you can’t escape the office diet police

by Alison Green on August 19, 2024

We all know the office diet police: the people who say, “Don’t you know that’s terrible for you?” as if you’d chosen Flamin’ Hot Cheetos for their nutritional value … “Oh, I see we’re being naughty today!” as you eat a slice of cake … and, if you choose something heathy, “Ugh, another salad—you need a burger!”

I wrote about the office diet police at Slate today. You can read it here.

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  1. Jane*

    Ugh, I had a boss years ago who would occasionally buy lunch for the office from a local poke place we all liked. I prefer white rice over brown rice, so that was always my chosen base for my order, and my boss would loudly proclaim how unhealthy I was being. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

    1. Paint N Drip*

      :(
      UGH shut up Jane’s weird boss!!! Everyone has different needs and tastes.
      I have issues with too much fiber and can’t do brown rice OR salad; I’m also allergic to a dozen ‘healthy’ ingredients. I feel like a magnet for the food police

      2. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

        OMG, this. I have trigger foods that include leafy greens and many raw veggies, so no, a salad is actually NOT a healthy choice for me.

      3. DJ Abbott*

        I was just coming to say this too. I can’t even use brown rice pasta, it causes stomach cramps.
        It sure would be nice if there were more alternatives. You want gluten-free pasta? It has to be brown rice, there’s nothing else.
        I also can’t do salad and have several other food allergies, as well as my stomach being insanely sensitive. I don’t know how long I’d be able to keep my temper with these food police types.

        1. Blue Spoon*

          It’s very frustrating to me that the people who are really big into policing the food intake of people around them also tend to be the people who don’t believe that allergies exist

        2. Ice Queen*

          The best gluten-free pasta I ever found was a buckwheat-sweet potato one. It was so good. I found it once, and never saw it again.

          I still miss that stuff.

      4. Rainy*

        Same. I’m allergic to the bean family (including peas) and most of the brassicas as well as shrimp, chicken, and turkey, so I catch a lot of flak from basically everybody who has some kind of dietary axe to grind. I don’t eat lunch with my coworkers ever, as I don’t enjoy having my food choices criticized or commented on.

        1. Polly*

          When my colleagues and I eat lunch together, the only good talk is, “what did you get today?” “do you like it?” “mine is delicious” etc. I think we’re lucky that none of us is worried about what the others are eating. They all remember I have some sort of restrictions, but they can never remember what they are, which is totally fine, but it’s hilarious (to me) because someone always says, “there’s a vegetarian option!” That is not my issue, but I thank them for telling me. :-)

          2. JustaTech*

            This is one of the things I miss from before the Pandemic: my department used to actually go to the lunch room to eat in groups and we would talk (positively, glowingly!) about what everyone had for lunch that day.

            Now everyone just eats at their desk and we hardly ever talk food, but when we do it’s still that excited “ooh, that’s good, have you tried this?” feeling.

    2. Sillysaurus*

      I hate diet talk in general and also feel strongly that white rice is the correct texture match for poke (despite preferring brown rice for many things) so I find this story upsetting on many levels.

      1. It’s A Butternut Squash*

        Thank you!! I generally prefer brown rice because it’s less bland, but my internal reaction to this was “brown?! With POKE?!??”

        1. Jane*

          THANK YOU; I do like brown rice sometimes, but the nuttier flavor plus the fact that it can turn out kind of dry if you don’t cook it properly make it a total mismatch for poke to me.

      2. Filosofickle*

        Totally! Brown rice is delicious IMO but it’s not the right texture or flavor for poke.

    3. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      If it’s any consolation, I prefer the taste of brown rice and whole wheat bread and pasta. I can’t order any of it without comments about “eating healthy”; I just find the “white” alternatives bland!

      1. many bells down*

        Ugh I used to get comments like that when I was super underweight (cause unknown, possibly thyroid) and I’d be having a salad. “OH no WONDER you’re so skinny!” No, I just enjoy a salad sometimes. Plus if it’s slathered in dressing it’s not that much better for you anyway.

          1. Turquoisecow*

            Because it’s passing judgement on what people are eating. Do not comment on what is or isn’t “healthy” – it varies for different people with different health conditions, and you are not their doctor or dietitian.

            All you should say about another person’s food is “that looks good, enjoy!”

            1. Artemesia*

              The poster is simply pointing out that in the case of rice, the food police were wrong about it anyway. All rice is relatively unhealthy for those watching sugar — otherwise it is all much the same. So often food polite are not only annoying, they get it wrong anyway.

              And as others have pointed out in this thread without being slagged as ‘food police’, veggies are exactly the wrong thing for many people who have gut issues.

              No commenting on food besides ‘oh that looks tasty’ are out of line.

          2. Angie S.*

            People have to understand that for some Asian culture eating WHITE rice is part of the food culture. Questioning why they won’t skip the rice or why not switch to brown rice because of whatever health reason you believe, to me, is almost like questioning why Americans ask for turkey to be served at Thanksgiving.

        3. Sunshine*

          This would be food policing if it were criticizing what someone chose to eat. it’s not food policing to criticize Jane’s boss for presuming and being (generally speaking) wrong anyway!

        4. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

          I was interpreting them as saying “for all the food policers claiming that brown rice is healthier than white rice so that’s why they don’t shut up about your poké bowl, now you can finally shut them up by pointing out how wrong they are.”
          So less “food police” and more “throw it back in their smug faces”

    5. My oh my*

      So brown rice has a lot more arsenic than white rice. She should email her and let her know :-)

      1. Dr. Rebecca*

        I was actually coming down here to say “it’s white rice, it’s not like you’re drinking arsenic…” and then…wow, literally!

      2. Pennyworth*

        Is it true that if you soak rice for 12 hours and drain away the water, it removes a lot of the arsenic? And doesn’t arsenic content depend on the soil where the rice was grown?

    6. Percy Weasley*

      Boss was way out of line, of course; your preference is not their business. While I like brown rice, my body reacts to it very loudly & odiferously, which is NOT something I want to subject myself & colleagues to at work!

    7. Blue Pen*

      I will get the exact opposite, though! I prefer brown rice (it’s easier on my stomach, and I like the taste better), and anytime I order that way (whether at work or not), I’ll almost always get some kind of eyeroll or that I’m showing off (?) or being some kind of annoying health nut when I am literally just choosing one color over the other.

    8. Dancing Otter*

      Brown rice has much more arsenic than white, according to reputable scientific studies. (Oh, I see someone already linked a source for that. Thanks!)

      Okay, elemental arsenic may be natural, but it sure as He** isn’t healthy. I can take a fiber supplement easily enough; getting rid of chronic arsenic poisoning requires chelating agents, which are not a trivial matter. “No, thank you, I prefer my lunch un-poisoned, if you don’t mind.”

    9. Texan In Exile*

      I spent the ten minutes waiting for our order to be taken to tell a hiring manager how much I hated brown rice and how disgusting it was and when the waiter came, the hiring manager ordered brown rice.

      Reader, I did not get that job.

      (Also – I have come to like brown rice.)

    10. PurlsOfWisdom*

      I am not anti brown rice, and I use it often in certain applications.

      That being said…. my Hapa husband would threaten divorce (sarcasm, in case that’s not obvious) if I dared order brown rice for a poke bowl in his presence.

      1. PurlsOfWisdom*

        Also, and more seriously, let people order what they want and move on. It’s super easy. Jane’s ex boss should try it sometime.

        1. goddessoftransitory*

          Yep. Unless you are ordering a live barracuda with revenge on its mind and it’s coming right at me from your plate, eat what you want, I eat what I want, harmony and easy living prevails.

    11. Also-ADHD*

      Very weird—white rice isn’t even unhealthy and brown rice is only a tiny bit “healthier” (slightly more positive nutrients). The main argument for darker grains is they’re more “filling” but that’s not even an issue for many people (can be for weight loss, of course)! Calorically, brown rice can actually be higher sometimes (though still usually has a higher fiber ratio—but not by some vast amount). And you’re usually getting other sources of both protein and fiber in a poke bowl anyway. I would say the nutritional difference in the same bowl with different rice is extremely minimal.

    12. Sally*

      OMG!! This brings back awful memories, at least when I think about what went on. I’m going back quite a few years. At that time it was mostly women in our department and either one or two were keen to lose a few pounds. It was deemed a good idea for us to all join in. There were 7 of altogether. Each week one of the instigators would bring in a set of weighing scales that we had to ‘jump’ on and get weighed. It was truly horrendous and so cringeworthy. Everyone used to clap if you lost anything or patronise you in their own sick and twisted double speak way. “Oh well, you’ll have to try harder for next week then, so and so”. I can’t believe I actually took part.
      Thankfully, it did eventually stop but, my god it was truly awful.

  2. Jaina Solo*

    This reminds me of the time my one boss brought in pizza. It was a planned lunch and I heard a few of the other women on our team comment about having worked out extra the night before. I was gobsmacked–while not skinny, I was healthy and it never occurred to me to work out extra for pizza. Just, you know, make sure you don’t overreat?

    Oddly, the women I worked with seemed weirder about food. The men I worked with tended to comment if they thought I wasn’t eating enough calories and they were worried I wasn’t taking care of myself. (Yes, that can be a different issue, but we were good friends so it always sounded like a genuine concern not picking at me.)

    1. PJH*

      Just, you know, make sure you don’t overreat?

      Did they? Did they help themselves to, say, half a pizza each, instead of just the one slice?

      1. lost academic*

        I’ve been of various mindsets on this but now in middle age, and more paying attention to what’s in pizza, it’s definitely become a “plan for it” kind of food because a single slice of regular pizza is not particularly filling (for me) and is super high in various nutrients plus calories, so it can kinda throw off my entire day at this stage in my life.

        1. Arts Akimbo*

          Yes, I’m right there with you. Age makes a huge difference to metabolism. Now that I’m old and prediabetic, I have to really pay attention to calories to help keep my A1C under control.

          What I *don’t* do is talk about my calorie counting at work. I hate food/diet talk at work, unless it’s the exchange of delicious recipes.

      2. Jaina Solo*

        I think they ate one slice…maybe two. They definitely were careful how much they ate. And for the person who mentioned “as I age,” we were all in our 20s so our metabolisms were still pretty good :)

        1. I Pay Taxes, Too*

          Post-pubertal metabolism does not markedly slow down until your 60s; implicitly, this means that our metabolisms aren’t “faster” when we are in our 20s, either. Even for AFAB individuals – nope, doesn’t even slow down in menopause like everybody assumes (hormones do affect the way body fat is distributed, however, but not body mass). The single largest retrospective longitudinal study on tens of thousands of subjects was published over the pandemic and concluded that it’s not our metabolisms slowing down – it’s us slowing down.

          What happens to most of us as we go through life is we simply move less (life becomes more mentally taxing = we have less time, energy, and motivation to devote to superfluous activity), but appetite is habit so most people don’t down-mod to account for lower expenditure. Then they end up growing in ways that some will be unhappy with. Although you never have to “earn” food by doing exercise, your coworkers were being mindful and adjusting to changing needs weighed against competing desires (i.e. desire to maintain a specific physique vs. desire to eat pizza).

          Anyway, they were well within their rights to do so, so long as they didn’t police your or anybody else’s habits.

          Sometimes the conversation on this blog turns from the perfectly valid boundary of “people should not mind what others are eating,” to the overstepping “nobody should mind what they, themselves, are eating,” to the egregiously narcissistic, “people minding their own diets is triggering for me and nobody should discuss this topic ever” (which is not proper trauma management, anyway, but I digress).

      3. FricketyFrack*

        Wait, is half a pizza not a reasonable amount? Because I usually eat 1/3-1/2, depending on the size and I’m a pretty petite woman. I would just be starving if I only ate a slice.

        1. Giant space pickle*

          Reasonable is subjective. Every pizza can be a personal pizza if you’re hungry enough!

        2. Feeling Feline*

          Depending on the size of the pizza, and your own situation. I would be defeated after a single square, can’t have a full slice now, but at age of 12 I could eat one pizza then another 1kg bag of raw flour.

            1. amoeba*

              As far as I know, much bigger than European ones, which always used to confuse me to no end – like, a whole pizza is just… a regular portion for one person here, right?

              1. Wolf*

                Yeah, that confused me at first, too. A standard whole pizza in Germany is around 800 calories, so it’s not entirely unreasonable to eat a whole pizza as a full meal.

      4. Orv*

        I think you’re supposed to take a couple slices, then performatively pat the oil off them with a piece of paper towel before you eat them.

        1. Happy meal with extra happy*

          Do people see this as a performative thing? I do it because I find pizza dripping with oil gross.

          1. Having a Scrummy Week*

            Some people do see it as a performative/disordered thing (usually those people have a deeply flawed understanding of what disordered eating is), but I have been known to blot my pizza for the same reason as you.

          2. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

            Yeah I do this because pizza dripping in oil is not appetizing to look at or eat. I’ve heard it’s also a sign of a mediocre pizza place but given how many times I’ve come across it…that’s a hill I’m not going to die on at this point.

            1. Chirpy*

              I mean, oily pizza probably means they overheated the cheese or used the wrong kind, and the cheese “broke”, so…there’s that. (Or adding oily meats, etc). But it’s not like it’s a super unusual thing to see at your average pizza place, that’s getting into gourmet pizza.

              1. goddessoftransitory*

                It can also mean cheap pepperoni or other meats–those little discs can POUR oil.

          3. Orv*

            I first saw it during the low-fat diet craze, so I assumed people were doing it to try to lower the fat content and make the food “OK” to eat.

        2. I Pay Taxes, Too*

          People do not wipe pizza “performatively.” Somebody does something differently from me, therefore it must be for reasons I find insincere? What a toxic, self-centered mindset to have!

          My partner, who is trying to gain weight, does it because he finds the sliminess of puddles of oil on pizza unappetizing. I don’t care as much, but I hate grease sliding down my hands and wrists, so on an occasion that a slice is exceptionally oily, you’ll even see me do it. Even at home. Alone. With nobody to perform for.

          1. Snudence Prooter*

            I’m with your partner. Oily pizza is gross, plus there’s too much chance of the oil dropping off and onto my clothing. I dab even at home, eating in a room no one can see into.

      1. Orora*

        THIS. One person’s “overeat” is another’s “reasonable meal”. What is “right” for us is not right for everyone. We are all painfully aware of the conversations about what to eat, how much and when. What we are not aware of is the health and diet of another person.

        The only proper comment on someone else’s eating is, “That looks yummy.” If you don’t want to say that, your best option is to keep your piehole shut and MYOB.

        1. ferrina*

          YES!

          In my teens and twenties, my body would do this thing where for one week a month, I could eat anything and everything. Half a pizza would be great! Then for one week I would eat barely anything. Half a slice was all I wanted. Both amounts were the right amount for my body at that particular time.

          1. Orora*

            I’m on a med now that diminishes my appetite and makes me nauseated sometimes. Some days the idea of food turns my stomach, and even things that normally appeal to me sound gross. If I have a day like that, and the only thing that sounds good is half of a (or a whole) pizza, I’m eating it because I may not want to eat anything else all day.

            I shouldn’t have to explain that to anyone because it’s not their business.

      2. Jaina Solo*

        Personally, I didn’t care how much they ate. We had an amazing boss who always got enough food for office meals so we weren’t going to run out. I just hadn’t heard that mentality before so it was shocking and my default (don’t overeat) was front of mind. I never said a word though and let them do what they wanted–it’s not my business.

      3. Meep*

        Its when you loudly make it other people’s knowledge/problem that they get an opinion.

        For example, neither of my husband’s siblings are particularly healthy. It is none of my business that they weigh 350+ lbs. Unless they ask me for advice, I am not going to give it. However, the second my BIL starts berating his sister on not working out or eating better (which she did not ask for) when he eats MORE than her and doesn’t work out either, anyone is very much willing to judge him for his bad decisions since he opened the floodgates to it by being a massive jerk.

        Don’t want people commenting on your weight? Don’t try to fat-shame others. And, unfortunately, I find the majority of fat-shamers are honestly morbidly obese themselves.

        1. basically functional*

          Seriously, you have found that the majority of fat shamers are “morbidly obese”? (Putting that phrase in quotes because many fat people consider it a slur, fyi.) Is that based on your experience of being shamed as a fat person yourself? Because if so, that is wildly different from my own experience and I am honestly shocked. But if not, maybe don’t pontificate on the internet about things you know so little about.

      4. Mee*

        Not overeating is a 100 percent valid suggestion for people who are engaging in disordered behavior to maintain or lose weight.

        Those ladies want pizza and to not have it affect their weight. Working out to offset eating too much is the first step to developing bulimia.

        If they want to maintain their shape and have pizza, eating the pizza that fits into their calorie budget is a way better option than eating too much pizza and burning it off.

        1. amoeba*

          Yup, this. Personally, I couldn’t care less about how much pizza anybody eats (as long as there’s still enough for me), but if somebody started talking about “earning it” or whatever, I’d definitely be like “huh, just… eat a reasonable amount and you’ll be fine?”

          Of course, those people apparently still thought they had to “earn” their very normal portions. Oh well, diet culture.

    3. Butterfly Counter*

      It’s very much in diet culture that you have to “earn” particular foods. You have to create a net negative calories to justify eating more the next day (even if you’re eating the same amount of calories, just in a “bad” food).

      It’s insidious and awful and has been drilled into a lot of women and girls since childhood. It’s also really hard to escape from. I stopped in to Starbucks after a yoga workout a few months ago and after drinking a lemonade, I thought, “Well, I just cancelled out my whole workout.” Obviously I didn’t, but calories in/calories out as a mantra is so very hard to avoid.

      1. ripley*

        When we have an office lunch at a restaurant, most of the women in my office don’t eat all day to prepare for it. They always talk about it with each other beforehand or while they are looking at the menu in the restaurant. It makes me sad.

      2. Sheworkshardforthemoney*

        I used to treat myself to a yogurt based fruit smoothie after my workouts. I never occurred to me that it might be unhealthy, I just really liked the taste.

    4. Spicy Tuna*

      I once had a super cheap boss who was always on a “diet” (it consisted solely of black coffee so he was also in a rip roaring bad mood all the time). In an effort to not eat, he would schedule meetings over lunch time. We staged a revolt and his boss made him order us lunch if he insisted on scheduling meetings during lunch time. He would then order ONE pizza for a team of 12 people.

      1. ferrina*

        That sounds horrific!

        I get super cranky when I get hungry, so I am diligent on making sure I don’t get hungry when I have to be around people. My kid is the same way- when she gets peckish, she starts picking fights. Give her some food, and she’s back in a good mood.

    5. mreasy*

      I don’t think it’s terribly odd that women were weirder about food… we are the ones who bear the brunt of food shaming. Though it’s not like men & NB folks are exempt.

      1. Dust Bunny*

        Yeah, not odd at all. In general the other women in my life have been much weirder and more vicious about food than the men.

      2. Feeling Feline*

        I think western women/femme of my (Millennial) gen are socialised to be super weird with food, exercise, and thinness; meanwhile my fellow East Asians who are Gen Y and below are of a different scale of socialised to hate themselves. Not only the morality equates thin, pale, tall, large breasts, white-coded features, and low hairline, we are constantly reminded how we have obligation to hate ourselves if we don’t live up to that.

        I wonder what will femmes born now think of us in a few decades.

    6. Dust Bunny*

      This is where I have gone off on more than one Internet “health” guru when they say “You’d have to [exercise] [ridiculous number of hours] to burn off that [allegedly unhealthy meal].

      You don’t have to burn off the whole meal. The point of exercise is not to zero out what you eat in a day.

      1) You could eat the same calories in “healthy” food and still gain weight.

      2) You will use most of those calories just being alive. If you’re trying to lose and you eat a 1,000-calorie hamburger meal, you don’t need to exercise off 1,000 calories to make room for it. You probably need to plan ahead because it doesn’t leave you a lot of wiggle room for the rest of the day, but you don’t need to go on a 47-mile run.

      1. Meep*

        ^In regards to #1, the “protein” fad in America drives me absolutely nuts. People think so long as they eat a bunch of protein (mostly meat, not other foods protein is in) then they are being healthy when in actuality only 1/4 of your meal should be protein, unless a doctor recommends more for very specific reasons. Instead, most people’s meals are 1/2 protein and then they wonder why they get heart disease.

        My siblings-in-law have jumped on this craze and cannot understand why they are not losing weight. So they eat more protein. And right now they are thinking about going to butchers for “better quality” meat like that is going to fix their problem. It is frustrating as all heck.

        1. My oh my*

          Yes, this! Everyone is on the “more protein” train right now. I talk about diets a lot with vegans and older women, and even they are all about protein (not meat as much, but processed soy stuff, yogurts, powders, eggs). Your point is so correct – adding more protein is just going to add more calories. They think it will make them feel “full” – but I don’t see them eating less. Americans (even old ladies) are NOT protein deficient. What we are is FIBER and veggie deficient. Fiber and green veggies make you feel very full, and don’t add lots of extra calories like protein does.

          1. Dust Bunny*

            I did low-carb for about a month in college in solidarity with a friend and it was the hungriest, hangriest, most miserable month of my life. It turns out that I don’t function without carbs. Fat, fiber, protein, none of it will keep me going. I don’t need sweets, but I need some rice or a piece of bread or something.

            1. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

              To paraphrase a Ryan Gosling clip I saw recently (I don’t remember the movie)
              “You need carbs! Your brain runs on glucose!”

              1. Jaina Solo*

                The Fall Guy! I love that movie :)
                But also, yes I think about that when indulging in more carbs than I really need.

