Daddy was never a skinny guy. He had a pretty average build and a healthy appetite. He did lose some weight and became more fit after having his heart attack at 39 years old, but that was fairly short-lived (unfortunately). Otherwise, he looked "healthy" (in the Indian sort of way 😬).
But things changed after Daddy's stroke. He lost a lot of weight and became much skinnier. He wasn't as mobile, but he also chose to not do much rehab so he lost a lot of weight just from atrophy of his underused muscles - and the change was pretty dramatic. His appetite also was not as healthy as before.
However, he never looked "sickly", but Mummy was still always on him to eat more so that he could gain a bit more weight. But he just scoffed at it and didn't want to eat too much. It seemed like a lost cause.
During my last year of medschool, I took a trip to India for about 6 weeks before graduation. My parents were already there and it gave me a nice opportunity to see family and travel. Mummy came with others to pick me up from the airport, and we were on our way back home. Much to my surprise, when I saw Daddy, he had gained a lot of weight.
A lot of weight in the sense that he kinda looked like a butterball 😆.
I saw him, smiled, and told him that he had gotten fat. Daddy looked at Mummy with concern and asked her if that was true, and Mummy said "no, no, no, you look fine". I didn't realize he would react the way he did to my comment, which made me smile even more.
I asked him if he had been eating more, and he said that he had because people kept force-feeding him food. He said that he would get asked multiple times a day about eating, and even when he refused, they would give him food. So he relented and ate and his appetite greatly improved.
Mummy tried so hard to get him to eat (and he loved her food so that wasn't the issue). He was just too stubborn, and she would stop pushing it if it seemed he was getting agitated. But in our culture, you have to make sure your family/guests are fed adequately and most would not take "no" for an answer. And typically this meant eating AT LEAST 50% more food than you would normally eat before you would satisfy those offering you the food.
For example, once my Neelam buaji told me she had made about 100 gulab jamun (a sweet Indian dessert) all for me, and I figured she was just joking. At dinner, when she had already made me eat twice as much as I had originally intended, she told me I wasn't allowed to leave the table till I ate at least 10 gulab jamun. It was amazing even though I felt I was going to explode 🤣.
There would always be multiple people you would have to refuse, and they would usually come in waves. Nothing like hitting Daddy with the proverbial poke in the side a million times over till he got annoyed enough to relent.
Genius.