Yes, It's A Salad? Why Girls Shame Other Girls' Healthy Eating Habits

Food holds a weird place in our lives.

We’re obsessed with it when we’re eating it and even more when we’re not. We’re always looking at it or worse, looking at other people look at it.

Like the weather, it’s become one of those things we can’t keep out of our mouths. What we’re eating, what she’s eating and what she’s not eating.

Its presence and absence has a profound effect on our mood and our small talk. What’s most odd, however, is how obsessed we’ve become with its presence in other people’s lives.

As humans, we have an insatiable urge to comment on everyone’s eating habits but our own. Why aren’t you eating? What did you get for lunch? Are you eating healthy now? Is today a cheat day? Why are you dieting?

What we really want to say to one another is keep your mouth off my food. Seriously, when did what I’m putting in my mouth become so much of your business? When did my appetite become yours?

As women, we tend to do this a lot. The new trend, however, is not to shame women for their bad eating habits, but their healthy ones.

If they’re eating McDonalds, we’ll ask them if it’s a cheat day or if they’re splurging. But if they’re eating a salad, we’ll ask why they’re being healthy, when they became salad eaters and why they won’t just come with us to get a burger.

We make people feel more uncomfortable for trying to eat right rather than boosting them up for doing something that's good for them.

We try and make them feel bad for trying to eat well. If we’re not shaming them for that trip to Boston Market, we’re shaming them for being “that girl” with the quinoa.

But why? Why do we care? Why do we think it’s our right to have a comment on someone else’s diet?

You have no control over yourself, so you try and control everyone else.

It’s easy to analyze everyone else’s diet instead of your own. It’s much more fun to comment on what your friends are putting in their mouths instead of taking a serious look at what’s going in yours.

When you refuse to look at your own habits, your own problems and your own health choices, you distract yourself by looking at everyone’s around you.

It’s easier to stop hating yourself when you’re hating on everyone else.

You can’t remember what they said yesterday, but you can remember what they ate.

Why is this? When did conversation become less about what’s coming out of our mouths and more about what’s going in them?

We have a habit of forgetting the things we’ve said but remembering what our coworkers had for lunch the last two days.

Maybe it's a way to make us feel better about not being more astute, by reminding them we remember what they put in their mouths yesterday.

All we're doing, however, is prioritizing the wrong things and making everyone feel uncomfortable around the fridge.

You assume what they're eating is how they’re trying to present themselves to the world.

Maybe we’re so obsessed with what they're eating because we see it as a reflection of how they want to be perceived -- the food they eat is a reflection of the people they want to be.

If your coworkers are eating only healthy food, you assume they're trying to lose weight. You assume they want to look good.

You assume they're vain and obsessed with their body image. So you make a passive aggressive comment.

But why? Why is it any of your business what their motives are? Why do you care if they want to lose 5 pounds?

You wish you could be eating that way.

When you don’t have the stamina or the self-control to eat right, you like to pretend it’s something you just don’t agree with. You condemn the health diets instead of admitting you can’t stick to them.

When you can’t handle your own appetite, you act like people are wrong for controlling theirs.

An unhealthy appetite loves company, and you want everyone to go down with you.

You think you have the right to judge how people spend their money.

How people spend their money is none of your business. If you spend your money on sh*t instead of organic health food, that’s your prerogative.

People shouldn’t feel ashamed of the way they spend their money, let alone the way they eat with it.

You wouldn’t say something to someone for spending $1,000 on a designer purse, so why shame someone for spending a few extra dollars on a healthy meal?

It's not your right to judge people, especially when it's something that's good for them.

Making people feel bad for being good to themselves is the ultimate food shame.