Ask A Manager: my coworker keeps pushing junk food on me

[minoanmiss]

Weight, food, and pushiness.

A reader writes:

A few coworkers and I have been working really hard to support each other in adopting healthier eating habits. I am admittedly weak around tempting treats, so I don’t keep these things on hand at home or at work. Our company recently hired a very sweet woman who is acutely obese. She has been bringing a lot (a LOT) of sweets, doughnuts, candies, cookies, and such into the office. Right now in the break room, there is literally a buffet of junk food, including doughnuts with Peeps in the middle, a barrel of cheese puffs, and a mixing bowl of candy. A few times throughout the day, she will walk around with a box or plate of junk food and offer it fairly insistently. I politely decline, but I don’t know how many times in a row I should have to say, “No, thank you.”

Fully recognizing that my ability to control what I eat is not her problem, is it at all reasonable to at least wish she wouldn’t bring so much junk food into the workplace? I know a lot of this is wishing someone else would stop doing something that bothers me, but that they have the right to.

I feel like it’s a distraction. A lot of attention is being spent on the food she brings in and the walking around offering it up to people. I know it’s coming from a kind place in her heart.

Most folks are trying to eat healthier these days. I guess at the end of the day I wish she’d keep her unhealthy eating habits to herself instead of trying to make it an office activity. That sounds horrible and mean, and I feel badly about it. Any suggestions?

It's not unreasonable to wish that she'd bring less junk food into the workplace, and it's absolutely reasonable to ask her to stop offering it to you.

But it's not reasonable to push the issue beyond that. It's also not reasonable to connect the food-pushing to her weight, because many people of all different weights do what she's doing and this kind of aggressive food-peddling is a common office phenomenon.

The next time she offers you food you don't want, say, "No, thank you. I'd actually appreciate it if you didn't offer me sweets because I'm trying to eat healthy, and I'd rather not have the temptation." After that, if she continues to offer you food in the future, keep firmly reminding her. In fact, if it still keeps up after multiple reminders, there's no reason you can't stop by her office at some point and say something like, "I really want to enlist you in not tempting me with treats during the day. I think maybe you haven't taken me seriously, but I really am committed to this, and I'd be grateful for your understanding." And frankly, I have no problem with you yelling out "keep that away from me!" if you see her coming to offer you something.

It's absolutely true that she's not responsible for keeping you out of temptation. If she wants to bring in a buffet of baked goods, that's her prerogative, and she's not obligated to stop on your account. But it's obnoxious to keep pushing food on people after she's been asked to stop, and you're entitled to politely ask her to cut that out.

As for the broader issue -- that there's now all this junk food on offer in your break room -- it's probably not your place to ask her to stop bringing it in entirely, especially if others like it. But given the amount of food you're describing and the frequency with which it's showing up, I think you could probably mention once that's it's tough to have so much junk food in the break room. From there, though, it's really up to her.

Meanwhile, could you and your coworkers bring in some healthier alternatives, like fruit? It won't solve the problem of constant cake everywhere, but it'll at least provide you with something else to snack on when the cake is calling out to you.

Comments

[cereta]

Yikes. I think the basic idea of the advice is on-track: the LW has every right to ask the co-worker not to push food at her, and no right to ask her to stop bringing them in. I might suggest that instead of saying she is trying to "eat healthy," she say that she is trying to "avoid sweets." It's just likely to go over better.

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, I do kinda disapprove of the blanket "healthy/not healthy" food classification thing.

[jadelennox]

Yeah, that's where I was. I agreed with all of it except for the phrasing, which echoes the LW's judginess and will almost certainly be heard by the sweet pusher (accurately) as judgement.

Change "No, thank you. I'd actually appreciate it if you didn't offer me sweets because I'm trying to eat healthy, and I'd rather not have the temptation."

to "No, thank you. I'd actually appreciate it if you didn't offer me sweets because I have dietary restrictions and it can be harder for me to maintain them in the face of all these great offerings."

[shirou]

I sympathize with the LW. I'm not actively trying to lose weight, but I do try to maintain a healthy diet. I have a terrible sweet tooth, so I just avoid common areas altogether when I know there have been office parties with cake and cookies, and leftovers are likely to be lingering. Thank goodness people don't go door-to-door offering treats.

The LW has no right to ask her coworker to stop bringing in snacks--others may enjoy them--but they certainly have the right to control their body and work space. I agree with the advice to keep enforcing this boundary with the coworker, with increasing firmness, until it holds.

