The question have you eaten can carry a kind of love that dislikes announcing itself.

Have you eaten is often a declaration of love wearing practical clothes. In many families it is the closest thing to an open statement of care that anyone offers, and its practicality is exactly what makes it sayable. The concern is real and it has been translated into something less exposing.

Learn to hear it. If someone asks you that repeatedly, or checks whether you got home, or notices your coat, you are being told something. And if you come from a family that speaks this way, you are allowed to answer in kind, or occasionally to say the plainer version and see what happens.