Ask a Manager: My Coworkers Say My Diet Will Kill Me

[minoanmiss]

#1.my coworkers say my diet will kill me. I eat McDonald’s for breakfast or lunch somewhere around 4-6 times a week. I get high-protein options like egg McMuffins, double cheeseburgers, or chicken nuggets and never order fries or regular soda.

A couple of coworkers frequently ask about my cholesterol levels and make comments like “you’re going to die before you’re 50.” I would be fine with them saying stuff like that if I actually had any health issues, but I don’t! I’m in really good shape and I’ve never taken a sick day.

I’m worried that I’m going to clap back at them and say something hurtful (they’re both obese). What’s an appropriate/gentle way to get them to stop?

It wouldn’t be okay for them to make comments like that if you had health issues either! They’re being rude and intrusive, and the way you manage what you eat isn’t their business. That’s true regardless of the choices you’re making, good or bad.

Here are a variety of ways you can try to shut it down, depending on what wording you’re comfortable with:
* “I know you mean well, but I don’t want to talk about my health or my food. Thanks for understanding.”
* “I really don’t want to talk about my cholesterol or my eating choices at work. Can we declare a cease-fire on this?”
* “All this commentary on my diet is getting old. Can we leave it here?”
* “I’m taking my eating choices off the table for discussion. So about that (insert-related topic here)…”

Comments

[minoanmiss]

I commend LW for seeking other/better responses than "you're too fat to judge my food choices." Quite a few commenters seem like they would have thought it was justified for LW to respond that way. There's a lot of discussion about whether or not it's worse for a fat person to comment on other people's food choices and whether fatphobia exists.

There is an attitude that I need a short pithy term for. It's the idea that if someone is in a disprivileged group and they piss one off one is justified in attacking them via their membership in the disprivileged group. For example, it's wrong to misgender someone unless they piss you off, specifically/especially in a gender-related way. This is obvious bullshit, except that lots of people think it's logical. And it also causes splash damage -- there's a person in the comments crowing about how, when their coworker who had had gastric bypass hassled them about what they ate, they told her because she was so fat she needed a gastric bypass she had no right to criticise. Now I know that that commenter probably doesn't like fat people in general, and if I were their coworker, as a fat woman I'd never trust them.

In short, people are exhausting.

[xenacryst]

I really, really, really dislike that behavior. Like, I hate passive aggressive in general, but that kind of petty bulshittery passive aggressive is like the chef's kiss of behavior that makes me see red. On the other hand, that kind of splash damage is not necessarily a bad thing - it's always useful to know who's going to be a toxic asshat to you before it actually happens... [sigh]

[shirou]

I too have encountered that attitude. In LW's case, I think it's more than having fat coworkers commenting about food. LW may have the unstated perception that the coworkers are commenting because they are fat, that they are projecting onto LW their own issues with food and weight, and repeating the harassment they have endured on those topics. Obviously that does not make it okay for LW to attack them for their weight, but the causal relationship (or perception thereof) fuels the attitude you described.

[cereta]

I wish the advice had gone on to what LW should do if (and I am sad to say, almost certainly when) their co-workers bulldoze over those polite-but-firm requests that their coworkers cease this behavior. Because, of course, they're just concerned. I wrote years ago about a sadly pervasive belief that one actually has a duty to be rude, intrusive, or even cruel to fat people. Because if fat people aren't shamed for being fat, they might, well, keep being fat. I can easily see this attitude distributing over to someone who isn't necessarily overweight, but eats in ways that are popularly considered bad for them.

Contemporary culture has a serious problem with assigning morality to eating. Which is not really new; one of the things that always annoyed me when studying saints was the seeming valorization of self-deprivation for self-deprivation's sake, going without not because it would allow others to have more, but just to go without. And food deprivation remains a very common way to express devotion or contrition (hello, Lent; I see you, right around the corner).

So it's not surprising that secular culture has picked this up in the form of rigidly practicing "healthy eating." God knows that Dear Abby, at least for a while, couldn't respond to an issue that even tangentially touched on food without harping on it. She still does that with exercise, which, SSDD.

So LW needs more than a script with coworkers. They need to think about how far they're willing to take this, if the potential fallout of going over their coworkers heads is worth stopping the comments (which it may well be; I probably would, but I have a supervisor I trust to handle it well), and how they will proceed if they decide to take further action. Because polite-but-firm isn't going to cut it.

[bikergeek]

Some shitty "liberal" people also like to fat-shame because it's a way for them to punch down without violating liberal cultural norms.

I've held for decades that "diet and exercise" are nothing but a secular take on asceticism and mortification of the flesh.

[minoanmiss]

I've held for decades that "diet and exercise" are nothing but a secular take on asceticism and mortification of the flesh.

That is definitely one big reason for them.

[necessary caveat TM] It's not the same for everyone of course -- some people really find accomplishment in exercise and structure in planning out what they eat. But this has definitely been my experience, as you know, that diet and exercise were all about "earning" a treat or worse "paying for" the treats I had already had, and so on. About guilt and feeling guilty for the amount of space I took up, and seeking to reduce myself. And we both know I'm not the only one with that experience.

[grammarwoman]

Your response here made me think of a recent article I ran across:

The Toxic Phrase We Need To Stop Saying Around The Holidays. No, you don't need to "earn" or "burn" your food. Here's why this mentality is more damaging than you realize.

[minoanmiss]

I have saved that article in my files!

[lemonsharks]

This can be an email.

"Hello, Coworkers,

"You have made unsolicited comments about my health and diet for X months now. I'm informing you that these matters are between me and my doctor, and they are not up for discussion.

"I need you to stop making comments about health conditions you think I may have as well as what I eat, immediately, completely, and permanently. I really do not want to have you to turn this into a conflict which requires escalation.

"Best regards, LW, date"