"500-Pound Chocoholic" At Dear Prudence
BFDiva Meredith alerted me to the below “Dear Prudence” video advice column from Slate. In her e-mail, she sums up her outrage nicely:
The advice requester explains that he has a fat coworker who eats all the communal chocolate at a meeting, and he wants to say something to the fat man about how his eating a bowl of chocolate isn’t good for his weight problem. Not so shocking, what with all of the “health concerns” (read: fat hatred) and all. What makes it interesting, in my opinion, is “Prudence’s” response.
She tells him (rightly) to say nothing at all to the guy about it. I was feeling pretty happy about her response at first, until she goes on to say that he surely already knows he’s killing himself, and that his compulsive eating must be so bad that he can’t even confine his binges to the privacy of his own home. That just infuriated me. Of course the man should say nothing to his fat coworker, but not for the reasons she gave. He should leave the man alone because he is an adult who can make his own choices about his own damn life, without “well-intentioned” interference.
In her blog entry on the subject, which is worth a read, Meredith also adds:
Let’s assume that the man is 500 lbs and that the candy bowl did have 5 lbs of candy. First of all, we don’t know why this man is 500 lbs. There are probably several contributing factors from genetics (which have been scientifically proven to determine 60% or more of a person’s body size) to a disability to (okay, probably) some serious overeating. But we can’t assume the whys on this kind of thing for anyone, no matter how large they are. And we certainly can’t assume a disease like compulsive overeating (this bothers me on both sides, when all fat people are considered to be compulsive overeaters and all thin people are thought to be anorexic … these are serious illnesses, people. let’s not jump to conclusions.).
The other ridiculous assumption is that the fat man does this sort of thing all the time (he’s so fat because he eats candy all the time). If a thin person came in the room and did the same thing, would they think that he or she did that sort of thing all the time, or would they think something like, “Wow, so-and-so must be hungry. So-and-so must not have eaten lunch today.” My guess is the latter. And the same thing could have been true of this man. Maybe he’d had a busy workday and was running from meeting to meeting, with no time for lunch, so he ate what was available.
But none of that should matter, either. Becuase even if he is fat because he eats 5 lbs of candy a day, it is none of anyone’s business but his own. He is a grown-ass man who can eat all the damn candy he wants. He can eat nothing but candy if he wants. He is a fully formed adult who can make his own decisions about his own life. If he truly is a compulsive overeater, he probably knows it and could seek professional help if he wanted to. The fat man’s choices about how he lives his life are not this person’s business, and certainly not his concern. Being fat is not immoral. Even doing things to harm your own health isn’t immoral. It’s your body. It’s your choice. It’s your business. As long as you’re not hurting others (and being fat doesn’t hurt others), it is officially not of anyone’s concern but your own.
But wait, there’s more! Here’s the video:
Please note the animation that accompanies the question, which is just straight-up “let’s make fun of this fat guy’s body.” From the look of horror on the co-worker’s face to the “his elbows are in the wrong place because he’s so fat” to the groaning chair, this just looks like an opportunity to mock the overweight.
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.
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Filed under: Eating Disorders, Fatism, Guest Post, Video
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On another blog, a few days ago, we pondered who should approach a seeming anorexic with concerns about her/his health. We all agreed that it should be someone close to that person, and that everyone else should stay the f**k out of it.
Some may say that this is a similar issue, but it isn’t. I doubt his coworkers are “concerned.” They’re disgusted. ‘Cause it’s OK, and even encouraged, to despise fat people. Especially if they deign to EAT IN PUBLIC!!!! Horrors!!!
You put it perfectly. It’s no one else’s F**KING business what he eats, how much he weighs, or where his arms sit on his body, for f**K’S sake!
The guy writes “Someone should tell this guy!” Really? “Someone” should? And who would that “someone” be? And “tell him” WHAT, exactly? That his coworkers are a bunch of f**kface haters? Yeah, someone SHOULD tell him that his coworkers are assholes.
Except I’m guessing he already knows that.
