Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some people don’t like to cook. They can do a delivery like Mighty Meals in the DMV. I would work on having healthy dinners first for a while and then see if they would like to learn some simple breakfasts or lunch ideas.

If she has a limited diet, she may have sensory issues. I would not try to make her try all new food AND learn to cook/ plan at the same time. That’s a lot of change. Also she has to want to change. Maybe her DH could just get some healthy delivery for himself.

OP here. Mighty meals is great. Part of the problem with SIL is that she literally won't eat anything but 5-6 things. Certain brand of frozen pizza, Tyson's frozen tenders, ballpark hotdogs, pepsi and captain crunch. That's it.

Why is this your business? You love the fact that you are shaming her here. You're a horrible person.

I disagree. She clearly has mental health issues, involving food, which is frightening for OP's nieces/nephews and husbsnd. She is simply concerned. This isn't about just the SIL chosing to eat junk food. What if your nieces and nephews exclusively ate pizza, hot dogs, and Pepsi? Stop with the faux fat shaming outrage. This sounds like a crisis

NP. We have a DIL who will take the trouble to drive her her kids (also our grandkids) to McDonalds and BK and order from there instead of learning to use the InstantPot to make healthy meals. Do we say anything? No. DS chose to marry an unhealthy overweight woman so he made his bed.

Anonymous wrote:SIL lives several hrs away but we see them 4-5 times a year. Good relationship. My brother in law, her DH, runs his own business and works 60 hour weeks. I've known her for 25 years. They got married 20 years ago and she stopped working right away. They had one child who is now am independent high schooler. She is a very lovely lady but a little lazy I think. She watches daytime TV all day and eats junk food. She doesn't cook ever. Her idea of cooking is popping frozen chicken tenders in the oven. She only eats processed foods like sugar cereal soda and frozen pizza frozen Tyson's strips. She has been eating this way her whole life and finds normal home food or even normal restaurant food unappetizig and veg is gross. In her early 20s she was slender. In her late 20s she was plump. In her 30s she was fat. In her 40s she is obese. She has HT, diabetes, ibs etc now. But despite all the health problems that are here now, she still won't change at all. No matter what doctors say. Or DH. DH is fed up coming home to frozen pizza or takeout fried food. He had sit down with her and said he wants home cooked basic food on table every night. He'd be really happy with pasta jarred sauce and side salad. He works crazy hours and Saud he'd cook himself if he could but he can't. His health problems are catching up too. Gout, hypertension, prediabetes etc. He said he can't go on doing this. My DH and I are relatively healthy eat home cooked food, meal plan and we both work. He says he's at his wits end. Should we have an intervention with her? We love them both but have been reluctant to get involved in this aspect. BC she's never asked us for that type of advice. They are both educated people living in a wealthy suburb of NYC with plenty of $ for good healthy food. Thoughts?

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Her DH asked us to sit down with her. But we are reluctant to. Don't know why I'm getting all this hate here. It is very sad to see her dealing with diabetes hypertension etc now.

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the helpful suggestions here. But please stop with the abusive language and insults. So far I've been called a b@#£&, a troll, cruel, toxic, evil, a douche bag etc. I'm just so shocked at the amount of abuse people hurdle at anonymous posters online. If you're going to attack me with abusive language please don't post. If you have something critical to say, I am absolutely fine with that as long as it's done in a normal respectful way. Would you say these things to my face?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP has shown literally no ability to deal compassionately with any of her family members. She should not keep going, whatever that means. She will make the situation much worse. She’s enmeshed and narcissistic, and will probably be cruel to all family members (she appears to already have been cruel).

I don’t disagree that the family needs significant help, but OP is incredibly toxic based on her own words in this thread. She cannot help and will only make things worse.

Oh shut up. She is concerned her husband's sister is a hoarder with avoidant restrictive food disorder living on pizza and Pepsi, and their child. Any normal human would be concerned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Your SIL is mentally ill. She has at least one psychiatric condition, an avoidant restrictive eating disorder, and likely others, depression, etc.

She does not need to be on board and the focus needs to be moved off her as some kind of gatekeeper.

BIL needs to take charge of his heath and pass on the Captain Crunch. He needs to provide healthy food to his daughter and get her therapy for her own developing avoidant restrictive eating disorder. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8089271/

One person's mental illness does not need to and should not be allowed to drag down 3 people. If he eats healthy and lower carb (protein and veg NOT pasta w/jarred sauce w/sugar in it) he may reverse own diabetes, esp if he takes up exercise. He should also get himself into counseling and see if the messages from Al Anon resonate, there are Zoom and phone meetings. If he has the money he should order healthy meal delivery for 2.

