I hope the guy does say something about Clarence’s weight, and then I hope Clarence sues the hell out of him for harassment.

I also question how the letter-scribbler knew Clarance’s weight. “500 pounds” to a lot of lighter people often ends up being anywhere from 200-300 pounds, rarely more.

Absolutely this.

Prudence is also the columnist who wrote this great response to the girl whose boyfriend said she was too fat. It sems her response might have been different if the woman had weighed 500 pounds, though.

I think that this sort of almost-fat acceptance is very common–that it’s bad to be prejudiced against “normal-sized” fat people but not the really fat people. Or that fat people can be healthy but clearly not the really fat people. Or that it’s okay for women to be slightly chubby because “men like that” but really fat women or men are just gross.

And anyone who wants to know why we spend any time torpedoing the idea that all fatasses stuff their faces nonstop, look no further than this comment. This belief turns into scapegoating faster than you can peel a carrot.

The letter writer’s tone strikes me as exaggeration for effect (much in the way that Playboy letters are exaggerated for effect) so I highly doubt that the fat man ate what he has been alleged to eat. Perhaps there’s a bit of confirmation bias as well, you know, ‘I expect a fat person to eat huge amounts and since all the chocolate has gone, it must have been the fat guy’. And as to his weight, we all know how accurate looking at someone is to guess weight – NOT. Oh and the ‘concern’ for his health? Give me a break.

Even though Prudence advised that the coworker not say anything to the guy, she also cheesed me off.

First, she didn’t even consider that this supposedly concerned colleague may have been lying or exaggerating. Secondly, there’s all the fat jokes in the animation (large shadow looming over a vunnerable co-worker, for instance). And finally there’s her judgementalism :

“Clarence obviously knows that he weighs 500 pounds and is killing himself” EESH. So many faulty assumptions there.

He’s “out of control” Yeah? Says who? The food police?

GGGRR!

Meetings are often accompanied by sweets because sweet foods keep employees alert, attentive, and receptive. Our little mammal brains really work better with some additional glucose. Managers know this because it’s intuitive, and also because it’s often suggested at management seminars as a way to keep employees happy and productive at meetings. Taking the sweets out of meetings may have some infinitesimal “health benefits”, but those benefits would be offset by having everyone at the table nod off during Bob’s presentation. Never going to happen.

Companies are out to make money, not to babysit their employees. That’s the way it’s supposed to work.

I tend to have the opposite – people think I weigh less.

I also question how the letter-scribbler knew Clarance’s weight. “500 pounds” to a lot of lighter people often ends up being anywhere from 200-300 pounds, rarely more.

THIS.

And, if this man is eating up all the candy, is he doing it because he’s on a restricted diet at home where no sweets of any kind are allowed?

People need to slow down and start thinking before they put on their “fat-people-ruin-my-life!” suit.

After the first time I had an “intervention” because “everybody watched you eat the entire candy bowl in one sitting” I never touched communal candy.

When I continued to receive “interventions” and kept hearing “we know it’s you because the bowl is always half full when you aren’t around and completely empty when you are,” I knew that the problem was not mine.

I hate candy bowls with a passion because they usually mean that someone is going to want to have a talk with me about how I ate all of the candy even though I didn’t have any. “We know you did because we watched you!”

People are always watching me eat stuff that I never eat. According to them, I eat junk food every day, never touch anything green, and devour sugar like it’s going out of style. I’d like to know when they are seeing me eating all of that stuff because my digestive intolerance to anything derived from corn has me on a deeply restrictive diet so that I can continue to function on a healthy level.

The last time I ate something that wasn’t prepared from scratch using vegetables, fruit, whole grains, and a lean source of protein was August ’07. Yet, I am still accused of living on processed foods and refined sugars because “we watch you eat that junk all the time.” Riiiiight.

I’ll start believing that people are genuinely concerned for the health of others when they stop accepting their hallucinations as fact.