I wonder why the LW mentioned the coworker's obesity. I guess we're supposed to infer the coworker is obese because she doesn't limit her intake of junk food and assuages her guilt by recruiting those around her to share in her indulgences. That may be true; it also may not be. The advice to set aside this issue is good. The coworker's weight is irrelevant and none of the LW's business. The issue at hand is her behavior.

It hardly matters, but I disagree that "this kind of aggressive food-peddling is a common office phenomenon." At least from my experience, it's common to have one person consistently bring in small quantities of food, or for large groups to have regular pot-luck style gatherings with large quantities of food, but in many years of office work, I've never experienced a single individual frequently bringing in large quantities of food. The aggressiveness of pushing it on people in their offices, rather than leaving the food in a common area such as a break room, is also new to me.

[ambyr]

The aggressiveness of pushing it on people in their offices, rather than leaving the food in a common area such as a break room, is also new to me.

I have coworkers who do this. They mean well. Asking them to stop seems like a losing battle; I smile politely, accept it, and drop it in the trash after they leave.

[minoanmiss]

I used to be like your coworkers. I am sending them vibes that they will realize that once someone says 'no', we aren't being kind to keep pushing, we're being pests.

[tielan]

in many years of office work, I've never experienced a single individual frequently bringing in large quantities of food. The aggressiveness of pushing it on people in their offices, rather than leaving the food in a common area such as a break room, is also new to me.

Yeah, that struck me as odd, too.

I would also go for "I'm trying to eat fewer sugary things" than "I'm trying to eat healthy", simply because, for me, 'healthy' also means occasional sugary, processed things in a food plan that's otherwise a lot of stuff put together from base components.

[eleanorjane]

The aggressiveness of pushing it on people in their offices

Well, I think this isn't necessarily aggressive in and of itself; it's how it's handled.

For example - I often walk around my cluster's work area with a giant bag of jellybeans, stopping by each desk to offer a handful, particularly on long frustrating afternoons where everyone could use a pick-me-up. I don't put them in the kitchen a) because I'm not intending to feed the entire office, just a subset thereof, and b) it's hard enough to get my team to take proper breaks anyway, let alone expecting them to break off work to see if maybe there are lollies. I don't consider that aggressive just because I'm offering door to door service. ;) (And, in the couple of cases where I know colleagues are doing some sort of healthy eating push, I tend to just veer by so they can flag me down if they want, but not stopping long enough to make them feel pressured.)

That said - if I was standing by people's desks waggling the bag at them after they'd waved me off, or pressuring them with the "go onnnnnn, you knooooow you want to" song and dance, that would be aggressive, and not cool. And the letter certainly suggests the person in question is handling things like that. But there's a comfortable middle ground.

[shirou]

You’re going to people’s work spaces but just offering, not pushing food on them. I didn’t actually mean to imply that an office visit with food was inherently pushy, although I see how my comment could be read that way. LW doesn’t say exactly how pushy their coworker is, but enough so that LW finds it hard to say no, which may say as much about LW as the coworker.

[minoanmiss]

I am really glad you haven't run into this kind of office food peddling. I actually have. from the other side -- I used to not only bring baked goods in but run around to tell everyone I had, and if people said "I'm dieting/I'm eating healthy/ I can't" I'd say things like "you're so active, it's just one, you deserve a cookie, chocolate is a fruit, etc"

Then I realized I wasn't being encouraging like I wanted to be, but instead I was being obnoxious, so I stopped. At my most recent job I just put cookies in the break room with a label "for everyone" or "take some" and left people alone.

[lunabee34]

I wonder why the LW mentioned the coworker's obesity.

I remember reading this letter when it was first posted.

If I remember correctly, the LW mentioned the coworker's weight because she didn't want to make the coworker feel judged about her weight; she was looking for ways to turn down this food without sounding like "I'm eating healthy unlike you who are obese and inferior to me." If that makes sense.

[jadelennox]

I can believe LW thinks they mean this, but it's clear where their head is at when they say "I wish she’d keep her unhealthy eating habits to herself." She's obviously not saying there "I wish she’d keep to herself the eating habits that, for me, would be unhealthy." They are judging the co-worker and finding her wanting: she is a person who makes objectively bad choices. And, like, I get that the industrial world is, writ large, super messed up in some very victorian ways about conflating morality and food, and it's not the LW's fault that they live in the world. But is definitely judgmental.