            2. goddessoftransitory*

              I turn into a combination of a rattlesnake with a toothache and an assassin when I get too hungry–one year for Lent I gave up sugar and man, I did NOT know what I was letting myself in for emotion-wise.

              Now, obviously I need to cut down on sugar in general, but the “cold turkey” thing was. a. mistake.

            3. JustaTech*

              One year when I was in college my parents did the Zone diet (like Atkins, but with more vegetables). Just before winter break I got a hideous stomach flu, so by the time I got home I basically hadn’t eaten in 4-5 days.
              All I wanted was bread and pasta. Even rice. They had cleaned the house out (perfectly reasonable, I didn’t usually live there). The best they had was some Ezekiel bread (the sprouted grain doorstop, which I like now but is not the same as a baguette).
              A few days after I got home (and had fully recovered) I went to a friend’s house and ate half a pizza. My friends were *shocked* because in high school I was always a not-quite-finish-a-slice person, but I was so desperate for carbs I just kept eating.

          2. DJ Abbott*

            I expect different bodies react differently to the proteins, as with most things.
            I can eat toast and nut butter all day long and will not feel sustained. When I started adding some chicken to my breakfast, I felt so much better in the morning! It’s a night and day difference and now I can have a job where I have to be awake, alert, and articulate first thing in the morning.
            My body has always told me that meat and poultry are much more sustaining. For me.

          3. Christine*

            I’m vegan, and the protein thing has been driving me crazy for decades.
            All amino acids are formed by plants. Any protein we eat (plant or animal) is broken back down into amino acids in our digestive tract. There is nothing magical about animal protein.
            We only need enough amino acids to build and maintain our tissues, enzymes, etc. Excess amounts are eliminated, which strains our kidneys. More is not better!

            1. Alexander Graham Yell*

              I really, really need to remind myself of this bc I’m literally seeing the effects of this in my bloodwork and it’s HARD to get past the pro-protein propaganda. I literally need to eat less of it but I’m struggling to find ways to reduce it because it feels like everything has protein added to it now and my body feels good/I feel fuller when I eat it. Do I know the answer is more fiber-rich foods? Yeah. Do I know how to quickly eat those in the morning? Not as much. But it really can (*and does*) mess with your body in ways that are very concerning to a doctor, even when it looks like you’re eating “healthy”.

              Oh look, I seem to have found myself on a soapbox. I’ll just step down now…

          4. Hot Flash Gordon*

            I have IBS and high protein foods or supplements are murder on my guts. I tried one of the new high-protein bars and it sat like a lead balloon in my stomach all day (don’t get me started on whey and soy protein…ugh). People need fiber to create bulk in their stool and help keep everything moving regularly.

          5. amoeba*

            Eh, I do think there’s some science in that – especially in menopause, when you need to prevent muscle loss. Ben Carpenter talks about it in his (very scientific, very well founded!) book – adding enough protein to your diet does have positive effects in general. But – enough, not crazy levels. And definitely not from mostly red meats or whatever, those have a whole host of other problems!
            Also, that’s advice when you’re actually trying to optimise your nutrition for whatever reason (building muscle, etc.). Definitely not for random strangers, at work, or whatever.

          6. I Pay Taxes, Too*

            Americans (even old ladies) are NOT protein deficient.

            This is objectively untrue. Americans do by and large get “enough” protein for our weight because most of us are overweight, so we are eating beyond our needs in every macronutrient, plus USDA RDVs of protein are woefully low to begin with (about half what they should be). However, literally the one population that is routinely protein deficient despite the meat-heavy nature of the SAD – and for whom more protein is vital because they metabolize it more poorly to begin with – is the elderly (age 65+).

            The ethically and environmentally worse news about it is that plant protein is not metabolized as efficiently as animal protein in the elderly, either. Muscle deterioration is dangerous in old age because of the instability and bone loss associated with it. A fall that you brush off at 20, leaves you a little bruised at 40, could lead to a broken hip and actually kill you at 80. Elderly women need more protein, not less.

        2. Dust Bunny*

          I think this is behind the anti-grain fad in pet foods, too.

          Your dog is not a frustrated wolf. This is a good thing, because wolves are really cool animals that make really terrible pets. Dogs have thousands of years behind them of acclimation to a varied diet. Feed your dog like a dog.

          1. Rainy*

            The anti-grain movement in dog food is not good. Dogs are successful companion animals partly because they developed the ability to digest grain and other human foodstuffs while they were being domesticated.

          2. Artemesia*

            grains in foods for cats and dogs like in dry foods are linked with development in diabetes in older animals. We now have our cat in remission and he has to eat low carb foot several times a day to maintain the remission — according to our vet. He was insulin for about two months and then went into remission.

            1. LL*

              Cats and dogs have different dietary requirements though. Cats are obligate carnivores – they HAVE to eat meat in order to survive. They don’t really need grains and all that other stuff (and possibly shouldn’t be eating much of it, although I’m not an expert).

              Dogs are omnivores, they can eat meat and veggies. They don’t need to eat the same all (or mostly)-meat diet that cats do.

              1. Hot Flash Gordon*

                Cats do need some fiber though. If they’re on super high protein diets, their poos can start to get smaller and hard to pass (also, those butt glands can get over-full because they’re not being fully expressed when they go to the bathroom). Also, if your cat has IBS (like mine), high protein foods can be triggering and cause diarrhea.
                Grain-free also doesn’t mean low carb, just that they don’t contain corn or wheat by-products. If you’re feeding them dry food (and some wet foods), check to see how much starch is added in the form of dried pea meal or potato/sweet potatoes. You’d be surprised how many grain-free and some high end foods have peas or potatoes as the 2nd or 3rd ingredient.

          5. I Pay Taxes, Too*

            Forgive me, not a dog owner so I didn’t commit it perfectly to memory, but there was some data a couple of years ago that suggested the “grain free” dog diets may have some deleterious effect on dog health. I think it was a link to a higher risk of cardiomyopathy, but please fact check me.

            I’m of the mind that people should choose the diet/lifestyle that suits them and their needs (physiological, emotional, ethical, and so forth), but there is so much nutritional misinformation out there and it drives me up the wall. The vilification of fats became the vilification of carbs became the vilification of grains and seeds became the vilification now of sugar. I’m not going to get into what I think is wrong with the Standard American Diet because it is irrelevant and would take way too long, but suffice it to say… Feed your dogs nutritionally balanced, omnivore diets that nourish them, in appropriate proportion to maintain a healthy weight (because diabetes risk is more associated with overweight/obesity than the quality of diet, and most people don’t have a sense of healthy weight for their pets).

        3. Rainy*

          It’s also rough on those of us with soy allergy. In order to boost an item’s protein count higher than the carb count, a lot of stuff now has soy protein or defatted soy flour or pea protein etc in it. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t allergic, but if you are, a single muffin can ruin your day.

          1. aarti*

            Y’all there is some diet shaming right here in this thread about low carb diets. Can we not? I find low carb diets great! My energy level is higher than it ever was and I definitely lost weight which I wanted to do.

            Also I do indeed watch my calories closely. At almost 50 I can’t eat as much as I used to. I had a big day of meals yesterday so today I am eating very lightly, less than 500 calories for the day. Why are you judging me and women like me in a supposedly positive thread? Why can’t we just eat what we want?

            1. Dust Bunny*

              The criticism I’m seeing here is specific examples, except for the dog one which is well-documented (it’s apparently becuase of the other foods that are used to fill out where the grain used to be). I’m glad it works for you. It does not work for everyone. But there is no shame in either of those things.

            2. Rainy*

              I’m super happy for you. I’m not shaming anyone for however they eat. But I really wish that shit wouldn’t have surprise soy in it.

              You feel great eating low-carb–excellent! I am so happy for you. I’m not shaming you for that. I’m saying that I could literally die if I eat something that has surprise soy in it.

              1. DJ Abbott*

                Also allergic to soy, and the only way to be safe is to check ingredients on everything.
                Back when I figured out my saw allergy, they didn’t even have a law about putting the type of oil on ingredient labels. They added soy protein to canned tuna. Some things had soy flour in them then too.
                They still use the word “vegetable” to indicates soy, as in “vegetable oil”. Organic cosmetics have “vegetable”ingredients which messed up my summer last year, because I didn’t realize they were soy. It’s insidious, and even people with a lot of experience still get caught.
                The FDA needs to stop this, but they’re doing nothing.

                2. Rainy*

                  Yup. I read ingredients obsessively. The surprise soy thing sucks extra hard though, because coffee cake *shouldn’t* have soy protein in it. There’s no reason for it.

                3. Hot Flash Gordon*

                  I’m not allergic, but I try to limit soy because I have IBS and a family history of breast cancer. It’s kind of depressing how many foods have soy in them, which stinks because I miss getting a soy latte in the morning.

          2. Christine*

            Allergies and food sensitivities are a horrible problem for many. I think every food should be clearly labeled if anything is added to it (e.g., waxes on produce).
            My niece was recently diagnosed with celiac disease. Finding restaurants that are gluten-free (for her) and have vegan food (for me) can be a challenge!

          3. Reluctant Mezzo*

            Yes, this! Soy is a *bean* and Beano gets really expensive if you have to take it every day.

      2. Mentally Spicy*

        The average human needs about 1,600 calories a day just to stay alive. As in, if you sat on the couch and did literally nothing all day your body would still consume about 1,600 calories.

        Eating a 1,000 calorie meal would leave you in a calorie deficit.

        I’m pretty sure many (most) people think that if they’re not exercising then they’re not burning calories when actually most of the calories we consume go to just keeping us alive.

        1. Jaina Solo*

          How did you calculate this? I gained some weight (thanks to a new medication) and have been working on losing it, but it seems like eating less than 1500 a day is not making much of a dent…and that’s with exercise included. I’m still trying to work through all this because I think my meds are making my metabolism slow down so I’m hungry but don’t need all the calories. Anyway, I’m curious about all the nutrition info right now as I figure out my new normal.

          1. Christine*

            The estimate for basal metabolic rate is 10 Calories a day per pound of body weight. So a 100 pound person will need 1000 Calories just to maintain basic body functions. Individuals needs will vary, but it’s a place to start.
            Search for BMR calculators for more detailed estimates, and always keep in mind they are estimates based on averages from different data sets.

          2. Mentally Spicy*

            Everyone’s calorie needs are different, of course. That was an average – some people use much less, others much more. (I use something like 1,800 per day.)

            It’s known as your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) or Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Do a Google search for those as a place to start. There are calculators out there that will calculate your BMR based on various inputs like height/weight/age etc. Take those with a little pinch of salt because they don’t take into account your individual metabolic situation but they’re not a bad place to start.

        2. Reluctant Mezzo*

          If I stick to 1200 calories day in, day out, I don’t lose weight. I am postmenopausal and a relatively small person. People. Are. Different.

    7. Also-ADHD*

      I suppose it depends on lifestyle and body type but even two slices of pizza (normal caloric levels) at 250-400 per slice usually is definitely high enough that I would have to adjust my eating plan to enjoy it or work out extra. One slice is at or above my normal lunch calories (I tend to eat a medium breakfast and dinner, a small lunch or snack, maybe one more snack). I’m a petite woman who is approaching/in middle age (depending on when you think it starts) who always had a decent metabolism/was thin/worked out just a little (do it but hate it). I’ll usually just decline something like pizza since there is no real moderation. But my caloric break even on days I don’t exercise is probably only 1400 or so at this point in life, and 600-700 is spent on dinner.

  3. spaceelf*

    Where I work everyone lives off of either Doritos or quinoa.

    No one casts stones in this glass house lol

    It baffles me when anyone cares enough what people eat at work (unless it’s literally that they can’t afford to eat)

      1. Paint N Drip*

        ooooh nutty! crunchy! When you develop these, please use the AAM commentariat as a beta test group

      2. Christine*

        That is not a bad idea! Quinoa is so yummy. I don’t eat it often enough given how good it is.

      3. amoeba*

        Just googled and yes, there are recipes out there for making those! Won’t share the link as the pages are a bit too food shamey (“replace junk food by healthy alternatives”) for me, but in case somebody would like to try, google’s your friend!

  4. Stuart Foote*

    As someone who is pretty careful about his diet, you’d be surprised (or maybe not) how often healthy eating gets commented on judgmentally as well. It seems that eating is like driving–anyone who eats healthier than you is a health nut, while anyone who eats worse is dangerously cavalier about their health.

    1. HomebodyHouseplant*

      Yeah I also find that if you’re in the minority in the situation (the “healthy” eater in the pool of “less healthy” eaters or vice versa) that can turn hostile. I do find it interesting that people feel like they can attack people making food choices that can be perceived as healthier but anything in the reverse is automatically Not Okay. None of it is okay! So why does it seemingly only go one way? Before anyone comes for me I used to be 250+ pounds as a 5 foot tall woman and due to working on my relationship with food I’m now a very muscular 135 3 years on.

    2. Tess of the D'atabases*

      You hit the nail on the head! it’s definitely one extreme or the other.

      The only comment I ever make is “oh that smells delicious!” and avoid any other explanations/comments.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Same. “Mm, looks/smells yummy” is the extent of it. Unless the person wants to continue a food conversation, and then I might ask about a recipe if it seems particularly delicious.

        1. Turquoisecow*

          Yeah this. “That looks delicious,” or maybe “oh I love (meal), where did you get it/did you make it?” No judgment, just, like, solidarity.

          1. Alexander Graham Yell*

            Right? The most lunch conversation in my office touches on foods is “Oh man, this combo of foods that I picked is weird” or “Oooh, that looks good, where did you get that?”

            If I’m close enough with a friend to talk specifics about food, they’ll hear my rants about how hard it’s been for me to reduce protein (I mentioned it in a comment above, but holy cow it turns out there IS an upper limit for what your body can handle and you WILL see concerning results in kidney function if you exceed it for long periods of time), but conversation around food at my office is limited to very general statements and I am super grateful.

      2. Office Chinchilla*

        My brother and I were comparing our office lunch choices once (we work in major cities on opposite coasts) and I mentioned bringing in a TV dinner. He said he’d never be able to do that in his office because he’d get comments on how wasteful it was. I, horrified, replied that there is exactly one thing anyone in my office is allowed to say about someone else’s lunch and it is “that smells good!” Occasionally, this can be followed up by asking where it’s from. That’s it. That’s the only conversation. Anyone with an actual *criticism* is volunteering to buy me lunch.

        1. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

          “ He said he’d never be able to do that in his office because he’d get comments on how wasteful it was.”

          Wow I officially am shoving all of your brother’s coworkers into lockers for being nerds who can’t mind their own dang business.

          1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

            Can we leave the high school nonsense in high school? (Also, every nerd I knew in high school just wanted to be left alone!)

  5. aett*

    My wife used to work as a civilian in a law enforcement office, and one of the officers would occasionally do things like print out nutritional information about the coffee drinks that my wife would enjoy and leave them on her desk. She was too nervous to say anything, because that guy was intimidating, his boss was an officer, the head of HR was an officer, and so on.

    Her overall quality of life increased MASSIVELY once she got a new job.

      1. Dawnshadow*

        this makes me want some delicious coffee! While I love coffee for it’s own sake, I have some latent struggle with authority figures. This would bring it right out!

        1. Paint N Drip*

          Same! I’m not a coffee hound by habit but I’d be THE BEST most frequent customer at local coffee shops after this :D

    4. Vincent Adultman’s assistant*

      God I’d be so tempted to drop a dime to some local busybody group about “look at what your tax dollars are paying for—Sgt Smith apparently has so much time on his hands he can waste all this paper and ink on coffee calorie counts all day!!! By the way, how many nuisance crimes happened on Main Street last week????”

    5. Abogado Avocado*

      This made me laugh out loud. The law enforcement officers I work with are the ones who bring in the doughnuts and kolaches practically every day and they know all the best places to eat — e.g., the best places to get burgers, hot fried chicken, barbecue, etc. That any of them would print out nutritional information for general (or specific) reading is something I cannot imagine them doing.

  6. mondaymoos*

    As one of about 10 vegetarians in a 3000 person company, my diet was always open for commentary. ESPECIALLY because I do not reflect how media typically displays vegetarians. “How come you’re not skinnier if all you eat is vegetables?” “Are you sure you don’t want to try some fish/beef/chicken/pork?” “That doesn’t look like much of a meal at all.” Frankly, it was exhausting and one of about 600 reasons I prefer to work from home.

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I was so happy to work for an organization that just… accepted vegetarians as a fact of life. (We had a higher-up for a while who was vegan. Not in any way evangelical about it, but it meant veg food was always on people’s radar.)

      There are definitely people who feel like I’m being a vegetarian AT them. (Spoiler alert: I have not been avoiding meat for over 30 years just to make some meat-and-potatoes guy uncomfortable.)

      1. Spicy Tuna*

        Yep, at my last job the CFO was vegetarian so all catered meals had a great vegetarian option!

      2. Magenta Sky*

        Our owner is a vegetarian. We have never once had an office lunch (on his nickel) at a place what was vegetarian only. He’s a very sensible guy.

        (And despite being overweight, I can shut down any conversation about exercise by pointing out I have arthritis in every major joint, and the kind of exercise program the “health nuts” promote could actually put me in the hospital, and you don’t *really* want to tangle with the ADA, do you? Never had to do so at the current job, though.)

      3. El*

        I once had a colleague who was a vegetarian. We shared a truly terrible supervisor who was also a vegetarian. My colleague told me more than once that she couldn’t believe our supervisor was so awful, because she was a vegetarian.

      4. goddessoftransitory*

        You’re NOT????

        But seriously–the whole “act like vegetarians are going to burst into tears if you have a burger” routine is SO tired. It’s like doing a comedy routine about airline food or women drivers.

      5. Semi-retired admin*

        My favorite {NOT} comment is, I would be so skinny if I were a vegetarian! Uh, we eat more than carrots and broccoli! I have so many pathetic work-related stories about being a vegetarian.

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          I was a vegetarian in college and lived on coffee, cookies/sweets, pizza, fries and alcohol. It’s not hard to eat a crappy diet* without eating meat!

          *Crappy diet = not a ton of food value, not a ton of long-lasting energy created, lots of crashes and feeling ick. NOT a weight-related comment.

      6. amoeba*

        Yeah, it used to be like that during my PhD! The science guys were definitely making fun of me for being a (mostly) vegetarian. I do feel like this has changed, nowadays almost everybody in my circle (still a lot of science guys there) is fine with that or at least flexitarian themselves. A few of them have said as much. Definitely becoming much more normal.

    2. FricketyFrack*

      I’m vegan and while I usually don’t mind answering questions, it can be so tiring sometimes. I can’t even count how many times people have asked if I miss meat or said they could neeeever be vegan because of [insert animal product here]. I stopped eating meat in roughly 1995. No, I don’t miss it, I don’t even remember what it tastes like. Yes, I’m sure that I don’t want to just try a little piece. And I don’t care if you continue to eat cheese/bacon/eggs/whatever, you don’t have to justify it to me, Gary. Eat what makes you happy.

      Thankfully, that kind of thing mostly only happens at “employee appreciation” events where I can’t eat any of the provided food and people question why I’m not eating, and I can mostly skip those these days.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        The people who want long-term vegetarians to “just try a little bit” are not thinking things through. It can be very hard to digest if you haven’t eaten it in a while. And not pleasant for bystanders, either.

        1. Meep*

          +1 My best friend is Muslim. I know Islamphobia is on par with vegetarian/vegan-phobia and people who don’t believe allergies exist, but it is just like… it isn’t that hard NOT to give them x if they cannot eat it. Heck, even if they don’t like the food*, just let them have their preference.

          *funny enough – I have a friend doesn’t like red meat and another who doesn’t like chicken. We compromise by having both and seafood.

          1. Artemesia*

            About a third of our social circle is vegetarian — I am so grateful that they are willing to be occasional pescatarians as it makes planning dinner parties so much easier. But even without that, it is not that big of a deal to plan a couple of hearty side dishes that serve as good vegetarian mains. And there is no excuse in 2024 to put together employee appreciation events without vegetarian/vegan options.

        2. FricketyFrack*

          Oh no kidding. I accidentally ate real cheese about a year into being vegan (my dad and I had the same meal, but one vegan and one not and we mixed them up) and I spent the next day very sad about it. I’m positive that getting a wild hair and eating a steak would be a big problem for me and anyone stuck in the same room with me.

          1. Christine*

            I’ve been vegetarian/vegan since 1986. Several months ago, a server made a mistake and gave me a cow burger instead of the Impossible burger I ordered. The manager caught the mistake but not before I was several bites in.
            I was very upset but had no physical issues even though I hadn’t eaten any cow for four decades.
            Same with the few times I’ve inadvertently had some cow dairy (it’s much harder to avoid all dairy products). Not a peep from my digestive system. :(

      2. Blue Pen*

        I’m not fully vegan, so maybe you get a different shade of this, but I can’t tell you how many times people knee-jerk tell me (after they learn I’m vegetarian) how they don’t eat much meat during the week, or they don’t eat red meat anymore, or they only eat chicken or some response that makes me think they think I’m judging them. I know this comes from a good place, but I don’t want to be put in a position where a) you feel like I’m judging you for what you are or aren’t eating, and b) I need to absolve you of your “””food crimes.”””

        1. FricketyFrack*

          Yeah there seems to be some kind of instant guilt reflex. My feeling is, if someone immediately feels guilty or like they have to justify what they eat, that might be a sign to examine their diet because eating should be a neutral-to-positive experience, but it’s not my place to judge or make those choices for someone else. Eat what you want and what you feel good about eating, you know? I’m happy to make recommendations or share things, but I’m equally happy to eat my lunch quietly.

