A
female
age
51-59,
anonymous
writes:Would be very appreciative of some advice regarding my ""attention seeking"? friend, please dont be nasty! need genuine advice please.I usually see a particular friend (we are adults) once a week or so, when she is in the city where i live (and work) for her work, this is 2 days a week.. She has had a very, very difficult 2 months and has been stressed and had lots of things change, including issues with her irritable elderly mother and where she (my friend) is going to live. (Íve been there to supoort her through most of it.) She has lost about 15 pounds since all this and is 5'8, she weighs about 56kg (sorry, not sure what that is in pounds) she does not need to lose anymore! but i know she doesnt eat well, as she is still understandably stressed, (but she is much better than a month ago, she has somewhere to live for now..) and she has no definite place to live, she is staying with cousins in the country, 'til she finds her own place in the country. Everytime i see her she asks me if she has lost weight and shows me her stomach. I am so sick of it!! she needs to eat well and ive encouraged her to eat over the past weeks (we often met and ate together before all this)but she says.. " no thanks, i ate this morning" or says no. I have told her she looks great as she is, but.. she enjoys losing weight and eating healthy and is not eating much and.. so looking thinner, she is a dancer/dance instructor so has always been thin, and has ppl look at her.. so being thinner is great to her.. I nearly yelled at her last week to shut up, as she kept asking me "do you think ive lost weight?" when i saw her, she knows she is thin and she knows i know she is thin! she smiles and smirks when i told her she needs to look after herself and not just her beloved pet dog, she knows it gets me mad..help!! what can I say to her when she asks this? ignore her and change the topic? its her life i know!! but she keeps asking me " how much weight have i lost?" when i see her, she doesnt have an eating disorder but im worried that she may if she keeps this up. shes a good friend and i have been there for her through most the stress, but im over her asking me this!!please dont say take her to the doctor or counsellor, shes in her late 30s, and very very stubborn and sarcastic and if she wants help and thinks she needs it,then she must realise and then get help.what to do? I think she loves the attention of being thinner, im fed up with her self absorbed remarks, yes her life has been s**t recently but yes ive, and others have been there for her and she needs to shut up about the weight! i dont want to stop seeing her as a friend, just want her to shut up, about the weight, so i ignore her comments?I am not jealous of her weight! im worried for her is all.
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female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (11 October 2010):
 Your friend sounds slender but not unhealthily skinny, at least not yet. Since she is a dancer / dance instructor, let's give her the benefit of doubt and assume she knows how important is ( for everybody but for her in particular ) to take care of her body and maintain it at a fit, healthy weight.
I guess that all you can do when she starts bringing up her weight again, is just changing rapidly subject and tryng to engage her in converations about something else. Sooner or later, she will get the hint.
A
female
reader, kih88  +, writes (11 October 2010):
 Next time she asks you if she's gotten thinner, just say "My answer is the same as what I said last time, but sure, why don't you ask me another few thousand times?" and don't even look at her, lol. Eventually, hopefully, she will get over herself and realize that you're unimpressed/unmoved by her constant attention-seeking.
Another way to look at this tho, is that she is insecure about her body and wants to feel like at least someone is noticing her and saying something nice about her. Do you think she's on the way to having some kind of eating disorder? If so, get other friends or her family to take notice and maybe they can help sort her out if you yourself can't convince her. But as someone who has looked at a bunch of diets--I've noticed that healthy meals tend to be in smaller portions. I would say only be worried if it starts to look like she's drastically decreased her food intake from what seems like should be normal, or if you see that her body is starting to look sickly rather than a healthy sort of thin.
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