“his compulsive eating must be so bad that he can’t even confine his binges to the privacy of his own home” — there is so much wrong contained in that one little snippet that when my brain tried to formulate a response it just sputtered and exploded.
I’m with the other April here. The assumption that not only is it taken for granted that to be “so large” one must be a compulsive eater but that this one person has gone so far into the depths of the disease that he can’t contain it in view of others in public is just so biased and cruel and assumptive and and….*sputter, blam, fizzle*
I agree that the letter writer’s concerns aren’t so much for the man’s health, but for his own comfort. For the sake of argument, let’s say this man does suffer from binge eating disorder. BED is a psychiatric medical condition and unless it affects his productivity at work, should be off-limits. I worked at a job years back where my immediate coworkers were all aware of my eating disorder and accompanying mental health issues. I felt very uncomfortable with their comments and prying and it really affected my ability to do my job and well. Coworkers tend to talk, especially in a small office environment and word filtered to my boss, who held negative stereotypes about mental illness. She eventually found a bogus reason to fire me for it.
So, not only is this none of the letter writer’s business, by calling attention to it, he poses a possible threat to this man’s job.
Maybe it’s just me…but the first thing that came to my mind was that maybe the others had a problem with it mostly because they wanted some chocolate too…and there wasn’t any left?
there are a few other questions that came to my mind.
1. Are they holding daily meetings? Or is this meeting a monthly event? This really doesn’t make a difference in my opinion on whether or not someone should say something. But it does say something about the perceptions of the man ‘concerned’. which leads me to number…
2. I wonder if the perception of me is that i eat all the chocolate in the office because I am the lone administrative person and I am fat. There are people here that eat far more chocolate than I, but more than once I have been ‘jokingly’ accused of having eaten all said chocolate before anyone else had a chance. So does the man really eat ALL of the chocolate, or is this just the hate-filled perception of the coworker?
Lily – if that’s the case then why draw so much attention to the fact that it’s a fat man eating the chocolate? If it was a skinny coworker they would just gently tease him/her about saving some for everyone else. This is completely about their disgust with his fat. End of story.
maybe the others had a problem with it mostly because they wanted some chocolate too…and there wasn’t any left?
…in which case the meeting’s leader should either distribute chocolate to everyone at the beginning of the meeting, or switch to BYOC, or maybe (depending on personalities involved) privately ask him to please be more considerate. If it was only an ettiquette/sharing issue, there was no need for the letter-writer to mention the man’s weight.
If it was only an ettiquette/sharing issue, there was no need for the letter-writer to mention the man’s weight.
Exactly. The only part of this anyone really has any need or right to bring up with the guy is the etiquette issue (if they’re really bothered by the “sharing” side of things, that is).
And the sharing issue isn’t even mentioned in the guy’s letter, which is read in the video. He is strictly “concerned” for this man, and wants to intervene, presumably “on his behalf,” but can’t think of a polite way to do it.
That’s because there’s not one, bucko.
Agreed that if it’s an equal-sharing issue, the weight is immaterial. But it might be seen as an aggravating extra detail (“Not only is he eating all the candy and not letting anyone else have any, he’s fat too!”)
My team at work has a communal candy bowl. Most people are contributing about as much as they eat, but there are those who don’t, and we do sometimes put up a “Reminder: contributions appreciated” card.
Emily Yoffe, who writes ‘Dear Prudence’, is one of those size-four women who go on at great length about their disgusting amounts of flab, to the poin tof making any woman of size wonder how much hate she can have for one of us if she has so much internalized hate for her own body.
There was one article last fall detailing her adventures with a personal trainer, and it was just so sad – because she is thin and she hates her body for not being PERFECT. And it’s sad, because when you read all this self-loathing it makes you wonder who’s crazy here – her, for not loving her perfectly lovable conforms-to-the-norm body, or you, with your larger body that you love and respect.
Before I read that one article last fall, I had been a big fan of Emily Yoffe – she sounds like she could be that fun friend who gets your jokes, you know? But now I see her as one of those silent fat-haters, the one who sees your life as a big tragic fried-chicken mess because of course all fatties just stuff their faces all the time.
It’s sad, really.
