavier women? I think they do. Also it seems to be a middle class thing too, eg keeping looking good for your ‘man’

Your Nan would have a teenager during the rationing for the Great War and would have perhaps been raising children through the depression of the 1930s and the rationing of the second world war.
The 1920s 'no curves' look would have been her hey day so perhaps that's why she liked your 18 year old shape.
I had never given it a minutes thought until this conversation why she was like that.
My mum.and previously nan, did my head in about womens weight.
My mum is even critical about how much weight my sister has put on because of her cancer treatment. She keeps saying its such a shame she has a moon face now.
Ive given up arguing and its one of the many reasons why I cant be arsed any more!

Upper class women seem very focused on their weight probably because most of them historically didn’t have a career and they had a little else to think about other than staying very small.
They also had less chance of recovery. I would imagine if their man strayed. Again, historically, I would hope

I can't see what's wrong with being slim, middle class and looking good for myself and my husband.
And I'm 46.
Or should this "attitude" be banned in your country as well? Presuming you are talking about Britain.
🙄

No. I am in that age bracket and it would never occur to me to judge people's weight. Far too many other interesting things to think about.

@notacooldad . It's interesting what makes people like they are, but no excuse ever for judging others. I'm like you in that I can't be arsed with it all.

I am sorry to hear your sister is going through that and wish you and her well.

That's so sad @kel7f6g

@Dexy7655 it really is, it’s the most defining thing about her and her life I think, which is tragic, I worry one day she will reflect on that and be remorseful with regret. Either way, it’s a waste of a life.

My mum is late 60s now and she is really good about it. She never called herself fat in front of me or my siblings and always said kind things about her body. She also was open about how having 6 children changed it. She was pretty slim (still is) but not skinny. My aunt on the other hand is really bad. She doesn’t say things around my kids anymore but any opportunity she gets she calls herself fat.

Couple of weeks ago me, her, DH and my uncle went to see a show and I got a footlong form subway (love a subway, sorry mumsnet it’s yummy) and I got the “are you gonna eat all that” lecture. Yes I am going to eat all that and I’m going to have a cookie and a Fanta out the machine. It’s annoying sometimes but it does make me grateful my mum wasn’t like that.

Agree. I'm 38. I work on staying slim for one reason only: slim/slender looks good, and fat does not. It's that simple. Health stuff is secondary.

As for 'the man', I have no intention of keeping him by any means necessary, but neither of us is attracted to fat people. I wouldn't be with him and couldn't force myself to have sex with him if he were fat, so it's only fair if he thinks the same.

I am the other way round, I do it for health, and looking good is the cherry on top;

as for my husband, he’s seen me at all weights and loves me regardless.

I've seen this post in 'active threads'...

My mum is OBSESSED with weight, size and body shape. She's 73 and working class and has been overweight her whole life, and is a lifelong fad dieter and HATES movement and exercise.

When I'm at her house, I know she's looking me up and down the whole time to assess if I've lost or gained weight (I'm consistently only ever a size 8-10). And she makes a huge fuss about what portion size of food she should give me. I think she likes to tell herself that, because I'm slim, I'm not much of an eater.

Her relationship with food and body image is highly complex.

When I see nice younger mums (40s, 50s) being kind and accepting to their slightly chubby teenage daughters, and making it clear that they are beautiful at any size, it blows my mind, as it's another world away from how my mum was when my sister and I were growing up.

I don’t think it’s a class thing, but you could be on to something re older generations.

My ILs have always been a bit sneery and quite rude about overweight people. My FIL once memorably said: I’m not very keen on fat people. Especially fat women’. I’ve never been able to get past it!

My MIL also once referred to my best friend (who is and has always been a larger woman) in slightly crass terms with reference to her size.

I admit to enjoying a bit of schadenfreude now that both of my ILs are overweight. 😂

Some of the posters on here making sweeping generalisations about "certain generations" aren't half talking shite. It seems to be based on what their mum or Aunt Nellie was like and extrapolated out to everyone in the cohort.

I often think this - in the post war rationing era I think being fat probably had connotations of having had 'more than your fair share' when there wasn't really quite enough to go around as it was, so I think people had very deeply ingrained dislike of 'greed' and overindulgence. And of course naturally due to rationing and less availability of foods people were slimmer so the few overweight people did stand out as 'different'.
These days people treating themselves doesn't carry the same connotation of having denied someone else by doing so.

I am an older woman, certainly not obsessed with my own weight or anyone elses.
But it cant help but be noticed that so many younger women, are obese. It just wasn't a thing when I was younger.
There was ONE fat girl in my school year (and I am working class) and she was bullied by some because of it.

Yes agreed, I think it’s still a relatively recent phenomenon. I’m a millennial and had the same experience as you; but by the time my kids were in school it was very noticeable.

But why do you feel looks are so important?
It speaks volumes that you care so much about looks - do you feel that's where your value lies?

Personally I've always felt looks come a distant second to stuff like intellect, personality. I'd always rather spend time with someone interesting and funny who carried some extra weight, than a gorgeous dull woman.

Interestingly this seems to have played out in the relationships I see around me - where friends and colleagues have been unlucky in love and ended up single it doesn't appear to be anything to do with weight or looks.

My grandmother who would be 98 if she’d lived grew up with rationing. They all did. She thought a 28 inch waist was heavy. More than one biscuit apiece was ‘greedy’ (even though she was a generous soul). She didn’t have lots of clothes, but good ones which she’d made herself. It’s a generation that couldn’t just pop a pizza in the oven and buy stretchy leggings in Primark. Obesity is a relatively recent phenomenon.

Sorry OP, but that’s a load of bollocks. I think the younger women I know are far more judgey, tbh, listening to them at work…

Being thinner when you’re older isn’t so kind on the face. I fully intend to be plump!

My mum is in her early 70s and is, and always has been, obsessed with her weight and that of other women. She seeks praise by commenting on how little she has eaten that day, and is astounded when people don't applaud but instead ask whether she is feeling ill. She keeps up a running commentary on the weight changes of every woman she knows and is very grumpy that I show no interest. Years ago she fell out with my SIL when she tried to get my SIL to join her in commenting on my weight and my SIL wouldn't have any of it.

I think that’s a lot to do with what dopamine inducers they can afford. Lower class woman can’t afford the handbags/tweakments/holidays that would bring pleasure to middle class women so find happiness with cake and takeaways instead. In addition, if you can’t afford the tweakments that keep middle class women looking good as you age you may be more inclined to think bugger it and eat more cake anyway.

When you look at photos from the 1970 through to the 1990s one of the first things you notice is how lean people were. Perhaps older people just really notice the difference.

Women with more money and leisure do tend to be slimmer. Simply because they can afford to eat healthy, often expensive foods. Organic everything if they. They also have the means and time for personal trainers, Pilates classes and things like that. The rest of us just try to stay healthy and exercise as best we can. Women whose only motivation for looking good is to please and keep their men have deeper problems. Therapy wouldn’t be a bad choice.

But we all judge each other all the time, that is why we are successful as a species - not saying weight is a thing to judge about well suppose it is isn't it as we want healthy babies and biologically would that be less likely with a very thin woman who didn't perhaps have periods or a very large woman. Same for men, does weight at some point influence sperm quality?

What my mum does is voice that judgment - on people who have no relevance to her, what does it matter if a nurse she sees is overweight, she still knows my mums blood pressure or whatever is not quite right! I said that to my mum, what so you want her to think oh i need to tell this woman about some issues with her test results, but she is thin and I am fat so I better not do that. Bloody bonkers.