        2. Swales*

          Oh lord, this happens to me too. Most of the time I think people just want to make conversation, and that me stating I’m vegetarian means it’s Let’s All Talk About Our Individual Relationships With Meat time. I suppose it’s an interesting topic for some people, but it bores me to tears. I do not care why you do/don’t/rarely/often eat meat and I don’t want to explain why I don’t. Can we please talk about anything else? Football? Romance novels? The collapse of the Soviet Union?

    4. Blue Pen*

      Yes! I’m a vegetarian, too, and you would think people thought I was an actual zoo animal or space alien. It’s not that hard to understand, really? Granted, I have some other foods I try to avoid or minimize my intake of (as they can make me feel physically awful), but the deal is that I just don’t eat meat or seafood. That’s it, period.

    5. The other sage*

      Once we where eating some pizza at work, and the boss of my then boss saw that my pizza was vegetarian and started commenting on how horrible vegetarians are, always talking about what they eat or don’t eat. At the same time he missed the irony of the situation.

      1. Hot Flash Gordon*

        I’m not vegetarian, but I love veggie pizza (and so do quite a few carnivores). When pizza was ordered for a work function, people would want to order only one veggie pizza for the lone vegetarian in the office, but I would advise ordering a couple because it was the one that would run out first.

        1. amoeba*

          Yup, that’s so weird. I don’t really think I’ve ever chosen meat on a pizza in all those years I was completely omnivorous – the standard was always mushrooms or spinach or something!

        2. metadata minion*

          Same here! My favorite pizza ever is from the little Italian deli down the street — they make a vegetarian pizza by putting all their vegetarian antipasti on it, so you get loads of delicious marinated vegetables and olives, plus some spinach to round it all out. So. Good.

    6. iglwif*

      Being the only vegetarian in a group can be exhausting. It was annoying when I worked in an office, but aside from some bizarre travel experiences (who thought 4 different salads all containing meat or seafood, and zero salads without, were a good idea? who decided the sales conference banquet should feature entire roasted pigs??) my worst “vegetarian in a sea of carnivores” experiences have been with my spouse’s family. Even my MIL z”l, who was an extremely kind person and was always lovely to me, could not get through a family meal without asking multiple times if I was sure I had had enough to eat — how could I possibly be adequately fed if I was skipping the chicken/turkey/ham/whatever?

    7. SpringRain*

      I remember at an old company, my boss was weirdly upset at another manager (who was her peer) who was vegan and told me to never order him anything specifically vegan because he was making a choice to be difficult. And he was not the typical vegan – he was politically conservative and actively disliked animals. He was not above using fatal means to keep squirrels/rodents away from his property and when I suggested a dog or cat, he said, “Yeah, but then I’d have to find a way to kill them too.” Not what you think of when you think vegan, but so it goes.

      We had several vegetarians in the office and she had no problems with them. I nodded my head and then ordered him something vegan every time I had to order food for the office because I’m not going to order food and leave someone out, ya know? And she would roll her eyes and chide him for being difficult, and I never knew if was a joke between them or what the issue was.

  7. Aerie*

    I once worked in the same neighborhood as a famous burger stand. It was all outdoors in the park, and during good weather could have a line an hour+ long. When the weather was kind of iffy for sitting outside, I’d sometimes still go grab a burger and bring it back to the office to eat, because it was the only way to have it for lunch in a timely fashion. My boss at the time LOVED to comment disparagingly about how I was eating a cheeseburger “again.” I was working minimum wage for a petty tyrant in an expensive city, let me have the one thing that made the workday worthwhile!

    2. Dust Bunny*

      There used to be a butcher shop up the road from my job that did half-pound smoked hamburgers. They were incredible. And you wouldn’t be able to eat for 24 hours afterward. But they were so incredible.

    4. Two Fluffy*

      I’m 5’8” woman and fat. I exercise regularly, eat pretty healthy, my body just fights to keep the weight on. Anyway, my old boss was a tiny, tiny woman. Barely 5’ tall and about 80lbs soaking wet. She would constantly make comments about my weight, food choices, body, etc. She called me a “big, sturdy girl” on a pretty regular basis.
      Told me I should go to such and such store because they had a good selection of clothes for “obese people.” These were just the tip of the iceberg in terms of issues at that job.

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        Jesus, that’s insane. I completely understand your frustration. I am a skinny guy with “normal” BMI. My wife, bless her, is prone to retaining weight and her BMI is in the “overweight” range.

        If you looked at our BMI scores, or saw us in person you might conclude that I am healthier than her. And you would be completely wrong! My wife plays team sports semi-professionally, she runs, she hikes, she goes to the gym. Her diet is good. She doesn’t smoke and never consumes alcohol. I, on the other hand, do nothing. No exercise beyond a bit of walking.* I smoke and I probably drink too much. I just happened to win that particular genetic lottery (but not all – see username!)

        It’s very unfair. And shows why BMI is a fairly useless metric by which to judge overall health.

        *Partly out of laziness/disinclination and partly because I have chronic joint and muscle pain which makes exercising difficult.

        1. ragazza*

          Yep. I’m very active–swim regularly, bike everywhere instead of driving, kayak, do strength training–and I eat pretty healthy foods by cooking instead of ordering in, limiting sugars, etc. Yet I am still by “normal” standards 20-30 pounds overweight. (Perimenopause sure didn’t help, either.)

      2. Christine*

        I come from a long line of women who had huge families (10+ children) while running farms. My relatively sedentary and childless life plus multiple chronic illnesses is very different from what my genetics calls for!

      3. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        My hella abusive boss would hit me from both sides = “don’t you know how many calories are in that, aren’t you supposedly watching your weight?” one day and “you’re skin and bones, eat a sandwich” literally the next day. She also brought in old clothes that she said were too big for her so maybe I could squeeze into them (she was quite heavy, I’m on the thin side of average). No shock that she also did stuff like giving me “sometimes fails to meet expectations” about my written work because I once overused an acronym. So glad I ran for the hills!

    4. Can't get the hang of Thursdays*

      hopefully delivered in such an icy manner that makes it clear more commentary isn’t welcome.

    5. Pippa K*

      I dunno, nobody is going to fail to spot this as a fairly hostile response, which seems like it opens up a whole new front in office conflict. Friendly amendment: a cheerful “I will consider it!” with “(specifically, I consider it intrusive bullshit”) left unspoken.

    6. Bitte Meddler*

      I had a mentor teach me the phrase, “Thank you for caring enough to share; I promise to weigh it carefully.”

      It’s a very polite way of saying “F*ck off.”

  9. Bookworm*

    A related irksome thing: when someone is pushing running or whatever, even to people with disabilities who can’t do that exercise.

    1. Michelle*

      We used to attend a church where people were very into football. (Also, kind of jerks.) There was one guy who simply couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that my seriously disabled son didn’t play football. He has muscular dystrophy?!?

      Also got a lot of questions about “letting” my younger son be a computer nerd rather than trying to force him to play sports. Personally, I think there’s a much better chance of him having a lucrative career in tech than football, and video games don’t cause concussions.

      1. Frieda*

        I live in an area where kids routinely do more than one travel sport (in different seasons.) We don’t care about sports at all. The people who were convinced that the only way to build character is through a sport, or asked how would my kids learn to be healthy and what did they do all day in the summer, or whose whole social lives revolved around driving a zillion miles each weekend to watch their 12yo play baseball against another group of 12yos all boggled my mind.

        (My kids are fine, and polite, smart, funny people who found plenty of physical activities to keep them busy and healthy with nary a uniform or expensive travel team required. It’s fine.)

        1. allathian*

          Yeah. I’m fairly introverted and my idea of personal hell would be to be a soccer or hockey mom. Thankfully our son is as introverted as we are and hates team sports. He goes running with his dad in the spring, summer, and fall, and skiing in the winter, and all of us go on bike rides as a family. We also go on walks, but only if I take my poles with me to keep up.

    2. Hamster Manager*

      I had a boss who made us count steps (though of course, no breaks or leeway were provided to actually get said steps, so you were expected to get them in your off time I guess). These numbers were reported daily, and of course high step counts were congratulated. Half the time I just said I forgot to track and the other half of the time I just made up a low number.

      1. Jamoche*

        When I had a broken ankle, I had a step tracker to make sure I didn’t go over the recommended steps for the day. I had a coworker who did likewise, although her situation was permanent. What we really hated was that the step tracker would pop up “Congrats! You’ve done 150% of your target!” when what that really meant was that the next day was going to be painful.

        This was in the very early days of such devices – newer ones tend to be more neutral about hitting targets.

        1. Artemesia*

          My tracker on my arm causes an allergic reaction, so now I just use the phone step tracker — it rains confetti on the screen when the ‘target’ is reached.

      2. Sal*

        Will endorse this method of lying! I used the cheat at running the mile in HS by cutting through houses’ yards (our “mile” course was a certain circuit around the neighborhood; thank god we didn’t have real athletic facilities), but I always made sure to take long enough that my time was still complete crap, but slightly better than last time. I believe I “improved” from 15 mins (…this is walking speed. I walked it.) to 12.5 mins. Coach never suspected a thing. “Why would you go to all the trouble of cheating and still stink?” Just so, Coach. Just so.

        20+ years later, I still frigging hate running.

    3. Anax*

      Yup. Step challenges are a little crazy-making, and most of the standard ergonomic advice doesn’t work for me. If I sit in my chair with my feet flat on the floor, my hips and butt are going to be screaming in half an hour.

      But gosh, what really grinds my gears is the executives who treat in-person events and return-to-office as some kind of health/wellness thing. “We have so many health benefits for people working in the office, like free snacks and a gym and a walking club! It will be good for you, really!”

      I lost my last job because of mandatory return-to-office. I’m mostly housebound, I literally can not comply.

      It’s incredibly hard to get people to understand that no, I can not drive, I can not go to the company picnic, I can not go to the Christmas party, I can not work in the office once a week just to see people, I do not have any travel plans for the summer. It’s like no matter how many times I say I can’t leave my house, it doesn’t sink in.

      Ugh. So glad I’m fully and permanently remote again. The smalltalk about travel plans stings a little, but at least that I can dismiss as a “me problem”.

  10. CheesePlease*

    I also hate people who talk about their own diets “oh wow, that pasta looks great! I cut out all carbs and have a headache every day but now I’m down 15lbs so it’s worth it”.

    Can you just,….not?

    1. Bast*

      I have a coworker who has cut out various things for health reasons — specifically, she has been told to lower her sodium and sugar intake. One day I had absolutely no time to prep food, and grabbed one of my kid’s Maruchan Cup Noodles from the cupboard so I wouldn’t give in to the Takeout Monster. When she asked me what I had for lunch that day and I told her, the reply was, “Oh I can’t have that much sodium.” This has happened other times. One time I brought in a homemade cookie, and when she saw it — “I can’t have anything with more then 5g of sugar. It’s just too much sugar!” It’s come to me that perhaps she misses eating certain foods, and that’s why she comments, but it still irritates me. Okay, Cheryl, I get that YOU can’t have the cookie, but I didn’t bring it for you. I’m also someone who has had struggles with disordered eating (and she knows this, I’ve brought it up before when she has made comments) so hearing about how many calories, how much sugar, how terrible for you something is etc, etc can be an issue for me. I’m in a heathier place now, but there was a time such a comment would have sent me into a restrictive phase.

      And she isn’t the worst of the food police — I worked in an office were people were much more aggressive in their “shouldn’t eat that” comments.

      1. Jessica*

        At the end of the day, when you put on your coat to go home, does Coworker Cheryl say “Oh, that’s not my size, it wouldn’t fit me”? Does she follow you out to the parking lot, see what car you get into, and say “I can’t drive a stick shift!” It would be just as relevant.

      2. Snoozing not schmoozing*

        “Oh, how fortunate that I’m eating it instead of you!” And then take a big ol’ bite of it while staring at her.

      3. CheesePlease*

        Yes it’s not just the police but people who overlay their food choices / needs on top of everyone else and they don’t know who their audience is! STAHPPP

        I also am pretty anti-diet so even people being like “yeah I packed this salad with tuna – only 300 calories!” annoys the hell out of me.

      4. sacados*

        “Oh that’s a relief, because I really don’t have enough to share — boy wouldn’t that have been awkward!”
        XD

    2. Don’t make me come over there*

      I have a friend who for medical reasons can not eat much fat. She once saw me fry an egg in butter and said something to the effect of “wow, I would’t last long at your house!” Well, ok, don’t move in with me then?

    3. Betsy Bobbins*

      You had me until your sarcastic addition: ‘I cut out all carbs and have a headache every day but now I’m down 15lbs so it’s worth it’ which is essentially criticizing someone else’s food choice. Maybe it is worth it to them for them to lose 15 lbs for legitimate health reasons, or maybe they feel better being 15 lbs lighter. Is it annoying to hear about it…probably, but your shaming them for that choice here is worse.

      1. basically functional*

        I don’t think you understood the comment? The behavior being criticized is not cutting out carbs even though it gives you a headache; it’s the sanctimonious humblebragging we have all encountered from people who won’t shut up about their diets in the workplace.

    4. iglwif*

      I worked with someone once who always asked me whether some specific treat was “worth the calories”.

      Idk, Karen, it tastes good and is making my day better. I do not care about the calories.

  11. my cat is prettier than me*

    I grew up in a family where 3/4 of us had/have eating disorders. Commenting on others’ eating habits was a huge no-no. I can’t imagine doing it in an office (beyond asking what something is or saying it looks/smells good).

  12. Kira-Lynn*

    Shameless plug – I teach a workshop on getting fatphobia out of the sexual and domestic violence advocacy space. It’s very well received. Fatphobia is one of the things woefully under-addressed even in workplaces with great DEI training.

    1. Nonsense*

      If you’ve got recs for material or workshops, I’m all ears. Our most recent DEI consultant had a blind spot a mile long, and my company is taking the complaints seriously so I’d like to offer alternatives.

      1. Rainy*

        Some years back our office decided to do a DEI training that involved everyone doing an assessment and then having a presentation from someone trained to work with that assessment. He had 120 minutes and he spent easily 45 of those talking about how much he hates himself for being fat and how everyone who’s fat is a lazy asshole.

        We were literally confined to this room in order to be told how to be more inclusive and less biased and the trainer was spewing this fatphobic BS at us.

        1. Paint N Drip*

          That’s actually triggering AF! Holy cow I don’t know if I could handle sitting there :(

          1. Rainy*

            I have a history of disordered eating and it really was so upsetting. It was still early in my time there (I just left!!) and I didn’t have the chutzpah I do now. These days I’d just get up and walk out if that happened.

        2. goddessoftransitory*

          Besides the obvious OMGs of that situation: my dude, this isn’t your therapy session! People don’t pay to find out about the leader of the workshop’s issues, no matter what they are!

    2. Cookie Monster*

      That is so cool! Listening to the Maintenance Phase podcast has totally opened my eyes about fatphobia. I mean, I was aware of it before, but not about how widespread it is.

  13. Statler von Waldorf*

    My approach is to return the awkward to sender.

    I had a receptionist who liked to play food police at an office job when I worked for a small airline. I’m a big dude who chose early in life that buns of steel were far less important to me than buns of cinnamon. So every time she got started on me, I’d start belting out “Fat” by Weird Al Yankovic. Some people have a voice so amazing that it can make them a fortune. I also have a voice that inspires people .. to pay me to stop.

    After the second time I did that, she stopped policing my food. She still bugged the dispatchers, but apparently I wasn’t worth it.

    3. lost academic*

      ‘Buns of steel were far less important to me than buns of cinnamon’ – and you have won the commentary today, sir, I will be stealing this phrase.

      (My go-to is ‘[blank] is in shape. Round is a shape!’)

      1. BikeWalkBarb*

        I’m taking away both “Buns of steel were far less important to me than buns of cinnamon” and “Round is a shape”. Today is a good day.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        I like “Yeah, I’m interested in fitness. Fittin’ dis whole pizza in my mouth.”

      3. Abogado Avocado*

        “Buns of steel are far less important than buns of cinnamon” should be on a t-shirt, Statler von Waldorf! You sound like a lot of fun to work with!

    6. Good Enough For Government Work*

      I LOVE THIS.

      Had a colleague complain (complain!) that I dared to eat a doughnut at work. I looked her dead in the eye… and ate another one.

      1. Christine*

        I used to eat a dozen huge doughnuts in one sitting. Eating just one is a victory for me, and it’s what healthy eaters do all the time!

    8. Hroethvitnir*

      Beautiful. I am of the personality that when people are being freaks about me drinking energy drinks (while drinking coffee every half hour) my natural inclination is to make steady eye contact while I drink the whole bottle, and have another.

      This… isn’t the most helpful for drinking a moderate amount of energy drinks, but I really hate sanctimony.

      1. allathian*

        Yeah, people are weird. That said, I count my coffee consumption in pints rather than cups with no issues (6-8 cups a day is my standard dose), but one Red Bull gives me palpitations, I have a high tolerance for caffeine but none at all for taurine.

    9. Jeff Vader*

      I have a similar reply to the diet police:

      “do you like cake ? Yes ?

      OK, now slice the cake in half. Half the cake means it’s only half the calories !

      And because it’s only half the calories you can eat twice as much !”

  14. Elle*

    I’ve told this before but being in the office five days a week and sitting next to the kitchen was a trip. I would see people walk back and forth openly debating if they should take a free bagel or donut. Inevitably they would take a quarter of an item, loudly proclaiming how guilty they feel. They would come back a short time later and the process would start over. It was really annoying to listen to.

    1. WeirdChemist*

      Ugh I have a coworker who every time there’s a treat will go on and on about how unhealthy it is and how bad it would be if she ate one. She usually walks around begging all of the other women (never the men) to let her have just a quarter of theirs. To which everyone, happily holding a full one, has taken to responding a flat “no” and refusing to engage.

      She once, after a potluck in which I brought cookies, came up to me and proudly announced that she had eaten 1/8th of one and that it was delicious “but so naughty, I’ll have to punish myself later for it”

      She also continuously brought up a diet she was on where the only rule was that she couldn’t eat food that she thought tasted good…? She brought that up unprompted for WEEKS

      Like I do feel sympathetic up to a point, because she’s clearly got some deep seated food issues, but ma’am please stop projecting your issues onto the rest of us!

      1. LCH*

        omg. at some point i might break and just tell her there is something wrong with her. i guess HR would have fun with that :-/ (but there is something wrong with her.)

      3. Dhaskoi*

        “but so naughty, I’ll have to punish myself later for it”

        “Coworker, I really don’t think it’s appropriate for you to discuss your sex life in the office.”

        (Said in the most normally loud, politely shocked voice you can manage)

    2. Charlotte Lucas*

      And a waste of food. Nobody takes that other portion – which has clearly now been manhandled.

      I hate it when people decide to cut single-serving portions into pieces, unless they already have agreed to share with someone else.

      1. Elizabeth West*

        Cutting them in half is the only acceptable option. At an old job, we used to get bagels every once in a while that were absolutely huge — it was a struggle to eat a whole one. A half would be just enough. Pinching bites off was annoying to anyone who wanted a half because then it was desecrated.

        You can get bagel and bread chunks with dip at Panera and places like it, so if an office has a bunch of bit-takers, this might be a good solution.

        1. I Have RBF*

          No, cutting them in half and only taking half is NOT an acceptable option. No one wants the other half. So all the “virtuous” halves stack up in a pile of sloppy seconds.

          If people only want half because it’s “a struggle to eat a whole one”, they need to find another person to share with, not just take a random half and assume that someone will eat their seconds for them.

          1. Rainy*

            There’s a woman in my (now former!) office who cuts bagels and doughnuts into eighths and takes one tiny chunk. Then the rest dries out while people ponder how much of it she touched in the process.

          2. iglwif*

            You can ask for them to be cut in half before they arrive at your workplace, by someone in a food-service role with clean hands / wearing gloves. It IS, in fact, an excellent idea.

          3. amoeba*

            Eh, people absolutely do here. I have zero qualms about taking a clearly cut (not bitten into!) piece of a treat. Sometimes people bring in whole cakes or whatever, those also have to be cut – where’s the difference?

            1. amoeba*

              Also, if there’s different kinds of treats, we tend to cut them in pieces so everybody can try more than one kind!

          4. Emmy Noether*

            Those people were not raised right! If you want a half, and there is already a cut half there, you have to take that one, you are NOT allowed to cut another. Problem solved.

      2. Exhausted Trope*

        Guilty as charged! I was once one of those people who would cut a glazed donut into quarters, eat one and leave the rest. Got yelled at a few times. Haven’t done that since 2012.
        I apologize my former wastefulness. :-)

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          Donuts not being cut in half is my work food hill to die on. Since they’re fried, once they’re cut, they go stale very quickly. (If someone ever brought in savory fritters, I’d say the same thing – after thanking them for bringing in fritters.)

        2. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

          Our whole office cuts donuts in pieces! We love it. We don’t get them often but when we do we get them from a place that has less common options and we all want to try all the options.

          Someone brought us mini donuts – they are bigger than a donut hole but not by much and we still cut them in quarters.

      3. Dust Bunny*

        My office’s social rules permit cutting–NOT TEARING–in half, but after that it’s just weird.

      4. goddessoftransitory*

        This is my biggest shared food pet peeve (that is, food set out for general consumption.) It’s one thing to cut something in half, but the whole “slice slice slice into slivers and mush” is just beyond irritating. Either take half or don’t eat it! There is no appreciable difference, caloric or otherwise, between 1/8 and 1/4 of a doughnut!

