‘My Co-worker Won’t Stop Talking About Her Diet’

Dear Boss,

I work in a 15-person team within a larger organization. We have a hybrid work scheme with mandatory in-office Mondays and at least one other day on-site per week. We’re a fairly close team, and we all get along despite differences in age, life experience, etc.

One of my colleagues, Emma, is a bit of a health nut. Every few months, she tries out a different diet or fad to try to make herself “skinny.” I think she’s already a healthy weight, but she’s very focused on it and on top of that she’s health-conscious and seems to enjoy reading about diet and nutrition.

Emma never parades her new diets around or tries to shame anyone about what they’re eating, but she’ll usually explain why she’s not partaking in team lunches, office snacks, and so on. It’s never meant as anything but idle small talk, but it tends to spark long conversations among the team about everyone’s different eating habits, etc., often including descriptions of some foods as “bad” and some as “good” and how eating high-caloric food is “being bad.” With such a large team in an open-plan office, these conversations can get quite loud and distracting.

I used to join in with these conversations and discuss my own weight-loss woes. However, I’ve recently started getting therapy for disordered eating. I don’t have a diagnosed eating disorder, but I do have issues that mean my relationship with food, diet, and body image are highly negative at the moment. I used to enjoy the occasional chat about health fads, but I now find them extremely uncomfortable and stressful to listen to.

Is there a way that I can avoid these unpleasant and sometimes triggering topics of conversation without coming across as rude? Nobody at work knows about my situation because there’s no need for them to, and I don’t want my medical problems becoming office gossip. I also don’t want others to feel like they have to monitor what they say around me.

Is there a way to explain my sudden loss of appetite (haha) for this topic that won’t get me into awkward conversations?

Ugh, diet talk. Talking about food through the lens of “good” and “bad” can be so pervasive in our culture that people frequently miss how difficult or unwelcome this topic can be for others. It’s triggering for anyone with a history of an eating disorder, first and foremost, but it can also bother anyone who is trying to have a healthier relationship with food or dieting, who is trying not to internalize damaging narratives about weight, or who simply doesn’t want to engage with their co-workers about their nutritional choices.

Of course, people are generally free to talk about their interests at work — within reason, at least — and it’s not realistic, or even necessarily fair, to try to ban entire topics from work chitchat. But it’s also true that you’re a captive audience in the office in a way that you aren’t in most social situations and, because of that, there’s a point when it’s reasonable to speak up and ask to shift the conversation.

Sometimes the easiest way to do that is by introducing a change of subject. Simply interject with a work question or a comment about something that you know people like talking about — Charli XCX’s upcoming album? The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives? — that will pull their attention to another topic.

When that doesn’t work, it’s okay to address the topic head-on. For example, you could say:

It’s tougher if the diet talk is part of a conversation that you’re not actively involved in and is just taking place around you. People do get to talk to each other about their own interests (again, within reason — you are at work). But when the topic is sensitive, you have standing to speak up the same way you would if your co-workers were constantly talking about politics. Here are some ways to address it:

Another option, if you’re up for it, is to talk privately with Emma since it sounds like she’s the main driver of the topic. You don’t need to disclose anything you’re not comfortable disclosing. But if you’re willing to share a little about what’s going on with you, she might be receptive to the message. You could say, “This isn’t something I want to share more broadly, but I’m really struggling with diet talk right now. I know you’re really interested in trying out different diets, and it’s become a rough topic for me. I’d be so grateful for your help if we could talk about it less at work, since we’re all sort of a captive audience to whatever the group is discussing.” That doesn’t disclose anything too specific, and it’s broad enough that it could apply to lots of people, not just those in therapy for disordered eating. Pointing it out might make her more thoughtful about the impact her diet focus could be having on bystanders.

If there’s anyone else at work who you’d be comfortable saying something similar to, you might be able to enlist their help in shutting down the topic so it’s not just you making the effort. In fact, if you start talking with your co-workers about this, you might find that you’re not the only one who’s finding the topic exhausting and would welcome a break from it. Speaking up and asking for help might help unleash a lot more pushback the next time the diet talk starts up.