I think Prudence’s explicit mention of the so-called 500 pound man not being able to confine his binge-eating to his home somehow reinforces the idea that fat people *should* feel shame when eating with gusto.
As a person in recovery for BED, I might lean toward agreeing that eating a really large quantity of something could be a symptom of a binge.
But what’s the message here? In public, people of girth who aren’t limiting themselves to four-ounce portions of food are “killing themselves?”
Well, next time maybe they should have a veggie tray at their meeting instead of candy. The company should be more concerned about their employees’ health, especially if the company pays for health insurance. And maybe “someone” should invite this man to take a lunchtime walk with them or participate in a yoga class or share a healthy recipe. Just because the man’s an adult doesn’t mean he doesn’t need help for his eating disorder. But if “someone” is uncomfortable telling the guy to quit eating the all the damn chocolate, they should at least try some other way to encourage their collegue to start a healthier lifestyle.
Upon viewing the video, it doesn’t really seem as if the writer of the letter was that disgusted…but that Prudence read disgust into it. The writer doesn’t even assume that this person binges on a daily basis. If it is 5-pounds of chocolate (which sounds to me like a very generous amount to have at a meeting) Who knows if the “500-pound chocoholic” has an eating disorder or not? Prudence seems to think so!
I take issue with Meredith’s second paragraph. If a skinny person came in and ate an entire bowl of candy, everyone in the room would think either 1) that person had bulimia and was bingeing (especially if that person was female) or 2) that person was one of those skinny assholes who can eat whatever they want and never gain an ounce.
Dear Lisa-Marie,
I sincerely hope you were being sarcastic with your comment. If not, please take your Judge-y McJudgerton “healthy lifestyle” comments and shove them up your ass!
Love,
Lindsey
I seriously doubt that this man ate an entire bowl of candy right in front of people. I’ve been around the litter-covered block with trolls before and it just sounds like too much like sensationalism dripping with hysteria to be true. If someone works in a business setting, they are not likely to do something like this. Hell, fat people themselves aren’t likely to do this. No, this sounds too much like a caricature.
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.
Reeks of bullshit, and this is coming from an expert-level bullshitter.
On the whole, I’m satisfied with Prudence’s answer. Not totally, but on the other hand, there are too many advice columnists who would sooner tell At A Loss to “slaughter him like an animal” than suggest anything non-genocidal. I guess in my opinion, beggars can’t be choosers. I know most of you (rightfully!!) disagree.
Given how many times I’ve been accused of eating the entire bowl of candy just because I was in the same room as a candy dish, I’m guessing the problem has more to do with perception than objective fact.
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.
I seriously doubt that this man ate an entire bowl of candy right in front of people. I’ve been around the litter-covered block with trolls before and it just sounds like too much like sensationalism dripping with hysteria to be true. If someone works in a business setting, they are not likely to do something like this. Hell, fat people themselves aren’t likely to do this. No, this sounds too much like a caricature.
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.
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.
I tend to have the opposite – people think I weigh less.
To the “concerned” person who said the candy should be switched to veggies:
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.
The letter writer AND Prudence both have an (un)healthy dose of fat hatred there.
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!
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!”
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.
I seriously doubt that this man ate an entire bowl of candy right in front of people. I’ve been around the litter-covered block with trolls before and it just sounds like too much like sensationalism dripping with hysteria to be true. If someone works in a business setting, they are not likely to do something like this. Hell, fat people themselves aren’t likely to do this. No, this sounds too much like a caricature.
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.
Thanks, Lindsey! Love you, too!
I think what the commenter meant by suggesting veggies at the meeting instead of chocolate was that IF this guy was actually CONCERNED, and not just being a tool, he could bring veggies or something. That would have been a more prudent (tee hee) answer. But obviously, the guy is not really concerned about his co-worker, it’s just an excuse to poke fun at fatty.
I hope the guy does say something about Clarence’s weight, and then I hope Clarence sues the hell out of him for harassment.
Lisa-Marie, the health of an individual is, well, individual. It’s not your right to stick your nose in other people’s business, unless they ASK you for it.