        1. metadata minion*

          I get an unreasonable amount of amusement in watching the progress of Xeno’s Donut once we’re down to only one in the box. :-b

    3. Awesome Sauce*

      No doubt. Every time there are donuts or pastries in the office (usually as a bribe to come to some extra-long, extra-dull, in-person meeting) someone makes a comment about all that fat and sugar being “good for you” or not, and I usually try to come back with something like “of course it’s good for you. Eating delicious things improves morale!” or “that strawberry cupcake sure improved my mood” or something about how mental health is health. Which I suppose could reinforce stress-eating behaviours now that I think about it? But I’m trying to combat the fatphobic underpinnings of comments about certain foods being “bad” or “good.”

      1. Paint N Drip*

        Carbs are perfect brain food and DEF good for morale. I think you’re doing a good thing by saying something! If even to signal ‘your opinions about that are not fact’ which should generally cut down on the upsetting language around food.

      2. Lis*

        Once at work I was eating something calorific and someone commented “you know those are bad for you?” So I paraphrased Dennis Learys bit about cigarettes along the lines of “What? no, this is completely new information! I thought they had vitamins and ****! thanks for this completely new information”. and just looked at them. Last time they commented on my diet. Not USA so no-one cared about a curse word.

    4. Lizcase*

      I can eat 1/2 a donut without issues. A full donut is too much wheat and will make me sick. The other half of the double chocolate donut (only one I considered worth it) always got taken. it had nothing to do with being virtuous and everything to do with not wanting a day of nausea.

      sometime, I’d take the whole donut and eat half in the morning and half in the afternoon, but I usually just preferred to have half.

  15. learnedthehardway*

    A company our firm did work for had differentially priced their cookies & snacks in their cafeteria by how “healthy” they were. They also had bonus metrics tied to physical activity participation and health metrics. They were not a gym or in any way a health or physical fitness industry related business. Just a company that was overly invested in their employees’ personal lives. It was pretty egregious.

    3. Jaydee*

      Depending on the details I might be okay with the differential pricing. Candy bars cost a little more so the fresh fruit cup isn’t ridiculously overpriced ($4.99 for a cup of grapes – I can buy 2 lbs of grapes for that at the grocery store)? That would honestly be great. Likewise making sure the salad bar isn’t priced in a way that makes a reasonably sized, filling salad (protein and fun veggies tend to be heavy) almost twice as expensive as a burger and fries or a chicken tenders basket would be much appreciated.

      But if they’re like pricing different cookies differently because oatmeal raisin is “healthier” than chocolate chunk or if the bag of Skinny Pop is cheaper than the same size bag of Doritos, that’s ridiculous.

      And physical activity participation and “heath” have no place in workplace bonus metrics. My job is to groom llamas, not to have acceptable cholesterol levels or win the office step challenge.

    4. Dancing Otter*

      Wouldn’t those bonus metrics skirt ADA discrimination issues? Someone in a wheelchair won’t be racking up a “healthy” step count, for example. Are they going to cut your bonus if you develop cancer or liver disease?

    5. Disappointed Australien*

      Depending on exactly what was available I would have been tempted to see just how much of the healthy stuff I could eat. I bicycle everywhere, I eat a lot (“powered by pizza”), people are occasionally shocked at my burn rate. So “oooh, healthy bananas are cheap, I’ll have 10” :)

      Where I work they provide snacks and have learned that if they buy bananas they need to buy one per person and loudly announce that there is one per person. Apparently everyone likes bananas, it’s not just me.

  16. Aelswitha*

    When it happens again, take your phone out, open any random app, and say, “This is the 23rd (or whatever random number, they won’t remember) time you’ve commented on what I’m eating. Why is that?”

  17. Been There*

    When I politely said “no, thank you” to offered donuts, she literally said to me “Oh, you think you’re better than everyone else?” Like, wtf.

    1. Exhausted Trope*

      I used to get the “no donut? That’s why you look like that!” comments. But my thinness was actually due to ED.

    2. yay*

      I hate office donuts and pastries! They’re never what I would have picked, they’re usually stale, and I just *don’t snack during work* (my regular snacking hours are after work when I can actually enjoy it).

      And yet it always feels like such a big deal to reject them. Like we’re supposed to be excited about any kind of scraps.

      1. My oh my*

        Yes, why is this? I am very uninterested in free food – it does feel like eating scraps sometimes. I carefully plan my meals which are not that expensive since I cook most everything and eat low on the food chain (beans cooked from dry, simple grains, lots of fruits/veggies). Seriously, eating a donut at 10 am on an empty stomach will give me a massive sugar rush, make my head spin and my face flush, and then give me a huge crash two hours later. No thanks.

      2. Bryce*

        I’ve got food allergies. A box of donuts where everything’s rubbing together… it’s as bad as shared utensils at a potluck. But people always dismiss it as “trivial worrying” because it’s not THEIR life on the line.

    3. Unions Are Good, Actually*

      I just genuinely don’t like donuts all that much – they’re like my last choice in treats, so I usually don’t bother with them if someone brings them in. It’s not because I think I’m better than anyone who does like donuts (!?) or because I’m in the grips of severe ED, it’s just that I’m not that enthusiastic about donuts so I’m not going to bother eating one unless I’m super hungry and there’s no other food and no way for me to eat for hours and hours. Why would I eat something I don’t really want???

      1. samwise*

        I worked at a donut shop when I was a teenager in the 1970s. 5 am to noon on weekends. For a long time I associated donuts with cigarette smoke, slightly burned fryer oil, and the overpowering smell of maple flavor concentrate (uggggghhhhhh). Took about a decade before I could stand to eat them again. Plain cake donut, that’s about it for me.

        Or New Orleans style beignets. Because, they are perfection.

        1. Bitte Meddler*

          Oh, man, that’s me and ice cream. I worked at a Haagen-Dazs in high school and now, forty years later, I can only eat 2-3 spoonfuls of ice cream before going, “Meh,” and putting the container back in the freezer.

          Oddly, though, I also worked at a Round Table Pizza (prior to Haagen-Dazs) and still looooooove pizza!

          1. Michelle*

            In the 90s I worked as a McDonald’s Hamburglar: going to daycares and YMCAs to give out coupons and get kids to beg their parents for Happy Meals on the way home. (No need to thank me for my service, it was my honor.) I was 14, and they literally paid me in hamburgers, and yet somehow I still love a good McDouble with fries and a Coke. Go figure.

            1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

              I’m just imagining a biopic entitled “I Was a Teenage Hamburglar” and that’s going to keep me entertained all afternoon!

          2. smirkette*

            My theory is that’s because Round Table is a unique subspecies of pizza, probably because it’s all specifically processed stuff. I’ve never had pizza anywhere that was like theirs. (worked at Round Table in high school)

    4. Celebrate Good Times*

      People are insane about donuts! I can’t eat donuts because they give me a horrible stomach ache. When I have turned down the offer of a donut, I have gotten the craziest, most aggressive pushback like I just told them their kid was ugly.

    5. TPS Reporter*

      there’s a lot of stuff I don’t eat during the work day specifically because it makes me sluggish/sleepy. and I don’t even really like donuts. it’s like a personal affront when you decline something, dude I’m not not eating this donut AT you. I don’t want to fall asleep at my desk.

    7. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I get that a lot with cake. I hate cake. HATE IT. I would eat any other food on the planet before I would eat frosting. It is not a health thing, it is a “frosting is disgusting” thing for me.

      But I routinely get “oh are you DIETING” if I turn down the cake. or “Way to make me feel guilty for eating this!”

      1. Star Trek Nutcase*

        I love cake – the cake part, NOT the frosting. So for years, I’ve scrapped the frosting off or ate around it. So many people, including my family, are greatly disturbed by this (none made the cake). If anything, it made me more aware to *not* comment on others’ choices.

        I think we humans feel more comfortable in a group – drinkers, cheese only pizza lovers, hikers, whatever. Maybe that is what drives the subconscious need to critique others’ choices aka different from our own.

      2. Possum's mom*

        Oh, I am with you! Just thinking about cake icing makes me gag, and having someone pressure me into having a slice because it’s someone’s birthday, baby shower etc. isn’t going to change that reflex.

    8. boomchickapow*

      I worked in a donut shop in college and cannot stand the smell of them anymore. I always politely said ‘No thank you’ when offered one at work. People would be really weird about it. Like I offended then by not eating something I don’t like.

    9. Hroethvitnir*

      Yikes. I don’t like most cake, and saying no feels awkward as hell because this is often implied by body language, but to say it you’ve got to have serious problems.

  18. Malen*

    I got lucky with my current workplace. I have dietary restrictions and a few severe food allergies and the only comments I get from coworkers is surprise and commiseration that catering couldn’t come up with anything better to feed me than whatever sad creation they came up with (current winning bad work event dish is plain shredded raw carrots inside a soft corn tortilla). My coworkers also go the extra mile to make sure my severe allergen isn’t in the room. Previous workplaces weren’t so great and had constant judgement/comments/people trying to trick me into having things I can’t eat to test and see if my allergies are “real” (they are just as real as the hospital bills for anaphylaxis)

    1. Mostly Managing*

      I work in a similarly wonderful place.

      The only comment I’ve ever had on my lunch is “That smells so good!” when I’d heated up my favourite (last night’s leftovers – doesn’t matter what it is, leftover dinner is my favourite lunch!)

      I can’t have gluten. People still occasionally offer me donuts, but they usually remember before I smile and say “No, thanks.” (then they sometimes offer to “eat mine for me” which is very sweet the way they do it!)

    2. Ashley*

      I am amazed how many work places won’t check in with the person with the food restrictions to make sure there is something they can eat. Unless you are at FODMap level of food restrictions most places have something you can eat.

    3. samwise*

      My workplace is similarly wonderful. People bring in food to share a lot. A LOT. Always labelled for gluten, nuts, dairy, eggs, vegetarian, vegan, and whatever allergen or restriction they know their colleagues have. No one comments on anyone’s food choices or bodies. If we have a catered meal or a meal at a restaurant, it’s a given that all of these considerations are …considered.

    4. Mentally Spicy*

      I had a manager who was vegan. His record for most forlorn and disappointing work-provided food was a plain baked potato with no toppings. They had literally nothing to put on it that was vegan.

  19. Bonnie*

    I worked in Human Resources(!) and a colleague once exclaimed in front of our entire team “You are constantly eating. I have never seen anyone eat as much as you!” This hit hard for me as I nearly died from an eating disorder in my late teens. It’s been 8 years and every time I remember it I feel ashamed. :(

    3. Bast*

      I’m sorry you’ve had to hear those types of comments. I’ve been on the receiving end of the “you are always eating!” comment as well, but what people didn’t seem to realize is that my eating was just very disordered and I wasn’t actually “always eating”– I’d just drag it out. I’d quarter up a banana and have one quarter every two hours, or dice up an apple and let myself have a slice or two an hour. Of course, my mind heard and interpreted this in a completely different way which would further the issue.

    5. Palliser*

      The person who said that to you is the one who should be ashamed. I would love to go back in time and shake some sense into them, but in lieu of that, please know that you did nothing wrong and we are judging them, not you!

      1. littlehope*

        Yeah, you’re not the one who should be ashamed. I’m sure you know that intellectually, but I’m also sure a bit of reinforcement can’t hurt. You did a hard and scary thing, you should be very proud.

  20. Tuxedo Luna*

    Ugh why do people? I had a colleague once that always commented on my diet. She was a very healthy eater. I am an average person who eats average things and that are sometimes healthy and sometimes not. Some of the things she said to me were:

    “Have you always had a good metabolism? Cause you don’t really watch what you eat do you?”

    “Are the rest of your family also thin?”

    “A salad, that’s not like you!”

    “No banana bread today?” Because sometimes I would grab a coffee and a treat on the way to work and if I didn’t she would notice.

    “So do you have a beer every day when you get home from work?” (no, but I could do with one now)

  21. anon for this*

    These stories are infuriating. I have a vivid memory of a snobby schoolmate sneering at my vegetarian meal at the cafeteria – we were 11 at the time and she was spoiled and poorly behaved in general.

    My colleagues are pretty good about not being diet-police, but I always end up having to talk a bit about my chronic health issues, because if there’s free food, 95% of the time I can’t eat any of it and have to choose between eating nothing (which draws comments) and bringing food from home (which draws comments).

    1. Disappointed Australien*

      I feel that. I’m the modern cliche low-FODMAP diet* and it’s just annoying. Not least because I *can* eat just about anything, but there are consequences. So I’m not grinding exhaustively through what’s in the kitchen, I’m just looking carefully at the food on offer deciding whether the apparent safety is balanced by the apparent deliciousness. And yes, almost always the free food is on the “farty to faint” list.

      My current workplace had pretty much adjusted (admittedly after a couple of less than ideal ‘go on eat it’ type incidents), even providing food I both could and wanted to eat a lot of the time, and then I started WFH full time and now I don’t have to bother with any of it.

      (* this means working with a dietician on an elimination diet to find a list of anytime/sometimes/never foods. The list varies between people)

    2. Possum's mom*

      Eight year old me, trying not to care after a classmate mocked my sandwich of one slice of processed cheese between two slices of cheap white bread. Childhood poverty turned adult me into an overeater and a take no prisoners responder to comments on my food intake.

  22. Leslie*

    I was this person at different workplaces. I genuinely thought that it was being helpful when I explained healthing eating to people because I had alot of health problems as a young adult and did alot of research on nutrition. I had one experience with a coworker that made me stop. She had diagnosed OCD and would actually ask me about why I was eating this or that. When I would tell her why I drinking green tea or whatever she would hang onto every word. This started to cause problems with her family and I felt like it had contributed to that. I don’t give people unsolicited food advice now and I hate it when they give it to me.

    1. Junior Dev (now mid level)*

      I’m glad you figured out that this wasn’t good! I went through a similar phase when I lost a bunch of weight and was always trying to talk healthy eating. I realized it wasn’t good for a lot of reasons, not least that everyone’s situation is individual and what worked for me wouldn’t necessarily be good for others.

      I will say I don’t think the more aggressive comments are explained by this mindset – the “you think you’re too good for us” or the buying food for people and then judging them for eating it. Those people have issues I cannot relate to.

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        I do agree and I think that many people comment from a place of genuine concern and helpfulness, not realising how misguided and unwelcome they are.

        I drink exclusively diet drinks. (Diet Coke, Diet Pepsi, that sort of thing). Not for health reasons but because I can’t stand the cloying, sticky feeling of having sugar in my mouth. The number of people who seem to think it is their god-given mission to explain to me how unhealthy my drink is, and precisely why it’s so unhealthy, is ridiculous.

        I try to push back on it because:
        A) Most if not all of what they is either untrue, misremembered, or exaggerated and
        B) It’s going into my body, not theirs!

        But it’s honestly exhausting to have to do that. Sometimes I will just nod and make noncommittal noises until they go away, but I really shouldn’t have to do that, either.

  23. LadyAmalthea*

    My former boss became an “Eat Right for Your Blood Type” cultist and brought in one of its holy men for a morning meeting.

    Over the years I’ve become allergic to an increasing number of foods and am generally the only person my coworkers have met who keeps kosher at all, plus I am generally way more adventurous about food than most of them, so things get interesting (though, my office, while in a very iffy part of Dublin is near all the good Chinese restaurants in the city, so I take full advantage).

    1. iglwif*

      My former boss became an “Eat Right for Your Blood Type” cultist and brought in one of its holy men for a morning meeting.

      Oh nooooooooooo. I ran into one of those (the cultists, not the holy men) when my kiddo was young — I have just the one child due to complicated medical stuff, and when I simplified this down to “yeah, we originally planned to have more but biology didn’t cooperate,” the mum of one of her school friends explained to me at great length that the problem was I was not eating the right diet for my blood type. At which point, as soon as I could get a word in edgewise, I said “Actually the problem is I don’t have ovaries anymore.” Which at least stopped that line of conversation, but EXCUSE ME, DID I ASK YOU FOR DIET ADVICE????

  24. Chirpy*

    It’s just like…what is healthy for one person might not be for another. A family friend’s doctor advised her to eat more burgers, because she wasn’t getting enough fat in her diet and was having issues because of it! Or this summer, I went camping on an extremely hot weekend, and I think the potato chips I ate were a factor in staying hydrated enough, because Gatorade alone wasn’t replenishing enough salt. Carrots don’t work for that.

    And sometimes, any food is better than no food, because at least you ate *something* and that’s important. Just leave other people’s food choices alone (unless they don’t have anything to eat and you’re offering to share.)

    1. Charlotte Lucas*

      I was always taught to eat something salty with liquid on hot days when I was a active.

      I know someone who spent a summer working at a park in the southwest. Staff was given tortilla chips, salsa, and lemonade at the end of the workday. What a delicious way to restore your electrolytes!

      1. Cinnamon Stick*

        The summer camp I went to sent a note home to parents about including salty snacks when the heat waves got bad.

        1. allathian*

          There’s a reason why salty tapas are a thing in Spain. When I was an intern in Spain one summer, daytime temps hit 38 C/100 F for months, and there was no AC. I drank like a gallon of bottled water a day that my employer provided for free, always ate something salty for lunch.

    2. many bells down*

      My cardiologist once said that he’d never in his whole career had to suggest a patient eat MORE salt. My BP was bizarrely low and he wasn’t sure why, so that was the first thing he suggested I try.

      1. Dawn*

        For some people, it’s genetic. We’re actually keeping an eye on mine now since my last reading was 103/74.

      3. Elitist Semicolon*

        I clocked in at 80/50 once and I’m pretty certain my Fritos consumption is the only thing keeping me vertical. And if I start getting irrationally angry, salty crap from a crinkly bag will almost always solve the problem.

      4. Jaunty Banana Hat I*

        My grandfather had that happen! He was told explicitly that he needed to add more salt to his diet.

      5. RetiredAcademicLibrarian*

        My mom has had to be told to eat more sodium, too. When she was in the hospital for surgery, they had to delay the operation until they pumped more sodium into her. When she got home, at her followup visit to the doctor, they told her that her diet was too low sodium for her metabolism, so she added electrolyte drinks and made other changes to her diet.

        Her family has a history of too low BP – one of her sisters currently has nasty bruises on her face from hitting the stove on her way down after fainting from standing up too quickly after bending down to check something in the oven.

        1. littlehope*

          I have POTS, and the doctor who diagnosed me explicitly told me to eat crisps if I’m flaring – it delivers a lot of salt into your system very efficiently. A packet of salt and vinegar crisps is literally medicine for me. Tasty crunchy medicine.
          Seriously, there is no such thing as a universally ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ food.

    3. Dawn*

      Most of the time, any food is better than no food.

      The 80s and 90s in particular really damaged our idea of what “healthy” is because that was the era of the fat panic and the salt panic; my mother was one of those who was absolutely obsessed with all that “low fat” and “no fat” stuff to the point where she once bought “no-fat mayonnaise” which…. well, to this day I can’t tell you what it actually tasted like, but I almost immediately, uh, failed to retain it.

      Nowadays we’re doing a lot better but there’s still a lot about nutrition that isn’t well understood, and a lot of people are still fixated on that “fat = bad” mentality when it’s one of the major macronutrients we need to survive.

      1. Chirpy*

        Yeah, my mom tried really hard not to let her own body image issues rub off on me, but in the 90s, it was just so widespread. A friend of mine wasn’t diagnosed with an eating disorder for years because it looked like she was just “eating healthy” for sports and no one saw how extreme she went with it.

        I can’t even imagine what no-fat mayonnaise would even be, wow.

      2. Irish Teacher.*

        My mum was actually mildly annoyed when my primary school instiuted a “healthy eating/no junk food policy” (what that meant varied depending on your teacher – everybody was agreed no sweets or chocolates were allowed, but it got iffier when it came to things like biscuits or buns) because I was what was termed in the 80s a “very picky eater” (almost certainly some kind of sensory issue with food) and she figured my eating a pack of crisps was better than me going hungry, as the Venn Diagram of foods I could/would eat, foods that can be easily transported to school in a lunchbox and foods the school deemed “healthy” left a smaller and smaller number.

        1. Dawn*

          One reason I can’t be a parent is that I’d be down to the headmaster’s office every week to tell them that they’re going to stop being such a numpty.

        1. Dawn*

          Usually, it’s a “gum” of some variety that has a similar texture replacing the fat that’s been removed; in this case, low-fat sour cream is basically yogurt with probably xanthan gum making up the difference, which is a bacterial byproduct of the sugar fermentation process.

        2. amoeba*

          I mean, there is sour cream with different fat levels – here in Switzerland you can regularly buy between 10% and (I think) 35%. I think the lower fat one is just made from lower fat milk, no additives involved? But yeah, below that, no idea (don’t think you can buy that here!)

          1. amoeba*

            They also all have different names here – “saure Sahne” (sour cream) is the 10% one, the higher fat ones are called Schmand or Crème Fraiche.

            1. Dawn*

              So sour cream and crème fraiche are actually slightly different products! Unlike sour cream, crème fraiche doesn’t include added thickeners and is usually less tangy.

    4. Anon for this one*

      Yeah, the only time I actually had a doctor’s specific advice on what to eat it was how to gain back weight after chemo! (Lots of nuts, fish, and avocados, in my case.) And a usually vegetarian friend of mine ate a lot of red meat while pregnant, again at a doctor’s recommendation, because of severe anemia.

    5. Meep*

      +1

      General advice (e.g. Eggs are a good source of protein but if you have high cholesterol, you don’t want to eat them in excess) is fine. But people really need to go to a nutritionist or a dietician to find out what works for them. Not listen to Internet advice from people who know nothing.

    6. Jamoche*

      In 5th grade we moved from Georgia to the Texas Panhandle, which is a desert climate. I would *drag* my french fries through the salt. Looking back, I’m sure my body was trying to tell me something.

