I have been through something similar, says Annalisa Barbieri. Try joking it off – or face the problem head on

I am being constantly body-shamed by my family, and it hurts.

I moved to the UK years ago and built up a good career. I am finishing my master’s degree part-time while working full-time; I have also recently started my first managerial role. Juggling my studies and a full-time job, means I go back to my country only once a year.

However, every time is the same: the first thing my parents say is that I have got fatter, since I went from a size 12 to a size 18. They ration my food. They are also keen to let me know that I have to stop eating badly before I go back to the UK.

This has been going on for years, and I am fed up. When I started working in the UK, I was paid very little and struggled to get the money for a flight;. In the past couple of years, I have started to feel very anxious before going back, and now I have mixed feelings about seeing them again.

You don’t say, but I wondered if your family were Italian. I had this once, visiting wider family – not my mum and dad – after a gap of some years. In the intervening time, I had gone from a childlike figure (size 8) to a womanly one (size 14) and the response was brutal. No mention of any of my achievements, of asking how I was or if I was happy. Nothing to do with me at all. All to do with my weight. It took me a while to work out what was going on.

A size 18 is hardly obese, so it is not as if they can use your health as an excuse for their “concern”. In any case, a far more constructive idea would be to make you feel safe and supported so that you might open up about why you have gained weight – if it bothers you.

I contacted Catherine Crowther, a psychoanalytical psychotherapist (bpc.org.uk). She said: “I wonder if the food/weight issue has become a focus, a cipher for something else that has gone wrong between you and your parents?”

Maybe your parents felt left behind by your moving and that commenting on your weight was a way of expressing that? “Your parents may feel as if they have lost track of you,” suggested Crowther, “and one thing they feel they can do is comment on your weight.” Of course, we want to stress, this does not make it OK.

I am not surprised you feel anxious; your parents are reducing you to little more than your weight. I understand how despairing that can make you feel. They should be focusing on how wonderful it is to see you.

“There must be a certain rage that when you go back they are not seeing you,” Crowther said. “They don’t see your achievements – and you have achieved a lot – only your weight gain.”

Crowther also wondered if there was something in you that was – perhaps – rebelling against your parents, in defiance?

We wondered – not to say that it is easy – why you couldn’t try to make a joke of it and say, “Yes, I love my food”? You mentioned, in your longer letter, a relationship that ended and how food gave you comfort. Of course, eating is a classic way to self-soothe and avoid emotions. But the relief is usually short-lived and the feelings perpetuate. You may want to look at this a bit more.

Practically, you can’t never see your parents again because of this (unless there is more to it than their comments). One way round it may be to Skype, so they can see you more and you can get this issue out of the way before you meet them. Or you could face it head on and say: “I find it really upsetting when you say this – is that all I am to you?” Would it upset you if anyone said it, or is it upsetting because it is your parents? In other words, is it what is being said or who is saying it?

With my family in Italy, I realised I had looked like a teenager for a very long time, so every time they saw me they could convince themselves that time had stood still – I looked the same. That made them feel safe. But when they saw that I’d grown up, they had to face reality: time had ticked on. My weight gain reflected back to them the fact that they were getting old; they dealt with it by blaming me.

• Send your problem to annalisa.barbieri@mac.com

Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.

Follow Annalisa on Twitter: @AnnalisaB