Thank you, DCUM: parents and ILs weird with food

Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I think it's maybe a perfect storm of age, upbringing and current situation. I could see my parents devolving into this. They are super-generous FEED YOU types, and make everyone feel at home, kitchen is your kitchen.

But they also have a really bad fear of wasting food, thanks to growing up just post depression, when things were scarce and you did not waste food.

So now they are older and they eat much much less, I can see that they kind of don't want food in their house because they feel obligated to eat it and not waste anything. There's a deep anxiety about this and my mom will eat a bit of something until it's gone. But if we bought a big ham over I think she'd freak that she'd be eating it forever!

So maybe this is the angle to explore? Fear of waste = a devolution into not wanting to deal with food at all?


I think it is combination of this and just how obese so many people are in general. I’m a nurse and the very old ladies are always commenting and asking me why so many nurses are fat. They are appalled. They grew up in a generation where you don’t waste food but you also don’t let yourself get overweight


Yes, the generation of cigarettes and uppers as weight management. Way better.


+1


Don’t forget Slim Fast! My mother decided I was overweight in late high school and started feeding me these and only these for breakfast and lunch. I do not have a great relationship with food and my weight seesaws wildly +/- 30 lbs.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:So it’s decided this is a WASP thing? I am white American but catholic (Irish/Eastern European) and if I don’t pack up enough leftovers to feed a small army after guests eat at my house I’ll be haunted for weeks that I didn’t make enough.


Yes. My old school WASP grandmother even had an expression- FHB for "family hold back" even when there were no guests. She just didn't want people to eat that much.


We have napkins with "FHB" on them as a joke at Thanksgiving.
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