    7. Bitte Meddler*

      I live in the South and only have time for yard work on the weekends. In summer, I try to find the sweet spot after the sun has come up when the humidity drops below “gross” and the temp hasn’t gone up to “furnace”, but I sometimes get stuck out there with the sun beating straight down on me in 100+F temps.

      There have been a few times where I still felt “off” even after consuming plenty of water, so I took a swig of dill pickle juice. That usually gets me back to feeling like normal within 20-30 minutes.

      I told my dad, who lives in a place where it rarely gets above 85F, about this trick and he was horrified at the thought of consuming that much sodium in one sitting.

      I mean, sure, it’s a lot but it’s better than getting hyponatremia because I have sweated out tons of electrolytes and water alone doesn’t replace them.

      1. Chirpy*

        There’s a reason why vinegar drinks have been popular for thousands of years – oxymel, posca, sekanjabin, switchel, shrub…

  25. Carrots*

    I don’t get comments about *what* I eat, but about *when* I eat. I tend to want to eat part of my food at 10:30am, or sometimes at 2:00, or just whenever the heck I feel like it. Passers by are always like, “Early lunch!” or “Late lunch!” No…I’m just eating. Who cares if it’s “lunch”. MYOB.

    1. Dust Bunny*

      I’m a small meals + snacks person. I had a coworker at one point who was convinced I ate “constantly” and could not shut up about it. But it’s the same amount of food! It’s just doled out.

    2. Margaret Cavendish*

      Yep, same. I often eat at 10:30 and then again at 2:00, and people think it’s so weird! I can’t figure out why it matters, since we don’t normally eat together as a team, but people really seem to care about it!

    3. LCH*

      i’m always hungry at 10:45 for lunch regardless of if i have breakfast or not. i’m so thankful no one at my workplace gives two flips about what other people do in terms of food.

      coworkers who focus on these things must not be busy enough.

    4. BikeWalkBarb*

      This is why I love WFH. I eat breakfast, second breakfast, some kind of something, a snack, dinner… I eat what I’m hungry for when I’m hungry.

      I read an article a while back about the breakfast/lunch/dinner schedule being an artifact of industrialization and that makes total sense to me. My body isn’t a machine that can be shut down and restarted at a specific time.

      1. Potato Potato*

        Same! I refer to myself as a hobbit- I eat maybe 7 or 8 tiny meals throughout the day. I know there’s some kind of biological component to this because my mom and I have to eat like this, but my sister and dad prefer large 3 meals with no snacks.

    5. Tangerine Protumberance*

      I’m like this too! Admittedly mine is partly preference, partly that my ADHD meds mess with my appetite and can make me nauseous if I eat too much at once. My office is pretty well-stocked with snacky things and I’ll have a few spread out throughout the day. I’ve gotten comments about it from people who only see me eating chips at lunchtime and don’t see everything else I’m consuming throughout the day. It’s really hard to know what to say sometimes.

    6. Blue Pen*

      Yes, I will get this too! On the days I happen to be awake very early (like 4 am early), a quick breakfast at 5 am is not going to hold me over until noon.

    7. Hroethvitnir*

      Eugh, yeah. Like many people, my body enjoys being fed every few hours. Because most people don’t eat at morning tea you will basically always get comments unless everyone knows you well and is accustomed. Sigh.

      1. littlehope*

        Yeah, I can’t eat very much at once or I get all shocky (POTS again) so I snack a lot. It’s odd, I get either “you’re not eating enough” or “wow, you never stop eating” sort of depending on how people process what they’re seeing me do, I guess.

  26. Spilling the tea*

    I once had a coworker stop by my desk to ask a question while I had a large mug of tea. They commented on the tea and asked if it was for weight loss. I replied that it was just tea. They then proceed to ask if after drinking the tea, I eat the tea bag.

    It was a round, unbleached tea bag that looked different from what most people are used to but still. Eat the tea bag, what the flapjacks?

    2. Michelle*

      I’m sorry, my brain broke after reading this comment, and now I can’t move on. Eat… the tea bag???

    4. WeirdChemist*

      As a tea drinker, I also get that a lot (the “is this for weight loss part”, not the eating the tea leaves part..???)

      One of the brands of tea that I like definitely markets their tea based on the ~health benefits~ but I honestly just drink it because I like their spice blends! (And most products that proclaim “just eat/drink this and you’ll be healthy are total bs lol) I’ve taken to hiding the packaging from people because of the health comments though, just let me drink my tea in peace!

      1. Spilling the tea*

        The other week they “wondered if you will have time for both meetings.” The meetings were scheduled at overlapping times on the same day.

        I gave myself a huge pat on the back for not being sarcastic while explaining I physically cannot be in two places at the same time.

    7. GoryDetails*

      Ha! OK, now I’m thinking that many of the weirder encounters in my working life would have been more fun if I’d imagined them as part of a Monty Python skit. “Are you going to eat that tea bag? If not, I’ll have it!”

      1. Spilling the tea*

        “Well you see, I was planning on eating it. Extra caffeine for those silly walks and whatnot!”

  27. Sunflower*

    I had a coworker who rants and raves about the snacks we bring in. How processed foods is poison. Cheetos? The orange stuff is poison. Cupcakes? Poison.

    The worst thing is that she makes people uncomfortable for taking food but she’s the one who eats most of the stuff she lectures us about! We’ve seen her polish off, for example, 4 or 5 donuts before lunch, and she finish off any leftovers. So I guess her rants are about her own food issues but her judgemental attitude was still a turn off.

    1. yay*

      This reminds me of dealing with kids. No junior, you don’t want this no-no juice, it’s yucky (said about alcohol, coffee, etc). Sounds like an effective way to save all the snacks for yourself…

      1. Susannah*

        Funny, when I was a kid my parents never told us alcohol or coffee was inherently bad – just that they were beverages for adults.

        1. londonedit*

          Yeah, same. Maybe it’s cultural but in my family it was (and still is, with my young nephew) just ‘this is wine, it’s a grown-up drink’. He’s asked to have a sniff a few times just to see what it is, but he’s not interested and at most is slightly perplexed about why the grown-ups want to drink wine and beer when there’s orange squash and smoothies on offer.

      1. Sparkles McFadden*

        I had a woman yell at me when she saw me eating a banana. She informed me that I only people who were born where bananas are grown could safely eat bananas. She then filled me in on her locovore theories, explaining how I was ruining my health by eating any food grown more than 20 miles from where I was born.

        Crazy people gonna crazy.

        1. Chirpy*

          The local food co-op defines “local” as within 100 miles. If you had to limit it to just 20, you’d barely get outside any major city.

          I mean, there’s also a theory that you’re supposed to eat what your ancestors ate, because genetics or something, but that wouldn’t work with the locavore thing for most Americans… and it doesn’t make a ton of sense unless you have inherited food intolerances or something.

          1. goddessoftransitory*

            Plus, our genetics are literally all over the map these days! If I’m half Hungarian and then a bunch of other backgrounds, do I have to eat, like goulash exactly half the time? (I wouldn’t mind, I adore goulash, but seriously.)

    3. Dawn*

      I got rather snippy with one of my TAs in a recent continuing education course who decided to recommend everyone an app which attempts to tell people which foods are “good” based on their “additives” and whether they’re organic.

      It wasn’t the best move for my grades in that particular discussion (which I did protest) but I’m over here like, “I’d expect that the people grading a university science course would believe in science…”

      1. Michelle*

        I’m not surprised. My 17yo had a “health” class last year (public high school) that was 90% junk science and food shaming. He registered several complaints about assignments that would have been awful for any students dealing with an eating disorder. The teachers are learning this somewhere.

    4. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      You know how people here always say “they’re not doing it AT you”? I would absolutely eat Cheetos at her.

    6. Bitte Meddler*

      There’s a woman in my IRL friends group who does this. We get together every month or two for lunch at someone’s house, and she’ll spend an hour telling us how unhealthy the food we’ve brought or ordered is, then she’ll eat 2x as much as anyone else.

      We know this is just who she is, and we know that she’s not actively trying to control our food choices, but — dear gods — I would love to get that hour back, especially since we all know she’s going to eat the food anyway.

      And heaven help us if she wants 2nds for dessert! Please just get up and go grab another slice of cake / scoop of ice cream / handful of chocolate-covered strawberries without dragging us all into your food angst.

    7. Feeling Feline*

      This makes me quite sad tbh, sounds like there are deeper issues than just being a judgemental person.

  28. desk platypus*

    I have a weird situation with a coworker during all the numerous potlucks/food oriented team building my department does. We’ll all be eating and without fail this one coworker will make some kind of remark about how this is why she can’t lose weight, gestures to herself while saying clearly she loves food, this is going to wreck her latest diet, and then says we’ll have to work off all these calories later. She’s a bigger woman but she’s not the only plus size lady in our department, which includes myself and other women who obviously weigh more. But no one ever joins in on these comments. Sometimes glances at exchanged before a subject change that doesn’t last very long. I know everyone handles their weight differently but at times I want to be like, “You don’t speak for all of us and you should read the room and realize this makes us uncomfortable.”

    2. BikeWalkBarb*

      How about a friendly “Hey, no body shaming here. Let’s just enjoy and keep the food comments inside our own heads”?

    3. username required*

      My co worker always says something negative when we have leaving parties as they involve cakes/donuts etc. She’ll talk about how she really shouldn’t because she’s putting on weight – quite literally wringing her hands and pulling her jacket close. But she actually is a healthy weight and she only does it to me – who is about 50 pounds heavier than her. Talk about gaslighting the elephant in the room. After she did it the second time I made sure never to be around her again for it.

  29. Dust Bunny*

    Once again I regret that there is no way I can thank my coworkers for never commenting on food unless it’s to say it smells good without sounding like a wacko.

    1. Jiminy Cricket*

      Right?! I also want to reinforce positive behavior, but there’s no way to do so except, “Thank you for not being like those awful people I read about on the internet and also that one nosy lady at my last job.”

  30. Nonsense*

    I’ve got a coworker who unfortunately has the Unholy Trifecta: lactose-intolerant, wheat allergy, and Alpha-Gal Syndrome. She obviously has to be extremely careful with what she eats, but she’s got it figured out now. Our company, thankfully, doesn’t really have a culture with diet talk or even talking much about food except to comment if something looks/smells good, and she says it’s still such a shock even after 2 years of working here because her last company was so horrible about her diet needs. She was getting comments every day about not drinking coffee (think gluten doesn’t make it’s way into kcups? think again), and comments on her lunch were worse. It makes me so sad and angry she had to deal with that for so long.

    1. LCH*

      i definitely did not think there was gluten in coffee (i guess it’s just in kcups?) weird! terrible!

      1. Dawn*

        If I were a guessing girl, I’d have to assume that the k-cups are processed in a facility which also processes wheat products, and when you’ve got a bad allergy you have to be aware of even trace amounts.

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          That was my take. I sometimes make treats for a family member who has celiac but doesn’t need to be quite that cautious.

        2. Nonsense*

          That’s her assumption, yeah. Gluten gets added as a byproduct to a ridiculous amount of things – it’s used as a binder in shampoo, for God’s sake – so the cross contamination risk is ever present. There many be some coffees that are safe, but k-cups are not one of them.

          1. Dawn*

            Right, I order my coffees from small roasters and I never use k-cups and I’d have to assume those ones are safe from contamination since the companies I order them from only process coffee beans in their facilities.

            1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

              I suppose there’s a chance that weird flavored stuff might have gluten, or beans roasted in facilities that make weird flavored stuff, but yeah, stick to actual coffee from a small roaster and you should be fine.

              1. Dawn*

                I don’t think so because I do order the flavoured stuff but it’s all done with oils and esters. It’s not like a tea where they add bits of raspberries to the raspberry tea; raspberry coffee is flavoured with ionyl acetate.

        3. Busy Middle Manager*

          I came to say the opposite. People don’t realize a “regular” wheat allergy is a thing, everything thinks the severe celiac reactions are how people react to it. Many people have a “regular” reaction like flushed face, sneezing, stomach upset but it’s not super severe. So they would be able to handle small amounts.

          this is why I hate when the topic comes up!!!!!!!

      2. Stacy Fakename*

        There’s gluten in a lot of “biodegradable” plastics, and a bunch of kcups advertise themselves as such! Biodegradable (non-paper) straws, cutlery, and containers are often gluten-rich too. It’s a PAIN.

  31. Margaret Cavendish*

    At a previous job, we used to always go to a Chinese buffet when we went out together for lunch. Throughout the meal, I had to put up with aaaall the comments. “Is that all you’re eating? Are you sure? Did you try the eggrolls? You’re not getting your money’s worth!”

    Then for the rest of the afternoon, the same people were all groaning about how they had eaten too much and they were overfull and uncomfortable.

    I guess they never made the connection, or else they thought getting their “money’s worth” meant overloading on carbs and feeling bloated for the rest of the day? Who knows.

    1. Dawn*

      Yeah some people don’t think they’ve “got their money’s worth” from a buffet if they’re not in pain.

      Now, I am a birdlike eater at the best of times so I don’t generally do buffets because I actually don’t get my money’s worth, but I’d come down like a ton of bricks on anyone who decided that they get to make that choice for me. And as a diabetic I literally can’t carb-load anyway without risking a hospitalization.

    2. Meep*

      My in-laws are like this. Took a long time to get my husband to understand that eating until you were in pain =/= eating until you are full. Didn’t matter if it was a buffet or a regular restaurant – if they weren’t bursting seams and about to throw up, the portions were pitiful.

      Surprisingly how much better he feels. And he gets leftovers for lunch!

      1. Dawn*

        This is actually something that practically every Canadian I’ve ever known (which is a lot of them, given that I am one,) has commented on at some point; the portions are just so much bigger in America. Like, inedibly bigger for a lot of us.

        1. londonedit*

          It’s definitely one of the biggest culture shocks for Brits going to the US, too. And I think it comes down to a cultural difference. In Britain it’s rude not to finish all the food on your plate – most people are taught that from an early age. In a sharing or buffet situation you take a polite amount that you can manage, and then if you’d like second helpings, you go back for more. In the US the culture is much more about abundance and generosity and serving up loads of food is part of that – and so is the whole ‘doggy bag’ thing in restaurants. It’s very unusual here to ask to take leftovers home with you – in a pizza restaurant, yes, because pizzas can be fairly large and some people can’t eat a whole one, but not in most other types of restaurant. There might not even be takeaway containers available, or it might be against the restaurant’s policy, or they’ll probably just look at you strangely. The idea is that the portion size is enough for most people to finish. Whereas in the US, the idea is that it’s more than enough, and it’s completely normal to have some left over to take home.

          1. Dawn*

            Canada finds a balance between the two. Portions are definitely more manageable, but they’re also happy to pack up leftovers for you to take home. The philosophy is that you paid for it, after all, and better than it going in the trash; we might not be the most sustainability-conscious people out there overall, but we don’t like actively contributing to food waste, either, and everyone’s “perfect” portion size is different.

      2. goddessoftransitory*

        It’s like the old joke: “the food here is terrible–and the portions so small!”

  32. Unions Are Good, Actually*

    At one point in my life, my BMI put me in the “obese” category. I had binge eating disorder, and when I finally got help for it, I began losing weight. By the time I got to a certain job, I was already down 50 pounds. Because that job was very stressful, I lost another 20 (anxiety impacts my appetite) over a year or so. At that point, my manager began asking me repeatedly how I did it, what my “secret” was, what tips I had for her… it was awful, because the actual answer was getting better from an eating disorder + being in a miserable work situation that I hated. I just told her I tried to eat lots of vegetables and stay active. She mostly laid off me, but the comments still happened every time there was a birthday or other event with food and I didn’t eat the cake or whatever.

    1. dulcinea47*

      YESSSSSSSS. I gained a bunch of weight due to medical problem. It was also the middle of covid lockdown. When the medical problem finally got treated I started losing the weight and that’s when people started commenting. They all got an earful about how it took drs three years to diagnose me properly despite me having all of the symptoms.

      1. JanetM*

        Semi-related, I have lost quite a bit of weight over the past year for various reasons (my health is reasonably okay with this and I don’t have an eating disorder). My mother-in-law immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had cancer and we hadn’t told her.

        2. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

          I succeeded in my attempt to lose weight last year (2023). Down nearly 30 pounds to a BMI of 31-ish. It turns out that I did have cancer. After surgery and radiation, I’ve put back on about half of it. Not quite certain whether I want to bother trying again. Maybe this is my ideal weight. Retired in 2022, so I don’t have stories from work about the fluctuation.

      2. londonedit*

        A couple of years ago I had a sudden health condition that resulted in me losing a fair amount of weight. Until I had a diagnosis it was slightly scary in that I had all these symptoms out of the blue, and I wasn’t trying to lose weight at all. I’m not a small person, but still, sudden weight loss is always a worry.

        It was incredible how many people told me I ‘looked great’, asked me whether I’d been dieting or whether it was down to the amount of exercise I was doing, and said things about how they wished they could slim down like I was. I just had to say ‘I’m not trying to lose weight, I’m actually not sure what’s going on’. Of course when the health stuff was sorted out I put all the weight back on plus some more just for good luck, and it’s now noticeable to me that no one says I ‘look great’. It’s very depressing.

    2. Cat Lady*

      I’m glad you got help for your binge-eating disorder, but I’m sorry that your boss couldn’t mind her own beeswax.

  34. Spicy Tuna*

    When I was in college, I worked part time for a family owned company. I would bring snacks to work, like an apple cut into wedges, or a peeled orange in sections. I would usually prep this before coming into to work so I wouldn’t get fruit juice on my paperwork.

    One of the owners’ adult sons, who was in his 40’s at the time, thought it was hilarious to eat my snacks. It wasn’t taking them out of the fridge, either. He would lurk and wait for me to be bringing the piece of fruit to my face and then he would pounce and snatch it out of my hands.

    I was a broke college student trying to have healthy snacks and a wealthy, grown man delighted in taking the food out of my mouth, literally!!!

    Thankfully, that was a part time temporary job while I was getting my degree!

    3. goddessoftransitory*

      How did you not punch him??? OMG. (I mean, I’m glad you didn’t because that dipstick isn’t worth catching trouble for but OMG!)

  35. Dawn*

    “…who has been fielding workplace questions for a decade now on her website…”

    SO ABOUT THAT DECADE

  37. Dawn*

    Anyway, as to my actual comments, as a type 1 diabetic I really let anyone have it who has commentary on my diet. There is a reason that I have a medical team comprised of multiple specialists and that my coworkers aren’t on it, and that’s exactly what I let them know.

    2. Nightengale*

      the diabetes police, T1 edition are a special subset, no?

      the thinking T1 = T2
      the thinking I can’t eat any carbs
      the thinking that sugar-free foods solve all the problems
      the thinking I should eat the whatever that I just said I wouldn’t eat

      I developed Type 1 as an adult medical student and then started residency in a very small program where. . . one of the other residents developed Type 1 about a year later (of course also as an adult.) Like there were now 2 of us in a group of about 20. I generally packed all my food so I knew exactly how many carbs I was getting, mostly due to my anxiety level. We had a daily class/meeting at noon where people brought their lunches and he came up from the cafeteria one day with a tostada loaded with everything.

      Someone made some offhand comment about calories

      Completely unplanned and unrehearsed, in unison, he and I said, “calories don’t matter, it’s just knowing how many carbs”

      1. Dawn*

        I had a lady at work literally snatch food away from me – out of my hand – after offering it to me, saying, “Oh, you can’t have that,” and I nearly leapt at her out of my chair tiger-pounce style.

        1. Nightengale*

          I have my current set of co-workers well trained
          If there is special food or food to be ordered they offer
          I usually decline and pack my own food
          I occasionally accept
          No one pushes

          Also they all know they can partake of my emergency chocolate in my desk drawer which is a bag of M+Ms. They are not for blood sugar emergencies but work stress emergencies. It is just M+Ms because they keep well, I like them and at 1/2 gram carb per M they are easy to count.

        2. Humble Schoolmarm*

          I had a parent lecture me on the evils of apple juice, my preferred low blood sugar treatment, at the start of a parent-teacher conference. It was one of those times I wanted to take off my professional hat and point out that the alternative was me giggling and loosing all my filters, getting extremely grumpy, losing my ability to speak, having a seizure and possibly dying, so maybe it was better to let me drink my juice in peace and have a sensible conversation about her child’s progress.

  38. Elle*

    Anyone work in an office with a weight loss competition? Our was held annually and run by our diet obsessed office manager. She was written up when she was on the cabbage soup diet, was in a horrible mood because she was starving and made a coworker cry.

    1. LCH*

      yes, in 2009. i just personally wanted to lose some weight. i did not think at the time of how weird it was to have it as a work competition. so now i cringe a little.

    2. Cinnamon Stick*

      That reminds me of a colleague who was on a “cleanse.” They offered me some of the tea they was drinking and it had multiple stimulants. They were quite the cranky bear that week to the point where I was hiding from them.

      1. Baby Yoda*

        We had an employee do a beet juice cleanse years ago… she totally ruined the restrooms for the rest of us.

    3. Happy meal with extra happy*

      A group of guys in my office had a personal weight loss competition, and while some of them did lose a good amount of weight, I doubt it was shocking to anyone that within like three months, all of them gained it right back.

    4. Sparkles McFadden*

      One of our division executives decided to have a weight loss competition, which involved people putting in money where the top “loser” would get the collected money as a cash prize. It was a four month competition, with an official weigh-in every week, and announcements on how much weight people were losing. The entire thing was awful and very distracting. Weight loss came up at every meeting. It was crazy.

