Thursday, June 26, 2008

diets, women, etc.

Women-chatter drives me nuts. It pervades every office atmosphere:

"Diet diet diet Curves fitness calories calories ooh, free brownies in the break room!" It's messed up that the conversational currency American women share is body dissatisfaction.

I couldn't apply my leaky filter fast enough a few weeks back and, when diet talk started, lost patience and muttered to a colleague, "You know, it's really not hard. The trick to not getting fat is not overeating. Just don't do it."

As people go, I'm really in no position to be engaging in diet talk.

A (tubby) co-worker is doing Weight Watchers. Fine. But she invites people to lunch on days when she "budgets" a sandwich she craves into her day, as though we should applaud her self-control or something. I overheard her and another woman complaining that eating a healthy-sized breakfast makes them hungrier earlier in the day, so they choose not to. No word on the fact that jump-starting one's metabolism in the morning is a healthier way to go through the day than is being hungry later at night when most folks are sedentary.

Yesterday, she and I and my desk-mate, a marvelous guy who is always downing yogurts to lose weight, walked into the sunny afternoon to buy coffee. When we got back, they headed for the elevator. The newsroom is on the third floor. They ended up following me up the stairs and could barely breathe by the time they arrived. Then my desk-mate offered me some M&Ms. I took a handful to nibble. He took a similar handful and dropped them all in his mouth at once - and who stops at one mouthful of chocolate?

Why don't people notice what they're doing amidst all the diet talk?


(This post from Harriet Brown spurred today's thought process.)

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