The mentally ill are unlikely to change. Think hoarding and the like. He needs to focus on what HE can control, himself and at least attempt to support the well being of his child. Her being groomed into an eating disorder by a mentally ill parent is not it. CODA may be another resource that could help him see the need to detach with love and knock off the enmeshment. His child cannot be getting proper nutrition.

Only once he and the child are healthier and have made progress in therapy should SIL's issues be focused on. She may need inpatient treatment, at minimum a qualified psych eval and outpatient treatment plus likely meds. https://psychcentral.com/eating-disorders/avoidant-restrictive-food-intake-disorder-symptoms#symptoms Even for ARFD she is on the extreme end. https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/blog/effective-treatments-adults-arfid
https://www.reddit.com/r/ARFID/comments/aqua62/can_you_have_arfid_and_be_overweight/

Even depression in a parent can have significant effects on kids, he really needs to step up and shield her. He may well be depressed and overwhelmed himself, thus the need to get support and an actionable plan re: HIS physical and mental health first. Oxygen mask. Since he has asked for help, start there.

OP here. This is one of tho most helpful posts Ive seen. I had never heard of avoidant disorder prior to today. By the way SIL has a shopping addiction and is a hoarder too. I will read up a lot on this and will send him this info.

I am beginning to think OP is a troll. So SIL is “lovely” but you now also add she is a hoarder and a shopping addict? Anything else? What is “lovely” about her?

You realize it's possible to be lively and still suffer from mental illness, right? You're the one saying they're mutually exclusive.

She has said nothing positive about SIL. She also has added important facts late in the thread.

Yeah it’s too sus when it goes from “she’s obese and eats terribly but is lovely” to she is a hoarder, shopping addict who is destroying the lives of her DH and child with her mental illness. And, in either case, OP talking to her is not going to help, especially if it’s the second scenario

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the helpful suggestions here. But please stop with the abusive language and insults. So far I've been called a b@#£&, a troll, cruel, toxic, evil, a douche bag etc. I'm just so shocked at the amount of abuse people hurdle at anonymous posters online. If you're going to attack me with abusive language please don't post. [b]If you have something critical to say, I am absolutely fine with that as long as it's done in a normal respectful way. Would you say these things to my face?[i]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I appreciate the helpful suggestions here. But please stop with the abusive language and insults. So far I've been called a b@#£&, a troll, cruel, toxic, evil, a douche bag etc. I'm just so shocked at the amount of abuse people hurdle at anonymous posters online. If you're going to attack me with abusive language please don't post. If you have something critical to say, I am absolutely fine with that as long as it's done in a normal respectful way. Would you say these things to my face?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://nami.org/Support-Education/Support-Groups/NAMI-Family-Support-Group

https://helplinefaqs.nami.org/article/50-how-can-i-get-help-support-for-hoarding-behavior

https://www.nami.org/About-Mental-Illness/Mental-Health-Conditions/Obsessive-compulsive-Disorder

That a child is living in the home of a hoarder and is being encouraged/groomed to imitate mentally ill disordered eating as a coping strategy is tragic. While it is convenient for the adults to see the struggling child as a little adult, everyone is failing her. Y'all need to do what you can to give her the chance to be more than a mentally ill shut in herself as an adult. She is under way more stress than a child should be and is not having any healthy coping behavior taught or modeled.

https://psychcentral.com/blog/dirty-little-secret-help-for-children-of-hoarders#1

This is what's going to happen. That's been my experience. "SIL" we'll call her for the sake of this thread, was threatened by the mere thought of her DC eating healthy food and actively pushed junk food -- which she brought -- when there was a choice (family gatherings). DC got fatter and fatter and fatter, just like "SIL". Guess what, people like that don't often leave home. In fact, they drop out of high school and keep their parents company for the rest of their lives. What a waste.

OP, I'm glad you are beginning to think about how you can help your SIL and her family. Ignore the posters who claim this is about fat and fat shaming. It's not. Keep going.

THIS is the tragedy that BIL and loving extended family should be working to divert, yet no one even pays lip service to caring about her future.

The obsessive, co-dependent focus on the most mentally ill of the 3 as a gatekeeper or necessary change agent is BS. Troll or you seem dysfunctional too, OP. SIL will likely never change. BIL has allowed his child to be neglected, malnourished and groomed into disordered eating, likely a coping mechanism for dealing with the stress of more or less raising herself.

Uni? Are you from the US? How do you know so much detail about the childhood meals of your husband's brother's wife, OP? And yet breezily mention your niece and HER own disordered eating and raising herself so breezily and offhand, late in the the thread?

Anonymous wrote:OP has shown literally no ability to deal compassionately with any of her family members. She should not keep going, whatever that means. She will make the situation much worse. She’s enmeshed and narcissistic, and will probably be cruel to all family members (she appears to already have been cruel).

I don’t disagree that the family needs significant help, but OP is incredibly toxic based on her own words in this thread. She cannot help and will only make things worse.