      The winner of the competition was announced publicly at a quarterly meeting. The big winner was so excited to get his big cash prize. He stood on the stage, smiling, until the executive who set the whole thing up announced “I am sure our big winner will be thrilled to donate all of his prize money to my favorite charity, since losing weight is its own reward!” The smiling guy lost his smile and had a melt-down, essentially announcing that he hadn’t starved himself for months just to give away the cash prize. The exec just talked over the ranting guy saying “Of course you’re all donating the money!” until the guy got control of himself and agreed to donate his prize. The meeting ended and we all shuffled out in silence.

      The guy who gave up his big prize called in sick all week and no one ever mentioned weight again.

  39. Resume please*

    It’s a definite plus to working remotely. I hated the weird food policing and food narration (of themselves and of me.) Frankly, I wish people just treated each other like adults. People eating whatever, exercising whenever – it’s literally no one’s business. And this may be an unpopular opinion, but treating each other like adults also includes not saying “YUMMY” or “ooooh, doesn’t that look delicious!” in a baby voice. It’s infantalizing, a simple “looks good” works just fine.

  40. Susannah*

    What makes this infuriating, and also hopeless, is that such comments are 99.9% of the time about the speaker’s issues with food, diet and body shape. I hate that I (silently) notice, too, what people are eating – wondering if I ate that way, would I be thinner, why one person can eat chips and I can’t, etc. I’m in an ongoing effort to stop caring about this s*** so much (and have made progress! If the pandemic did one thing for me, it was to realize life is way too short and unpredictable to waste time on being unhappy with my healthy, if chubby, body). But I sure have the discipline to keep my mouth shut – and the insight to know my private thoughts or judgments are all about me, not the person enjoying lunch.

    1. TPS Reporter*

      same, I have a lot of anxiety about food (and other things) but I don’t want to put that on other people. If they’re happy, that’s good! making them feel bad doesn’t actually work to reduce my anxiety.

      1. Susannah*

        Absolutely. In fact, watching them unapologetically enjoying their lunch is very good for me. sets exactly the right example.

  41. HummusAndChips*

    A desk neighbor of mine over the years would be nosy and comment on things I would eat/drink and sometimes would stare at me as I am walking in with my lunch first thing in the morning and immediately want to know what I brought. Somethings he’s said include:
    – Ewwww Starbucks?! They aren’t a good company. Blegh.
    – Why are you drinking that? You know it’s a fad drink that doesn’t provide any benefits and hasn’t been studied enough.
    – Is that a hot pocket you’re eating? I can’t eat those because they’re high in sodium.
    – So when are you going to make the switch over to impossible meat?
    – Is everything okay? I see you’re taking…what are those…vitamins? There isn’t enough evidence that shows those actually help you.

    Those are some examples of things that he’s done over the years. I finally had to tell him to mind his own business. He still asks once in a while what I’m eating and every time I brace myself for some passive aggressive comment but he doesn’t anymore.

  42. Destra N.*

    I’m working with a dietician and we decided together that I should give gluten-free a try to optimize my diet for some personal health goals. It’s not dangerous to me, but to illustrate, let’s just say that I ate an entire baguette for lunch on vacation and there were… consequences. So it’s probably not a bad idea in any case.

    I am a very good cook, I don’t eat a lot of bread and pasta to begin with, and have dabbled in gluten-free baking before, so my gluten-free food competence is very high. Like, this is not a disruptive transition for me. Though I did buy a highly-rated cookbook for treats since that’s generally where the little gluten I do get tends to come from.

    I’ve mentioned it to a few people at work in passing, like talking about our weekends and I mention trying a new GF banana bread recipe. Every single person responds with “helpful” advice. No one who has responded this way is gluten-free themselves.

    I appreciate that my co-workers want to be supportive, but I didn’t ask for advice and do not want it, I was just happy with how the banana bread turned out and that’s exactly the benign, banal sort of thing I am willing to share about my life outside of work. So I’m probably never going to mention the g-word again.

    1. Dawn*

      I’m not GF but I’m in a similar boat where I try to cut out complex carbs to a pretty significant degree, and I’m also quite a good cook, and it’s surprising really when you realize how society at large is obsessed with filling everything with wheat flour.

      At one point I really hadn’t been feeling great and I noticed that it was often after I ate high-gluten products and I mentioned wanting to cut down on the amount of bread I was eating or cut it out entirely to see if it made a difference, and my grandmother was quite literally horrified that I might stop eating bread.

      1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        At one point I really hadn’t been feeling great and I noticed that it was often after I ate high-gluten products and I mentioned wanting to cut down on the amount of bread I was eating or cut it out entirely to see if it made a difference, and my grandmother was quite literally horrified that I might stop eating bread.

        This hits home so hard. I did low-carb before, felt great, my system really responded to it well and lost a significant amount of weight. I also discovered that I would have to fake my own death and start life over under an alias if I ever wanted to lose weight again; so many people felt they had the right to dictate what I consume and were personally offended I might cut back on one of their pleasures. The weight came back when I resumed eating those foods, and it’s just less stressful to carry the extra weight than living in fight-or-flight mode over it.

        1. Dawn*

          I will never not be shocked at how defensive people get over bread. It’s not even an especially exciting food. In all but the most exceptional products, bread is entirely for putting other things on.

    2. Lizcase*

      GF banana bread is one of the best GF options. I don’t know why it is so much better than regular cake or cookies but it is.
      My problem with wheat is not gluten and I can have small amounts at a time, so I usually just have tiny pieces or one cookie. The chocolate-chip banana bread my husband makes with 1-1 GF flour I will binge on.

  43. HummusAndChips*

    A desk neighbor of mine over the years would be nosy and comment on things I would eat/drink and sometimes would stare at me as I am walking in with my lunch first thing in the morning and immediately want to know what I brought. Somethings he’s said include:
    – Ewwww Starbucks?! They aren’t a good company. Blegh.
    – Why are you drinking that? You know it’s a fad drink that doesn’t provide any benefits and hasn’t been studied enough.
    – Is that a hot pocket you’re eating? I can’t eat those because they’re high in sodium.
    – So when are you going to make the switch over to impossible meat?
    – Is everything okay? I see you’re taking…what are those…vitamins? There isn’t enough evidence that shows those actually help you.

    Those ar some examples of things that he’s done over the years. I finally had to tell him to mind his own business. He still asks once in a while what I’m eating and every time I brace myself for some passive aggressive comment but he doesn’t anymore.

  44. dulcinea47*

    Reached a point about a decade ago where I will put my fingers in my ears and say “LALALA” if you try to diet talk me beyond a single comment. I do sometimes tell my coworkers their lunch smells good and even wonder if that’s crossing a line.

  45. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    Bashing your own food choices in a group setting is just as bad. Our culture is so messed up around food that people feel this weird compulsion to criticize their own food before someone else gets a chance.

    I was with a group who met regularly in a coffee shop and every single week were the choruses of “I am being soooo bad”, “diet starts tomorrow!” “I really shouldn’t eat this” “I am cheating today!” that I finally snapped and said. “But are you ENJOYING IT”. Dead silence. Like it never occurred to them to just enjoy it.

    1. Cinnamon Stick*

      I use variations of “are you enjoying it?” all the time. It’s amazing how baffled some people get when you ask.

      1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

        It does feel as though food is the new religion – people seek moral certainty/superiority through adherence to dietary rather than deity-related (how I wish deitary was a word!) rules.

        As I’m freelance and work from home, the only person who gives me diet-related grief is our timeshare cat, complaining that her primary servants don’t feed her (she lies!)

  46. Cheese Goddess*

    When I got engaged, I was working for a supremely toxic boss – I came home from work crying because of something she’d said to me at least once a week. About a week after I got engaged, I ran into her in the office kitchen, where I was grabbing a cookie out of a box someone had brought in. “Oh, I see you’re not worrying yet about fitting into a wedding dress!” she said. So, so glad she and that job are in my rearview mirror.

    1. boomchickapow*

      How annoying. When my daughter was engaged, she got a comment like that. She turned, looked them in the eye, and said “You do realize that the dress is designed to fit on my body, not the other way around.”

    3. Susannah*

      Ugh. Maybe say, nope, not worried, since I plan on having a wedding outfit that fits ME, instead of finding a way for me to fit some inanimate wedding outfit.

  47. KTbrd*

    This is just so baffling to me. The only thing I ever say to someone about their food (coworker or otherwise) is, “Wow, that looks/smells good!” if that’s true, and…nothing otherwise. Why are people like this???

  49. Delta Delta*

    I had a coworker who was, at heart, a really lovely person, but I think struggled with some disordered thoughts around eating. We worked together for about 10 years and in that time she was on every low/no diet available. Low carbs, no carbs, all carbs, no fat, all fat, paleo, keto, and my personal favorite – low acid. One day she told me she believed people should always be the weight they were at 18. She then yelled at me for eating a nectarine because it had some banned nutrient (sugar? acid? carbs? idk). She was eating some processed meal bar that matched whichever diet she was on that month. I just said, “I’m eating my nectarine” and walked away.

    I also had another coworker, who some combination of deeply religious and a workout enthusiast, tell me I was going to hell because I ate something that had high fructose corn syrup in it. I told him I was probably going to hell, and for a far better reason than that.

    1. Cat Lady*

      I’m almost afraid to ask, but what’s up with “low acid?” I’ve heard of pretty much everything else on that list but that one is new to me.

  50. Rebecca*

    There is one thing I love about my current workplace: People bring in goodies all the time, and nobody cares if you take the proffered goodies or not. Take a whole donut, take two donuts, take a half a donut, take no donuts… You will receive no comments at all.

  51. Prorata*

    The only comment I’ll make about a coworker’s food choices are “That smells good – tell me about it, please??”

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      this, or if its on fire/exploding in the microwave. like “Hey anna, your toast is smoking.”

  52. Birdie*

    In a former job, my boss saw me eating Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and snidely said “You know, once on the lips, twice on the hips.”

    I still get enraged thinking about that.

  53. Space Needlepoint*

    I have a small tin of coffee candies at my desk. A serving size is 11 of the things, it’s 40 calories. I offered the tin to a colleague and she took one and then proceeded to tell me how bad she was.

    I can’t even.

    1. Bird names*

      It’s probably not about the calories, at least not with similar people I know. Anything that tastes even remotely good and can be linked to the “evil” food of the day (substitute sugar, fat, salt, whathaveyou as necessary) is suspect. Truly, I hope we move past this one day collectively, because why tarnish such a simple joy. I hope you enjoyed your coffee candies in peace whenever you felt like it.

  54. I like lunch*

    A few months ago my boss commented on what I was eating for breakfast (it was more of a lunch type item, hence the comment). I’m sure they weren’t trying to make me feel bad, but I definitely responded with something close to “I’m so glad to be back in the office so people can comment on my food choices.” I’m pretty sure they got the hint, have never had another food related comment. And truly a lovely boss overall, otherwise I wouldn’t have responded the way I did.

  55. Reality.Bites*

    Not me, but this happened to a friend of mine, back when he was 24. He was on a lunch break, enjoying his Big Mac, when a coworker started telling him everything wrong with his choice.

    He said nothing, and silently took out his second and third Big Macs. He’s nearly 50 now, still eats a lot, and is still 6’2″ and 175 pounds.

    I really hate him!

    2. The Dude Abides*

      I am that friend, but instead of multiple Big Macs, my go-to lunch is an entire rotisserie chicken (my nickname at work is Chicken Guy) and either a package of pre-cut fruit or a salad.

      I’m 5’7, 160.

      I also work out 3-4 days a week, and referee rugby most Saturdays – I need the protein.

    3. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      heh, my kid works for a fast food chain and he is at that stage in life and activity where he can eat an astonishing amount of food. He takes advantage of every penny of free food he is allowed on his breaks. His coworkers have commented, but it is so clearly envy that he hasn’t been bothered.

  56. Pita Chips*

    It’s the “that’s so bad,” or “that’s so good,” that always gets to me. It sucks the enjoyment out of food sometimes.

  57. Dawn*

    Oh yeah, there’s another one I’m really sick of hearing, try telling people literally anywhere – online, in a crowd, whatever, that you drink diet pop/soda/Coke/etc.

    People will fight to be first in line to tell you that they, personally, don’t like diet, in spite of your never having asked.

    1. Vicky*

      I drink a lot of Diet Coke. I know it’s not the healthiest choice, but I like it and it gets me through the day, so tough. I was on a long-haul flight a few months ago and when they came round with the meal service the flight attendant asked what I wanted to drink. I said “Diet Coke please” and she gave me 2 cans – which I hadn’t asked for, but I was fine with because they were 150ml cans so a bit less than half the size of a “normal” 330ml can. About 7 hours later I went up to the galley and said “Please could I have a can of Diet Coke?” to the same flight attendant – who handed me another 150ml can along with a lecture about “You drink a lot of Diet Coke you know, it’s not good for you!!!” I didn’t comment on the fact that 3 x 150ml cans is about a quarter of the amount I would drink in a normal day.

      1. Dawn*

        It’s really not that bad for you, either. There’s no credible evidence that aspartame has any negative effects, and yes it’s got a lot of acid in it, but so does regular soda, and fruit juices, and tea, and coffee…..

        My point being that diet isn’t any worse for you than anything else that people drink. About the worst consequence is that the caffeine might make it difficult to get to sleep if you drink it later in the day.

    2. Feeling Feline*

      The only comment I will accept about diet coke, is to commiserate about the discontinuation of Coke Zero. Nothing since tasted as good.

      2. Wolf*

        That’s odd. In Germany, we still have Coke Light (silver label) and Coke Zero (black label) and they’re basically the same product. Nobody quite knows what’s the difference, except the black one is advertised for men.

        1. amoeba*

          Nooo, they taste absolutely different! (And yes, I can tell in a blind test.) I always hated coke light, it just has a weird aftertaste to me, like most things with artificial sweeteners. The zero is much closer to the original taste.

          I realised they both don’t agree too well with my digestion, so sadly I don’t really have them anymore – but coke zero was really great for a while, while light was never something I’ve enjoyed.

  58. Elliot*

    I used to listen to this podcast that was problematic for a lot of reasons, but one of the most annoying things was the two female hosts dubbing people who bring food to share to work as “the evil donut bringers” because they both had such a hard time just saying “No thank you” if there was food they didn’t want to eat! They even went as far as trying to set group rules at their workplace about what foods could be stocked in the kitchen.
    I can’t wrap my head around people commenting on other’s food, fighting against others eating what they want, trying to ban certain foods from the workplace, constantly talking about their own diets, etc – it’s all so inappropriate and indicative of our culture normalizing a SUPER unhealthy relationship with food.

    1. Feeling Feline*

      I’m the evil food bringer, because I grew up in poverty and I’d be dead if weren’t for the other evil food bringers. It’s not hard to say “no thank you” lol.

      1. Elliot*

        I’m also an “evil” food bringer! I grew up with an eating disorder and sharing food with others as a communal experience of joy is really helpful to my recovery. It allows me to focus on the positives of food and get out of my own head. So you can imagine how irked I was to hear a few women using their platform to deem the acts of generosity as “evil” because they have a hard time saying no thank you!

  59. Hobbit*

    Many years ago I was on prednisone. One of the side effects can be an increased appetite. I had packed my lunch one day but realized by about 10am I was going to have to eat it and buy a second lunch later (it was very much like being a hobbit). A coworker saw my lunch on my desk and made a comment about how it was too early for lunch. I explained the reason I was eating thinking that would stop any further comments. That’s when he felt the need to comment on my medication.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      Same here! I’m on steroids for life and I feel you. It also causes weight gain. I think I would have broke down and cried of gotten angry and said “well I kind of like living and the meds do that.”

      1. Artemesia*

        I didn’t know that one side effect was ebullience and self confidence and energy; so I went out and. bought a house. I had been dithering for years, got a couple days into the steroid pack and got energized and went out and bought a house, only a few tens of K above our budget plan (luckily a conservative one.). My husband was delighted that we were finally moving on this. I had not idea it was the drugs. If I could take it every day without serious side effects I would — never felt so competent and energetic.

        I was lucky as I didn’t get the moody or angry side effects others I know have.

        1. Dawn*

          It is an absolutely wild medication. I know that I was on vacation with my family and I remember about two snapshots from the entire week; I don’t even remember where we stayed.

        2. Late Bloomer*

          I’m with you on this. If I could take prednisone for life, I would. I generally function absolutely fine, though I’ve occasionally dabbled in anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds over the past 20 years or so related to time-limited situational stressors like divorce, horrific job situation, and really sleepless days of early parenthood. Four years ago, I had an eczema + allergy skin nightmare that took me to a dermatologist and led to a long, gradually-tapering-down regimen of prednisone (I think she called it the poison ivy protocol). I felt so great, better than I have in almost forever. It not only took me out of my job precarity-Covid-homeschooling doldrums; it also led to the discovery that I’d been dealing with low-grade rheumatoid arthritis without even knowing it. I suddenly felt so good! and energetic! and pain-free! Man, I was so optimistic and got so much done during my prednisone period.

      2. EngineerGal*

        We call it “predni-crack” because of how nuts my mom gets on it. For me personally I would also stay on it all the time if I could-I have tons of energy, nothing hurts? It’s like suddenly being twenty years younger

  60. Brucie Bogtrotter*

    I had a boss who was the absolute Diet Gestapo. Her greatest hits included:
    *”Are you really going to eat ALL OF THAT?” in observation of me heating a Lean Cuisine in the kitchen.
    *Bringing Ziploc baggies of unmarked capsules from Mexico and handing them out to the women in the office and insisting “you have to try these diet drugs.”
    *Swanning in at 10:30 (workday started at 9) with a big bag of lukewarm Del Taco breakfast burritos and demanding that we all gather in the conference room, regardless of workload or desire to eat, where she would insist that we eat them while not eating one herself.
    *Eating nothing all day, declaring “I’m saving all my WW points for wine” and complaining that she felt dizzy and lethargic.
    *And the piece de resistance: while I was on chemo and doing my best to work through unrelenting nausea, she told me “I know it’s the chemo, but the weight loss looks great on you!”
    Still bummed that I was unable to vomit on her on cue.

    1. Unions Are Good, Actually*

      “Bringing Ziploc baggies of unmarked capsules from Mexico and handing them out to the women in the office and insisting “you have to try these diet drugs.””

      OH MY GOD

      2. Margaret Cavendish*

        That was my first reaction too, until I saw “I know it’s the chemo, but the weight loss looks great on you!”

        This woman is an actual nightmare.

    3. Hroethvitnir*

      Good. God. The stimulant one has a good splash of hilarious in the horrifying for me, but the rest…

      My father has some Issues around weight (his own) and he made a slightly-less-offensive comment about how a nice bonus to my cancer surgery and upcoming chemo might be weight loss.

      My bro. I am not explaining to you how messed up that is. (We were recently back in contact after over a decade and I wasn’t particularly bothered except to feel sad for him, nor comfortable enough to have that conversation yet.)

    4. Jane*

      “Swanning in at 10:30 (workday started at 9) with a big bag of lukewarm Del Taco breakfast burritos”

      As a certified Del Taco Hater (maybe I just have bad luck but why are their fries so sad and wet??), this would have made me burst into flames.

  61. I always forget what name I used last time*

    One of the big reasons I quit my previous job was because of how the President (we were a small org) would treat me regarding food. We had an event that staffed by a lot of volunteers, so, as a thank you to them, I got up early and used my own money to buy the volunteers some hot & fresh Krispy Kreme. Readers, the president proceeded to stand by the donuts as each volunteer came in and say to each one, “OP got donuts – you know how she’s obsessed with food. But I won’t let her ruin my diet!” Only a single donut out of 2 dozen was eaten (by me), and I had to throw the rest away when the day was over. It was humiliating.

    1. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      Oh my goodness I am so sorry. I hope when you left you arranged for a donut of the month club for your old boss.

    2. Artemesia*

      No way in my donut eating days (can’t do the sugar now alas) no comment by the President would have kept me from taking my donut or even two. A strangely easily cowed group.

  62. Burned Out Banker*

    I deal with this now and it drives me nuts. My three officemates are constantly making comments like “I had a piece of Halloween candy, I’ll have to skip lunch to make up for it!” or “I wanted to eat a donut in this morning’s meeting but I didn’t work out this morning so I couldn’t!” and it never stops!

  63. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    I will never forget a coworker I had, Roy. I was new to the team and this was the job after the toxic pool of a call center. So my sense of norms were skewed. Apparently he was a health nut. I knew he biked into work everyday, but I didn’t think anything of it. Another coworker had made a joke to Roy about the team potluck and the food not coming from the food co-op (the local organic food grocery store). I didn’t think much about him being picky.
    One day I went out to lunch and got a Frappe coffee with whipped cream and a sandwich. I was coming back to my desk to finish lunch when he said “Oh that looks healthy” in a really condescending voice. It had been the first time anyone had commented on my food choices. Not even in high school or college had someone scrutinized my food choices. On top of this I have a medical condition that affects my weight and so makes me on the heavier set. No amount of starving myself sees to affect my weight and it is a body image issue of mine. I don’t know what I said but just mumbled something. Just those few words just really put me down.

    1. Bird names*

      Hope that superiority-complex works out for him./snark
      I’m truly sorry you had to deal with this boor.

