my size and eating habits

my eating habits and weight are closely observed by my chinese friends, apparently. i am seeing this more and more over time. lately it has been an almost daily topic of conversation, since i have been eating lunch with chinese friends almost every day lately. it's apparently a very easy topic to bring up at lunch time. they comment on how much food i eat, or don't eat. i have one friend who continually tells me i shouldn't waste food at our work lunches each day (what do i do when it is a daily struggle to tell the servers the right amount to give me? they like to pile it on! and then should i eat it all anyway when it's just too much, even when i tried to tell them the amount i wanted? i can't eat too much food everyday at lunch...ugh...). today my friend told me, "you have a lot of food today--are you sure you will be able to eat it all?" i didn't say anything because i didn't know what to say!
her boss often comments that i don't eat a lot of food. usually i just go along with these conversations and say things like, "i eat until i'm full." my size is continually compared to how much food i eat--"it's because you eat so little." although today i was asked if people in my family are thin like me. and then when i answered, they went on to talk about the size of their parents and grandparents. the one friend who always tells me i shouldn't waste food likes to tell me about some other dish she's eating that i didn't get and how good it is. "you should try some," she says. today i told her, "i have to eat this other food first." "good girl," she told me. she confuses me... she wants me to eat more food, but she also wants me to not waste food...

i think that this continual conversation about size and food is somehow a way of caring about people. i know these people care about me. maybe they care about me a lot because they bring up this conversation all the time!! it almost seems like if you notice someone's size and how it changes and you care about what they are eating, that is a way of caring about them. i kind of have trouble accepting this... what do i say when people are continually telling me that i'm so thin? "sorry, i can't do anything about it?" it's not that i don't eat enough food... i really eat much better now than i did before i came to china. i eat enough food. i eat vegetables. i eat meat. i eat rice and bread. i eat fruit. i eat chocolate. i think no matter what i ate or didn't ate, my chinese friends would talk to me about it. i really think it does mean that they care about me. but why do we have to talk about this every day?? i'm not sure how to respond to these conversations anymore!

on a funny note, the day i returned to work after coming back from japan, i spoke briefly to one chinese friend in the morning. in the afternoon during a conversation with another friend, she said that the first friend i'd talked to earlier in the day said my face was fatter since i came back from japan. i think that is a compliment? !! =) but apparently my chinese friends talk about my size even when i'm not around!!