If you’ve ever felt judged for your food choices, you have experienced food-shaming. This occurs whenever someone criticizes or scrutinizes what you eat, whether they mean to or not. Now, let’s explore whether anyone actually stands to gain from this behavior.
A person living with obesity probably knows what is or is not a healthy, nutrient-rich food choice. They are also keenly aware of their body size and do not need reminders or unsolicited advice. This is the part of food shaming that is easy to recognize. However, complimenting someone’s body size—whether big or small—can be triggering and an act of food shaming, especially for individuals with an eating disorder or those who may be vulnerable to disordered eating after such a comment.
This is what shaming looks like at either end of the scale.
It is important to remember that whatever people of any size choose to eat is a personal choice, and these are their choices. The control and influence over another’s food choices and decisions about what they eat is not open to evaluation or discussion by others.
This is especially important to realize and respect personal choices when certain foods are labeled as “good” or “bad”, “healthy” or “unhealthy”. All of these adjectives are residual nomenclature from the diet industry.
Food, when labeled this way, is harmful because it is fuel for the body, not something with moral attributes. If it is “good”, “bad”, “healthy”, or “unhealthy”, who decides what that means and what happens to one’s self-concept when one’s choices fall short? These terms are often used by the food shamer acting as “health” police, a role that only protects and serves themselves as beyond reproach, high above and before any others.
Although the criticism may make the shamer feel better than the shamed, the shamer’s food preferences do not make them more virtuous or more likely to live longer.
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Part of the harm of food shaming occurs when the shamer “throws shade on people’s food choices. When sustenance originates from diverse backgrounds, it may possess unique aromas, appearances, or flavors, or be consumed through unfamiliar customs. In these instances of “cultural shaming,” thoughtless remarks often precede the shamer’s acknowledgment of the validity of these varied culinary traditions. No matter which category food shaming falls into, it takes away agency and transfers that power to the shamer.
To gain respect in the critical eyes of a food shamer comes at the cost of judgment. Food shaming includes considering factors such as size, the food in question, and whether there is a willingness to accept and internalize another’s very subjective view in hopes of someday fully fitting in.
The exchange of silence as permission becomes a new way to relate to a food shamer’s thoughts about your food choices as something to be justified or at least explained. The result is unquestioning control that expects no acceptable defense.
Not all people in larger bodies or living with obesity are on a diet or trying to lose weight. This is a negative and faulty assumption. An individual may possess a positive self-concept at any size, yet they are often subjected to the unsolicited influence of a “diet evangelist.” Whether this shamer is pushing a new regimen, the shamed must “try” or inquire about efforts to slim down; these intrusive calls to action remain damaging. Regardless of any short-term intent to be helpful, such commentary serves only to undermine agency and inflict unnecessary discomfort. Both backhanded compliments and calls to action can be damaging.
Unsolicited advice can upset the shamed and undermine their control over their own plate. The shamer’s sense of superiority comes from the desire to show themselves as better than others while putting down others from a place of common, cordial concern.
When the food shamer asks, “Should you be eating that?”, they come across as a self-appointed expert who has their size and food choices under control. The food shamer operates under the faulty assumption that those they judge lack basic nutritional agency. In their eyes, an individual’s physical dimensions—whether deemed too large or too small—are merely visible evidence of “incorrect” culinary decisions that require their intervention. The food shamer is always ready to suggest options as a fake food expert who lacks the knowledge, training, or experience of a registered dietitian or nutritionist.
The shamer remains perched upon a self-constructed pedestal, asserting authority over what constitutes “correct” nourishment for bodies of every dimension, regardless of the consequences. They shame others as a public service with private benefits; they correct those who are making “incorrect” food choices. By correcting the shamed, their opinion is heard.
Equally upsetting is when food shaming transforms into an internal dialogue on a continuous loop. The substituted voice of shame can become your own. This allows a negative, internal influence to affect your food choices. If this self-criticism is both unnecessary and unwelcome, then this means you have been internally food-shaming yourself (“reverse shaming”). Unfortunate but true, you are letting yourself be weighed down by your thoughts about your food choices.
Guilt and shame are the likely results of a food shamer’s intentions. Nevertheless, the shamer is willing to risk hurting the shamed to secure their status as superior after having sown a seed of criticism and control. It doesn’t matter if the shamer is “the diet evangelist” or “the ‘health’ police” or if it involves “reverse shaming” or “cultural shaming”; food shaming still hurts, and it is counterproductive to be on the receiving end of this mistreatment. Unwelcome remarks about food or body size trigger guilt, anxiety, and stress around eating and can contribute to emotional eating or even an eating disorder.
Food is fuel, not a path to perfection or the result of nutritional redemption by turning food choices into something shameful. Expressing disapproval of another’s food choices, especially when done in front of others, benefits the food shamer more than the shamed.
The shamer remains the sole recipient of benefit when their initial pretense of assistance becomes a pedestal for highlighting that the shamed person’s perceived “food failures” require correction. Their attempts at constructive criticism often center on highlighting the shamed person’s perceived “food failures.” With each comment, the food shamer grows more self-confident as they lower others’ self-esteem to preserve and elevate their own.
The shamed often don’t respond or aren’t sure how to, either out of embarrassment or weakness. Instead, they bear it, while remaining politely silent on the outside but drowning in discomfort and sadness inside. The solution? Reclaim the plate!
If you are being food-shamed, you can respond by politely but firmly rejecting any judgment and setting clear boundaries with food shamers. You can respond by ignoring them and continuing to eat what you choose. You can refuse to internalize it. And lastly, you can refuse to let their criticism define who you are and what you eat.
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