  64. E*

    I’m fat, and I’ve gotten really lucky with my place of work; mostly what I notice is people hemming and hawing about if they’re going to be “bad” and eat a cookie or whatever. I do get cranky and tell them to just eat it or not eat it. I’m the fattest person who works here so I feel like I can be a little pointed once in a while, and I’m also old enough to not care as much. But I think in general people have gotten much better and more people are aware of fat liberation, at least in my area, than before. But if that one lady starts going off about how she’s so fat and needs to lose weight, I’ll tell her it sucks to hear how desperately she doesn’t want to look like me

    1. Wolf*

      Yeah, I’m really tired of the “I’m so bad if I eat that, sugar is my sin!” talk. It’s food, eat it or not but don’t make it a moral judgment.

      1. Bird names*

        All I hear is “If you’re happy and you know it, it’s a sin.” What a sad and exhausting mindset.

  65. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Maybe I’ve been very fortunate but I’ve never come across the diet police at work or at the gym. I’ve worked in several European countries and now I’m retired in Germany.
    Noone’s ever criticised my food choices or anyone else’s in my hearing. Or said how healthy/good we are – ugh.

    When we had pizza or cake at work, we ate what we wanted (politely taking our turn) without comment other than “yum” – which is quite chatty for engineers.
    My field is 95% male so maybe that was the reason at work, but my gyms have been about 50:50, so I wonder if the diet culture is more prominant in the Anglosphere or I’ve just been lucky?

    1. Dawn*

      I think it’s quite possible that it comes up less, or not at all, in Europe.

      Now. Just you try refusing a drink offered to you by your host….

      1. amoeba*

        Eh, it might be less and I’ve personally also always been lucky, but I think it depends also a bit on the field! In science, I really haven’t had much comment (apart from making fun of vegetarians, sadly – but that has luckily improved a lot in the past 10 years or so!). But people in different jobs have told similar stories to the ones here, although maybe not quite so extreme.

  66. sgpb*

    Once at a work training, there were mid-morning snacks provided. One woman loudly declared that she couldn’t BELIEVE how unhealthy the provided snacks were and THANK GOD she had thought to bring her own. The snack wholly consisted of fresh oranges, apples, and bananas. People have some warped ideas about food, man.

      1. Rainy*

        I have to leave the room if someone is peeling an orange, and I’m allergic to bananas. So for me, yeah, that snack wouldn’t be the best–although I can get down with an apple as long as it’s not Red Delicious or Jonathan. :D

        1. Dawn*

          As an adult, you should have a least-favourite apple. The Red “Delicious” should be that apple.

          3. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

            Least appropriate apple name ever.

            If anyone needs me, I’ll be over here, eating all the Braeburns…

      2. Dawn*

        That’s actually a pretty complicated question because I can tell you as a diabetic what horrible things fruit can do to my blood glucose levels, lol.

        But like anything else it’s just something to eat in moderation. A large banana has a similar amount of sugar to a Mars bar. But whichever you choose, the trick is not to eat too many of them in one sitting.

    2. amoeba*

      Oh wow. I mean, I can see being a bit… surprised/disappointed if breakfast was promised and it’s literally just donuts or cake. I love them but usually have them as snacks, not as my whole breafast! Although I’d be fine for one day, of course.
      But literally… fruit? And not even as a meal, but as a snack? WTF.

  67. 1-800-BrownCow*

    Can we also normalize not questioning people about their weight loss/gain? I recently lost some weight (good ol’ fashion calories in vs. calories out) and I’m the type of person who prefers not to talk about it. The number of people who push me about why I lost weight is aggravating. It’s not anyone’s business so stop asking me “Did you lose weight on purpose or are you sick or something?”

    Also, people need to be careful making assumptions about someone’s weight loss/gain. Another colleague once made a nasty comment to me about my one team member’s “failed weight loss surgery” and how he lost so much weight and then gained it all back, so the weight loss surgery was a big waste of money. My team member had gone through cancer, not weight loss surgery!!! Apparently she had told several people at work that he had weight loss surgery and that it wasn’t successful. HE ALMOST DIED and spent 2 months in the hospital due to his cancer.

    1. Mesquito*

      there needs to be a sign up in every break room in America reminding everyone that no matter how healthy they think they eat, someone else out there thinks their diet is literally poison

      1. 1-800-BrownCow*

        Nope, not at all. Completely different back-story and I don’t think my team member knows about this colleague saying he failed weight loss surgery. I certainly didn’t tell him. This colleague has no filter though. She once said to me she didn’t realize I was pregnant again and I looked like the baby was coming any day. I was not pregnant. I wasn’t even overweight. I do have a pouch from my 3 previous pregnancies that will always be there unless I have a tummy tuck. But that pouch, even on my worst bloated day, doesn’t make me look 9 months pregnant either.

        1. Dawn*

          I’m trans so I’m honestly just waiting for someone to ask the pregnancy question.

          Hasn’t happened yet, but hope springs eternal.

    3. mreasy*

      I have never been told how “great” I look as often as when I lost a bunch of weight due to a psychiatric medication killing my appetite and had zero energy or motivation. Shortly thereafter I went into inpatient treatment. But I guess I was skinny enough finally!

      1. 1-800-BrownCow*

        That’s sad that so many people equate skinny to being healthy or “great looking”. I would never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I knew they were purposing trying and wanting to lose weight.

  68. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

    Had a coworker look at my plate of hashbrowns from the cafe and say “Look at you, oink oink!” It bothered me all day because that was not like her at all! When I finally told her how much her words upset me, she burst into tears and told me she had just found out she was pregnant. That was definitely not the response I expected to get, ha! That was over 20 years ago and we’re still friends and she’s never said anything like that since. Not sure what the moral is to this story but it’s a thing that happened. ;)

  69. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    I work out 6 days a week but that’s certainly not to burn off what I eat – it’s because after all the years I worked for my pensions I want to live to enjoy them as long as possible :)
    I’ve enjoyed exercise all my life and I realise that’s how I cope with the stress of being Vulcan in an NT world.

  70. ThreeSquaresADay*

    The first time I worked in an open office my coworkers complained about how frequently I ate. I tend to be a snacker rather than someone who eats three meals a day, plus I was dealing with a medical issue that made me hungry all the time. Apparently some people found it distracting. I had to justify eating, folks. As in, explain why I wanted to eat food in the office. I am a human, I eat was not good enough. I had to have long discussions with them, and those discussions involved commentary not just on how often I was eating but also judgements about what I was eating. I ended up having to get a medical accommodation to be allowed to eat more than once during my work day, in large part because they didn’t approve of snacking between “meals” or a food model that didn’t involve larger meals (nevermind that there were no lunch options nearby and refigerated/frozen food didn’t survive the trip via public transit even in a cooler).

    That job was pretty judgemental about anything that didn’t fit their narrow definitions of normal, but their ideas about food were the worst.

    2. Festively Dressed Earl*

      Holy guacamole. No bringing lunch in, no getting lunch out, no eating in the office – the logistics of anyone getting through the day in that office baffles me.

  71. Blue Pen*

    I would also add that, at least IME, this appears to be a highly gendered thing. The amount of times my old boss would comment on what I was (or wasn’t) eating for lunch compared to my male colleagues is through the roof. Men feel very comfortable and entitled commenting on women, period, (“Smile!”) in a way they never would to another man.

    I’m sure someone else will bring this up, too, but even taking the fraught dynamics out of these conversations, I don’t want to make a whole conversation out of what I’m eating as though it were late-breaking news. “Yep, Diane, I’m eating carrot sticks and hummus… for my afternoon snack…”

    1. Wolf*

      Gendered, and also very dependent on your weight. Any weight outside a narrow range of “normal” gets you free nasty remarks.

    2. Whomst*

      I was actually reflecting on how little food talk my workplace has, and how part of it is probably because of how few women there are…

      Discussion of food has increased since we started turning on the old grill on the patio and doing weekly cookouts, bring your own items to grill. But it’s an entirely voluntary activity, and we mostly discuss grilling techniques and share recipes.

  72. TH*

    For years I was on and off weight watchers and struggled with comments, mostly about skipping treats, at work. Then I watched a friend who was a VERY picky eater and a diabetic navigate similar comments and realized that you don’t actually have to say anything other than “no thank you.” or engage at all to other comments. A smile, a short laugh, a sigh, etc. are ambiguous and end the conversation quickly. We are social creatures, and I doubt such comments will ever disappear, but minimal response is very powerful.

  73. Lindy B.*

    I spent years hearing coworkers comment on my green juices I made from scratch and drank every morning at work. “Swamp water” and “meconium” (I worked in an NICU) were my favorites. NOT. Occasionally I would mix things up and bring a juice that was as close to the color of blood I could get (beets, blood oranges, carrots, etc..) That would freak people out too I was always known as the ‘one who eats healthy” and yes, it’s a pain to have to listen to that all day. I ate mostly vegan and very little processed foods. Though no one ever commented on the one coworker who would go to the vending machine in the afternoons and bring back six candy bars and eat them all by herself.

    1. BikeWalkBarb*

      Although you just did comment on that coworker…. The inner Judgy Judgerton can be sneaky that way.

      1. Festively Dressed Earl*

        +1. And I bet that coworker got comments too, “in private” and “very concerned.”

        1. Lindy B.*

          I sure hope not, she was an excellent nurse and a great coworker, but who knows. Maybe she did.

      2. Lindy B.*

        Nah, no judgement of her intended. She gets to eat whatever she wants. When I was on night shift, I lived on snickers and Diet Coke.

  74. MissouriGirl in LA*

    I am in the South, so no food shaming here. I walk into any break room and the smell of rice and gravy and fried foods permeates. I don’t care for either but to each their own, right? We have an Exec Assistant that’s gluten-free but she doesn’t make any deal out of it if there’s nothing she can eat. We make sure she has a snack that she can eat. People where I work are a lot of things but they can be nice about the food stuff. Gumbo anybody? I have food issues as it is, so I’m thankful that nobody comments and I am so sorry folks feel the need to comment on others’ choice of food. Leave it.

    1. Goldenrod*

      This sounds relaxing! I’m on the West Coast and people tend to be very health conscious in a way that is not always polite.

  75. Semi-retired admin*

    Ha! I had to go on an off-site work retreat (half day) where we stopped for lunch on the way back to the office. A group of approximately 8-10 grown-a$$ adults chose a fast food place. I’m a vegetarian. The ONLY options for me were fries and jalapeno poppers. My supervisor made a snide comment across the table about my choice of fried food. I’m overweight. It was humiliating.

    1. Pizza Rat*

      How rude! That should not have happened.

      Signed,

      Someone who regular makes a meal out of jalapeno poppers.

      1. BikeWalkBarb*

        Co-signed, another vegetarian who feels the same pain when people don’t stop to ask the simple question, “Can we all find something to eat here that we want?”

        1. Semi-retired admin*

          It was at least 10 years ago (I’ve been a vegetarian since 1998) but I’d like to think now I would speak up. Also, now I check menus online before agreeing to any place to eat!

        2. Wolf*

          Same. I’ve sat through entire christmas parties in restaurants where all I could eat was a side of coleslaw. They couldn’t even make the potato wedges without bacon.

  76. Blue Pen*

    I might’ve missed it in Alison’s response, but if not, I would also add dietary preferences or restrictions—cultural or otherwise—to this. I’m a vegetarian who leans vegan; I don’t eat meat or seafood, and I really try to limit my dairy intake (although I will have some). I also have a gluten sensitivity, so while I will eat starches, I can’t have a lot of it without starting to feel sick.

    I don’t make any show of it unless someone asks me, and I’m always more than happy to talk with anyone curious about starting a vegetarian diet (or whatever). But people definitely Have Thoughts about this (especially meat-eaters, to be honest), and it can be exhausting to field in the workplace. I don’t make a show of it because I don’t want to offend anyone, but that courtesy isn’t always extended my way when people take it as some kind of personal attack or invitation to provoke.

    Bottom line: in the workplace, I think anything other than “that looks good!,” where’d you get that?,” or “how’d you make that?” is probably not the way to go.

    1. Dawn*

      Interestingly enough since you bring it up, the other day I ran into… what I can only refer to as a militant carnivore who was trying to explain to us why vegetable oils were unhealthy and unethical and beef tallow was actually the healthy, ethical replacement.

      It was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life.

      1. mreasy*

        I did a whole obsessive deep dive once into the “Carnivore Lifestyle” Internet and it is terrifying. You can probably ballpark the other beliefs that go along with it usually.

  77. Katherine*

    At an old job I ate sandwiches for lunch most days. One of my coworkers made occasional snide remarks about them. One time I had leftovers from dinner the previous night and she said “Finally you’re eating *real* food!” and I said I wasnt going to dignify that with a response. She fell about trying to apologise and never commented on my lunch again.

    1. Cinnamon Stick*

      If sandwiches aren’t real food, I would have wasted away for lack of calories before I was six.

  78. Might Be Spam*

    Nobody complains about my lunch order since I happily and at great length explained my rationale. I ordered an ice cream sundae with all the trimmings as my entree at a lunch with few coworkers. (Tldr version is calories compared to entrees, protein, fruit, calcium, etc.)
    My huge grin when my order came made it obvious that mine was the best lunch ever. The story must have gotten around. The next time it was a larger group and after I ordered my sundae, two other people ordered the same thing.

    I don’t always do this. I only do it when I really want one. I’m equally likely to order only a simple baked potato if that is what I want.

    I think people are kind of afraid to ask me to explain my thought process now. One coworker is not liked by our grand boss. When he was giving her a hard time, she told him that I told her to do it and he stopped bothering her. I’m not even anybody’s supervisor.

    1. Bird names*

      Hell yeah, not giving a shit/demonstrably enjoying yourself can be like armor.
      Your last paragraph: did you basically imply that whatever had him worked up was created and/or decided by you? Either way, it’s wonderful that you could be a buffer for her!

  79. aarti*

    I changed my entire relationship to food because of recommendations to my doctor. I lost a lot of weight. A lot of people asked me about it. I made a point to only answer direct questions and never, ever comment on it first. So if someone said directly “How did you lose all that weight?” I would answer succinctly. If someone said “Is that all you are eating?” I would simply say “Yes” and not elaborate, at all. I never brought it up on my own that i was trying to lose weight, at all.

    Surprisingly this worked really well. People definitely commented on the weight loss and I would say “Thank you!” and never anything more. And they took their queues from it, most of the time. I was pleasantly surprised. Around me the diet and weight loss talk continued but I was mostly left out of it. Thank goodness.

  80. Festively Dressed Earl*

    Food policing was a serious sport when I worked in a department store, and there was no escaping it. Bring in lunch and be prepared to have your choices dissected as lunchroom chat. Go to the food court? Some coworker stops by the table, expresses shock at what you’re eating. Nothing to do on a slow shift? Gossip about what so-and-so ate at the food court or the latest diet fad. Every year a sale gimmick left us with lots of free chocolate in every department: enter the chocolate diet and the Super Bowl of diet arguments. It was hell.

  81. Anonny*

    Thankfully I’ve never had any coworkers comment negatively about my food choices (which would be a CHOICE at my office; we’re in MN and do frequent potlucks), but the diet culture/talk among certain coworkers is actually insane and has made me walk away from groups several times. I’ve never seen so much disordered eating in one place. I have one coworker who frequently just has brussel sprouts for dinner – no protein, no carbs, just brussel sprouts. Another has been on every variation of a keto diet you can think of. Another one who was supposedly getting advice from a nutritionist could only drink smoothies all day until nighttime, when she could have plain chicken and rice (and she complained about being super hungry all the time. Like yeah! No shit!). I would rather be fat and happy thank you.

    1. BikeWalkBarb*

      As a kid I didn’t like Brussels sprouts but discovered as an adult that my childhood reaction may have been due to the cooking techniques applied. Adult discovery: A plateful of broiled sprouts with some chili spicing? Yes please! If I like a food and want to eat only that for dinner on occasion, I do. I consider that a benefit of being an adult, not disordered eating for me personally.

      I have to add a footnote because this whole topic definitely brings out the “well actually” in me: Like every other food that isn’t 100% comprised of fat, Brussels sprouts contain protein and carbs, primarily carbs. As a vegetarian I frequently get asked how I “get enough protein” when it’s in many, many vegetables, grains, and other things I eat.

      Definitely agree with you that if someone is hungry they should eat more. Food is wonderful!

  82. H.Regalis*

    I put turmeric milk in my coffee. I like how it tastes and it’s way cheaper than the supplements. It’s also day-glo fucking yellow. I have gotten a few comments when I worked in an office along the lines of “What IS that? Why is it yellow?? It looks WEIRD.” Well, count your fucking blessings because I wasn’t going to offer you any.

    Unless it’s “Where did you get that/Can you send me the recipe for that? It smells amazing,” I don’t want to hear or make comments about food.

    1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

      Before my current job moved remote, I would get people in the lunch break rooms constantly informing me how “weird” it was that I put fresh basil leaves or mustard greens on my sandwich rather than regular lettuce. “Why didn’t you just use lettuce?” was a popular response. Because…I didn’t want to? Why is that such a hard concept?

      1. Light Dancer*

        Actually, both fresh basil leaves and mustard greens on a sandwich sound delicious! But some people will criticize ANYTHING!!!

      2. Dawn*

        Geez, I use whatever’s ready to harvest in my garden, people. My sandwiches experience an ever-rotating selection of greens depending upon the season.

      3. Artemesia*

        How would they even know? I use basil leaves and spinach leave as the greens in sandwiches and people don’t usually even notice — it is just green stuff.

        1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

          It’s usually the appearance and/or smell. I’ve used spinach from a box of mixed greens when I ran out of basil and I’ve had people comment on how weird it is because it “doesn’t look like lettuce.” I always wonder what they think lettuce is supposed to look like. Wait until they hear about sprouts!

          The basil I grow indoors and it’s spicier than what I grow outside. Someone would still have to get pretty close to smell it but I have had at least one person walk up to me, bend down, and take a big sniff of my sandwich. People are weird.

    2. Hroethvitnir*

      I admit I would ask about it, but mostly because that sounds cool! I’m curious about that now, might have to look into it.

      1. H.Regalis*

        Curiosity I think is fine. It’s something new to you! No harm in asking what it is. It’s the people who wrinkle up their faces and make it super obvious they think my food is gross who irk me.

      1. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

        Right? I mean, there’s a lot of things that are used as coloring agents in so many foods, like beet and carrot juice, paprika, and lots of stuff will have turmeric. I used to make a faux egg salad using silken tofu and I used turmeric to color it yellow. It doesn’t take much.

  83. A perfectly normal-size space bird*

    I had the misfortune of being an intern in my mom’s office. For context, my mother is so diet obsessed that I wound up with an eating disorder as a kid and still struggle with it as an adult. So being an intern in her office was hellish during lunchtime.

    My boss at a previous job was very much crunchy-alternative everything. It got so I couldn’t eat anything without my lunch being scrutinized for how processed it might be. I’m pretty sure if I grew my own wheat, ground it into flour, then baked it into bread to make into a sandwich, I’d still have gotten crap for it because I used a gas oven instead of a stone-fired hearth I built myself. FFS, we have half an hour for lunch, let me eat my nuked leftovers in peace.

    1. Bird names*

      I’m sorry, that sounds really stressful. I had something similar happening with a room mate during a time I also earned very little. The options she suggested were, yes, sometimes tastier, but always more expensive. Definitely strong agreement to your last sentence from me.

  84. Jonathan MacKay*

    I actually had a rather funny interaction with a coworker in this regard. (He has nearly 20 years on me in age, and I’m not exactly young myself anymore)

    Essentially, we were discussing some details of my doctor’s assessment of my health – cholesterol, etc.. and that the go to advice is ‘lose a few pounds’.

    He commented on his own meal, (salad and hard-boiled eggs) and compared it to my own (Bacon Cheeseburger, with double the cheese) – I fully admit this isn’t a healthy meal, (and if you looked in my snack stash, you’d think it was for a kindergarten class) – but at the same time – he was commenting I wasn’t fat, but I would be if I kept eating like that. ((Said with obvious comedic jealousy)) Thing is, I agree, a bacon cheeseburger for lunch every day for a week – that’s easily overdoing it – but at the same time, I work a pretty active job, so I’m consistently hungry for something simple but substantial.

    I like the people I work with enough that I’ll allow such good natured ribbing. Besides, the old joke of “I’m very much in shape. A circle is a shape, isn’t it?” usually gets a laugh.

  85. Kaitydid*

    I had a coworker in the beginning of my career who thought I should drink less coffee. I’m not sure why. He wasn’t Mormon. He’d comment on me having coffee several times a week, so I started making vague “mhmm” sounds when he did and continued as I was. The last time I remember him making that kind of comment was when I “mmhmm”ed him and took a sip of my coffee while making eye contact.

  86. Songstress*

    At a prior job, my otherwise excellent supervisor found out that I wore a smaller dress size than she did. From then on, she had no peace and made sure that, when it came to food, that I didn’t either!

    Example: She worked at the main office and thus didn’t see what went on at the branch of the agency where I worked. She told two of my colleagues (who worked at my branch) to observe what I ate and report back to her about it; for some reason, she was convinced that I only ate a salad (which I didn’t.)

    This really annoyed my co-workers – they resented being put in the position of spying on me and wondered why she thought my lunch was her business (which it wasn’t!) She thus managed to irritate THREE of her subordinates over something that was absolutely none of her business. Way to go…NOT!

    1. Wolf*

      Making other employees report on your food is an extra level of crazy.

      Maybe you could have teamed up and told her increasingly weird stuff about what you ate. “Dear supervisor, Songstress had three leaves of lettuce today. Yesterday she had a whole ham on one slice of toast, with strawberry jam.”

  87. Feeling Feline*

    I only drink my coffee black without sugar. People think it’s so funny to make the whole “ha ha sociopath” comment, I mean dude, if I were to be part of this shitty international oppression chain of exploitating coffee farmers, at least I don’t also take part in sugar cane industry, and force cows to stay pregnant so I can add more taste of suffering. As if they don’t do all three while demanding to be seen as less sociopathic.

    I no longer drink anything at work.

    1. mreasy*

      Literally everyone knows that people who drink black coffee are tougher and cooler though. I’m not even joking, like I am joking, but if you’re trying to stereotype a black coffee drinker it’s, this person is in fact way more hardcore than you.

      1. Feeling Feline*

        I’m actually super softcore. The taste of sugar burns my throat haha and I’m too much of a wimp to take that.

        1. BikeWalkBarb*

          Wait, drinking black coffee makes me a sociopath? What does that mean for all the people who are really super-duper into coffee and want to inhale the aroma and taste the nuances and all that?

          In addition to which, my mom taught me that if I learned to like coffee black I could always get it the way I wanted it, versus being disappointed if they didn’t have sugar or cream on hand. This was in the Pre-Latte Generation.

          Basically I like coffee all kinds of ways. Not sure what that says about my psychological profile.

          1. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

            It took me years to discover that I was slightly allergic to concentrated whey protein, which is found in artificial coffee creamers. My preference for coffee is almond milk and I kept one in the office refrigerator for years. But non-“coffeemate” is not available, then I drink it black (not enjoying it nearly as much).
            FWIW – I found out that white chocolate and MSG are molecularly similar to whey protein, so they each give me hives on different parts of my body, usually within minutes, as my body is determined to immediately remove them from my body.

  88. Donkey Hotey*

    I’ve dealt with more food pushers than diet monitors. My “favorite” (and my favorite, I mean hate with the fire of a thousand suns) was a woman trying to guilt a pregnant woman with, “Maybe the baby wants a cookie” after the mom had already mentioned the gestational diabetes.

  89. LunaLena*

    I’m a type 2 diabetic and once someone brought a box of cupcakes to the office to share. Everyone immediately clustered around the cupcakes, but when I took one, a coworker *plucked it out of my hand and put it back in the box*, saying “you shouldn’t eat that, it’s not good for diabetics!” I was so dumbfounded that I went back to my cubicle without saying anything, then went back about 30 minutes later after the cupcakes had lost their novelty value and took two cupcakes.

    1. Dawn*

      I mentioned this on another comment chain already, but I’m type 1 and I too once had a lady at work literally snatch food away from me – out of my hand – after offering it to me, saying, “Oh, you can’t have that,” and I nearly leapt at her out of my chair tiger-pounce style.

    3. Wolf*

      Oh boy. I grew up with my grandma having to calculate and inject her insulin before meals, and if someone had taken her food away after she calculated it, that could have caused a serious problem.

  90. Dawn*

    You know, speaking of all this diet talk in the workplace, I wonder if one post Alison might do at some point – I don’t think I recall this one already being done, although I’m not 100% confident – is least-appropriate discussions we’ve ever witnessed in the workplace.

    I’ve got some doozies.

  91. Hroethvitnir*

    I have been exposed to comparatively lowkey diet culture in my work life, but it really is the bane of my existence. For whatever psychological reason, it puts me off eating “healthy” food more than “unhealthy” and I deeply resent it.

    I eat this food because I like it, I don’t appreciate being judged even positively, and I think yo-yo dieting is measurably worse than eating too much. Leave me alone.

    I’m also generally impatient with people not just owning their choices, and if I had to work with someone who routinely performed self-flagellation before eating I probably would end up telling them to just eat it or not and stop talking about it.

    I know it’s hard, but you’re hurting yourself and everyone around you.

    1. Jane*

      1000% agree with all of this; I love to cook and for me, personally, life is too short to force myself to eat food that I hate, no matter how “healthy” it is.

  92. Christine*

    My first sneak eating memory is from when I was a toddler. I started dieting when I was 11 years old and was borderline anorexic throughout my teen years. I then settled into a binge eating disorder through my twenties and thirties.
    Extensive therapy helped me find peace with food and my body, but I can still be triggered by thoughtless comments. I could not work anywhere that had a “dieting” culture.

  93. No coffee please*

    Try being the American chonky woman working in development for the company that makes O-O-O… you know the ads.
    And always being judged for wanting a Coke Zero over coffee. So fun!

        1. Dawn*

          As much as the whole Ozempic thing really gets on my nerves (because actual diabetics need that medication) I’m still annoyed that none of the ads were, “O’hungry? Ozempic.”

          It’s sitting right there.

  94. Neurospicy*

    At the same time, I also hope that people who are against food policing also don’t comment on or feel some kind of judgement for people eating what seems very “healthy.”

    I eat the same salad for lunch every day, more or less. I make them from scratch on Sundays. It serves my own health needs and my neurodivergence, so I can make better choices more easily, save my brainpower, and stay away from things in certain packaged food that make symptoms worse.

    I’m not eating salad AT anyone!

  95. Goldenrod*

    This happened about 20 years ago, and I still remember it like it was yesterday.

    I was alone in my office, eating a donut. An (old, white, male) professor walked in, looked at me, and said, “Caught ya!”

    I know I looked at him witheringly, but I didn’t say anything. What I thought was, “I’m not on a diet. What’s wrong with you??”

    It was just a moment of annoyance, but clearly it bugged me since it’s imprinted so firmly on my memory!!

    1. Susannah*

      Yes, I have observed over the years that older men somehow felt justified in judging my food choices when I was a young woman. Like, they were letting me know I was wasting my marriageable years by making myself too chubby for a man to want me.
      Seriously, I was at a courthouse, covering a trial, and in an elevator. I was carrying a (plain, unbuttered) bagel and coffee. This 60-ish man got on the elevator, which was crowded, pointed at my breakfast and said, DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY CALORIES ARE IN THAT? I wish I could report that I said something withering, but I was in my 20s (and fairly normal sized) and just mortified.

      1. Mentally Spicy*

        I’ve found the same type of man will be just as critical of what other men consume. Not necessarily in terms of the healthiness of what they’re consuming but in its *quality*.

        For example I like mass-produced light beer. I routinely get comments along the lines that my (light, refreshing, mass-produced) beer is nowhere near as good as their (heavy, overly bitter, artisan) concoction and that if I only stopped consuming things that I like and start consuming things that *they* like I will be much happier. (With the subtext being that their drink is somehow more “manly” than mine.)

        See also: the amount of pink in your steak, the level of spice you’re willing to tolerate and the (in the reverse of your situation) amount of food you’re willing to consume (it’s apparently more “manly” to order an obscene amount of food and consume every atom of it until you can barely walk).

        Ugh, it’s exhausting.

        1. mreasy*

          I was just in a Slack convo (with my very chill office who does not cause food problems) where someone was calling one of our local coffee spots “overpriced” and “not as good” as another local spot, which, while also fine, serves more straightforward coffees. They said it was sad that so many people were misled by their “marketing” into paying higher prices Someone else chimed in and called them “pretentious.” This was friendly banter but calling a business “pretentious” for caring about the consumable they are serving gets my goat (I went to culinary school and have worked in high-end food products and also am a major coffee person). I said something snarky about how sad it is that they can’t appreciate nuanced flavors! And that what if it’s just that there are many types of coffee to enjoy and ways to enjoy them, and isn’t that nice for us all? Then everyone had to agree.

          This was a jokey convo but like… truly. “Pretentious”? The staff at the place are super nice! Sorry they have tasting notes that you seemingly can’t ignore?

          It’s almost like light beers and IPAs all have their place (Miller High Life 4eva). Like how you can like Taco Bell but still ALSO appreciate high end restaurant dining. OR how you should shut the hell up about your coworkers’ food unless you are saying “oh yum, that looks delicious” or “is that from the new Thai place? I’ve been meaning to check it out!”

          WHY ARE PEOPLE

          1. Mentally Spicy*

            My philosophy, not just about food but about matters of taste in general, is this:

            Let people enjoy what they enjoy. Don’t tell people they *should* enjoy something else. Or that the way they’re enjoying something is “wrong”.

            Someone I work with occasionally has a big thing about people eating steak with ketchup. And I’m like “are you eating it? No? Then shut up and let people enjoy the things they like the way that they want”.

            1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

              I’m fond of the phrase “Don’t yuck someone else’s yum”. Works in all kinds of contexts.

            2. NotSoRecentlyRetired*

              My roommate and I have resolved our ketchup debate. I don’t roll my eyes when she puts it on scrambled eggs and omelets, and she doesn’t when I’m putting it on hot dogs and bratwursts.

  96. PurlsOfWisdom*

    A few jobs ago, at a culture where many of us would bring in leftovers/homemade food to heat up and eat communally in the lunch room, we had a great time talking about what each of us were eating and discussing recipes and etc. There was never any judgement among the group of commentary about what others were eating. There were all kinds of diets represented in the group.

    But then… there was Susie. Susie was our head of HR. She never ate with the larger group (to be noted from many different departments and levels of leadership and seniority). But without fail… EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. She would traipse through the lunch room like a manic little chaos sprite and lean over the shoulder of each and every single person around the room and loudly ask, “Ooooh!!! What’re we having today?!” Not so bad in and of itself except….

    She would then sprinkle in little comments specific to each person. Ranged from:

    -How many carbs/calories one person might be having (sue me, my homemade mac and cheese is not healthy but it is DELICIOUS and you best believe I’m eating it)

    -Commenting on someone having a salad and asking how their diet was going because clearly they were trying to lose weight.

    -“Oh I could never eat something like that….” for XYZ reason.

    It was my first real job, so I never escalated (because who could you escalate it to…. Susie?!). It did become a running joke with my peer colleagues at our Friday post work drinks whenever someone would order food though… “OOOOHHHH. So what are we having…?! Hmm….” delivered in the most sarcastic tone we could muster.

      1. Dawn*

        **leaning over a six-year-old** OOOOOHHH. So what are we having, Billy? Birthday cake? Oh, that’s absolutely full of calories…..

    2. mreasy*

      I just don’t understand how a person like this thinks, “I could say something mean and shaming about this person’s food. Or I could not. I think YES.” I joke with my coworkers but like… idk maybe if someone brought in cookies I’d call them cookie monster and eat one? How are people like this? I know, it’s their sad way of exerting their superiority in this arena or whatever… I don’t know, I’m not even super nice! I can be short with people and it has been raised to me before. But I just can’t imagine being like this!

      1. Dawn*

        I think it usually has a lot more to do with the person’s own insecurities than a genuine effort to be mean to others.

  97. Safely Retired*

    For the last, oh, decade and more of my working life. . . No, breakfast. At lunch time I visited the break room and came back with a Coke (original version) and a vending-size bag of chips (potato chips, Fritos, Doritos, pretzels, whatever). Which I took back to my desk (I had my own office). Splurging was a trip to Burger King (Double Whopper no pickle no mayo, large fries, small Coke).
    Nobody ever bothered me.

    1. Everyone is different*

      When I was in college the vending machine in the Mining Engineering building is where you got the “miner’s lunch” – soda and chips or crackers.

  98. Shelley Stophlet*

    I have something of the same issue, but in a different way, almost? I’ve lost a whole bunch of weight and eat healthy (mostly) and exercise daily. This leads people to try to explain and defend their food choices to me and I assure you, I. DO. NOT. CARE. The only time I comment on someone’s food is if it looks delicious. When I have asked people why they try to explain this stuff to me, they say, “I feel like you’re judging me”. Well that’s on you! I don’t care what anyone else is doing besides me.

  99. Girasol*

    Did anyone mention the wellness program? For $50 off your health insurance, or a free water bottle or something, you can take a workplace quiz about your habits and have an automated system return condescending and inappropriate advice. “Did you know that if you eat less and exercise more you can lose weight? We can help you count calories! You can have a competition with your coworkers!” Well, A) what rock do you think I live under that I’ve never heard that trite advice a gazillion times? B) I just answered a question indicating that my weight is normal so why should I count calories? And C) a calorie counting competition with coworkers? What could be more ineffective and unhealthy, physically and mentally, than that?

    2. Lake (they/them)*

      ugh. my (thin) boss has suggested a few times to myself and my coworker (both fat) that we use the wellness program so we can get the gift cards. I don’t think he’s even trying to shame us for our weight or anything, I think he’s just completely clueless to the idea that said program could have any negative effects.

    3. Chirpy*

      THIS. Yes, I understand eating more vegetables is generally considered healthy. Please pay me enough to go to a doctor instead of shaming my food choices with no effort to help (one time I happened to bring homemade pasta salad for lunch on the day the health risk assessment people were there. I hadn’t had pasta salad in years and had been craving it. That lady was very judgy.)

  101. magpiesblack*

    ohhhh, I had this at a work place. I’ve been borderline on disordered eating for a long time and struggle with how I (and other people) perceive my physical appearance. it’s an ongoing work in progress to find a level of self acceptance. BUT THIS LADY. every time I ran into her in the hall or the bathrooms — a comment on my physical appearance and how envious etc etc. the worst was lunch breaks in the kitchen – always a comment on how much or how little or what I was eating. when I finally mustered the spine to tell her that I’d like her to stop commenting on my food because it made me uncomfortable, I then had to justify it to the people I was eating with! The Lady then took offence and never spoke to me again.

  102. Wolf*

    Many years and several jobs ago… I was in hospital for a whole month. Had to take medication that had the side effect of making me gain weight. My coworkers knew I had been hospitalized for a mental health thing, yet they could not shut up about “you can stand to gain some weight, we couldn’t, we’d hate to have that happen”. It was soooo not helpful for my mental health.

  103. Ook*

    Back in the days of yore, when I was first working in The Big City, I was a young, probably naive woman working with twenty men of varying ages… all City boys. Boss was an aged city boy, and he had no idea how to interact with me because being female I was automatically not one of the lads, and yet I wasn’t a secretary. Paradox!
    I also ate a lot of chocolate and crisps, because I had just worked out no one could stop me.
    Oliver the boss, used to walk down the big table that everyone worked around and jerk open my filing drawer, and comment loudly in whatever chocolate etc I had in there. It sucked.
    Until the day he opened it, saw a large brown paper bag, and demanded to know if I was switching to biscuits.
    I told him quietly that they were pads. He demanded I speak up. So I did
    “SANITARY TOWELS! OLIVER! I practically shouted.
    You’d have thought I said dogshite, or a radioactive wasp- he slammed the drawer shut, retreated at high speed and never did it again.
    Ha.

    1. Wolf*

      I hope that scene is etched into his brain, and the memory haunts him whenever he’s tempted to be nosy.

  104. TriRN*

    The worst ones, in my opinion are the “formerly fat”.

    I worked with one guy who used to get almost every calorie from fast food joints, and rarely exercised.

    He had some kind of “come to Jesus” moment about his diet & (lack of) exercise habits, and transformed into a vegan Iron Man triathlete. I kind of got the impression he’d always been an addict, and had just traded smoking/drinking for exercising/veganism.

    Which is fine! I also do triathlons, but I don’t look like I do (I’m a plus-size lady, and I prefer sprints, as they’re easier to train for around working & caring for my then-little kids, and generally having a life).

    He and I were the only ones who ate lunch in the little kitchen (about 15 office workers in a manufacturing company with about 200 employees total, but the shop folks had their own break room), so we ran into each other a LOT.

    He’d do things like throw out donuts if someone had brought them in and they were still there by the time our (company-wide) lunch break started. He’d toss cookie/candy trays provided by vendors. He’d comment on the supposed unhealthy factors of my not-vegan diet, and was definitely shocked to find out I knew about triathlons and long-distance cycling, let alone that I did them myself! It ended up being more funny than annoying to me, because I’d done a lot of work on making peace with food (gotta love being a teen girl in the 90s) before that job, and had a TON of nutritional knowledge to drop on him in response to every supposed criticism. Plus being able to speak knowledgeably about things like a brick workout, or split times.

    On the positive side, I personally love the challenge of cooking for restrictive diets, whether that’s nut-free, vegan, halal, gluten-free, etc., so I was always interested to hear how he was getting there protein necessary for strength & endurance training, and got some really good cheese-replacement recipes to use for my dairy-free friend.

    But yeah – throwing out communal food, commenting on other people’s bodies & food choices, making assumptions about health/activity based solely on body size… not cool, man. Not. Cool.

    1. Rainy*

      “I used to get fucked up on Jim Beam, but now I get fucked up on ultramarathons” (substitute literally anything for either of those–that’s really how it works for some people).

    2. Wolf*

      Throwing away things that aren’t yours is a complete glassbowl move. It might even be considered theft?

  105. Lake (they/them)*

    I usually eat a salad for lunch and people comment on it so much??? It might be disbelief that I can “eat healthy” and still be fat idk. I just do it because it’s an easy way to ensure I’m getting enough vegetables that day lol

    1. Rainy*

      Also, like…salads are delicious? People absolutely enjoy leafy greens and all the accoutrements that go with a salad. I’ve never understood the “oh you’re so good” thing about salads because people always say it like I’m making some kind of sacrifice by eating a salad. I assure you, eating a delicious salad is not a hardship.

  106. Ally McBeal*

    I once worked under a VP who had a very normal body – probably a size 8-10 and maybe 5’6″ in flat feet – but was stressed out about it all the time, particularly after getting pregnant. We were a very “bring homemade treats in” sort of department and several times a week she would drift through our common area and complain about how she shouldn’t be eating these, they were so bad, she was putting on weight, etc… which is bad enough when it’s just adults in the office, but we were at a university so we had impressionable young women in the office for their work-study jobs. I tried pushing back subtly (“oh, moderation is key” and similar) but it drove me absolutely crazy and we had so many other issues with her that I just dealt with my frustration internally until she went out on mat leave. I grew up with a mom like that and it took a lot of hard work to get her voice out of my head.

  107. Clawfoot*

    On one hand, my workplace is pretty good in that everyone seems to have gotten the message loud and clear that commenting on others’ food choices is not what we do.

    On the other hand, people do not seem to realize that even talking about YOUR OWN food/exercise choices can be just as bad.

    I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard “I took the stairs today, so I can have this cookie,” or “Thank you, but I’m not eating muffins at all — way too much fat for me!” or “Goodness, I just can’t handle all this sugar!” (literally said about CARROT STICKS).

    On the surface, it’s only commenting on your own choices, sure. But a constant barrage of these kinds of comments is extremely wearing.

    1. Wolf*

      It’s a constant miserable stream of “this food is bad and I think people who eat it are bad people or at least making bad choices”.

  108. louvella*

    I’m vegan and I HATE eating lunch in the office because people always have comments. I don’t want to explain what tempeh is! I don’t want to hear about how you feel bad about your food choices because mine look healthier to you, I just like vegetables, I am going to eat vegan donuts later!

    1. louvella*

      And when people are like “wow you’re so good” because I say no to free cookies…I am not anti-cookie! I eat vegan cookies all the time!

  109. Newbie*

    I will never forget the day I got fries with my lunch order from a deli across the street from my last job. We didn’t have offices for everyone, most of it was open floor plan, but when my manager was out she encouraged me to use her office. So I was eating my lunch in there when I left to use the bathroom. Well a manager (not mine) apparently had smelled the fries and went around the entire office trying to find the source of the aroma. When I got back to my desk, she said “do you have fries in here”, I told her I did and she gave me such a look of disgust and said “oh well I could smell them everywhere and was wondering who in the world was having FRIES for lunch” in the most judgmental tone.
    Never brought fries into the office again when I worked there!

    1. SpringIsForPlanting!*

      …I would wander around looking for the source of the fries and try to steal one. Fries are for stealing, what is wrong with that person.

  110. SpringIsForPlanting!*

    Thanks, AAM, for helping me be less of an ahole. It’s this site that (years ago! don’t pile on please!) helped me realize that my intended small talk/genuine curiosity of “Oh wow, is that yogurt really your whole lunch? I would die” was Not Polite. I have mended my ways! People can learn!

    1. PurlsOfWisdom*

      Being open to growth and progress in one’s own actions is the height of maturity and I applaud you to being receptive it. Keep it up, you’re doing great SpringIsForPlanting!

  111. Head Sheep Counter*

    I’ve been pretty immune/lucky about comments and commenters. I hope I’ve returned the favor.

    My personal beef? Is FISH in the microwave. Or disposal of smelly food in the hall garbage (we place our cans outside our offices… its… a thing) vs the kitchen garbage. I don’t like smelling things for days.

    But I don’t comment. I can take my opinion to my office and sit on it just the way it deserves.

  112. May*

    This probably an unusual situation for someone in the US, but most of my in-person colleagues are either Muslim or a variety of Orthodox Christianity which I have learned also involves a lot of fasting for holidays. Multiple people have suggested to me that even though I’m not religious, I should fast with them for the supposed health benefits. I am an eating disorder survivor and it takes all my strength to be polite when I say that I don’t think fasting is healthy for me.

  113. nonee*

    I had forgotten this but it was triggered by these comments. Once, my colleague offered me a chocolate. I said no, because I didn’t feel like a chocolate!

    My colleague’s response was “Why not? You’re already fat!”

  114. Birthday Girl*

    A higher up in my company used to bring fancy bakery cakes for special occasions but in the last few years has taken the stance, “No one needs sugar!” and refuses to let me order cakes for retirement parties, etc. At the last one, I kept asking about a cake since at the last retirement party – it was odd to not have a cake to celebrate the retiree. This owner kept protesting and finally said “Well, cake is more of a birthday thing!” and I cheerfully said “The party is on my birthday this year, so let’s consider it my birthday cake!” and vowed to simply order the cake next time without approval. This person also likes to comment on how healthy people’s food is which I don’t think is appropriate at all. We can each decide for ourselves what will have or not have.

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