Comments about weight and dieting can negatively impact health and well-being.

Weight comments contribute to societal weight stigma, diet culture, and disordered eating.

Avoid comments that oversimplify weight or health or provide unsolicited advice.

Instead of commenting about a person’s weight, affirm their inner strengths or compliment their outfit.

Talking about sports may be America's pastime, but talking about weight loss is likely a close second. With the recent rise of weight loss medications, you’ll be hard-pressed not to hear this topic in conversations at work, school, church, family gatherings, and parties.

Conversations with friends, family, and coworkers are now riddled with comments about dieting, calories, fat shots, and waistlines. We may have sunk to a new low.

While most have good intentions, there’s a general lack of awareness of how comments about weight and dieting can negatively impact others who are within earshot of the conversation.

Confront Aunt Sue about her unsolicited dieting recommendations delivered to her niece, and she may respond with, “What? I’m worried about her health. She knows I just want to help.”

As benign as these remarks might seem, they fuel weight stigma, which researchers have found actually negatively impacts health. Further, comments made about weight and dieting contribute to disordered eating and eating disorders.

In other words, Aunt Sue’s comments aren’t improving her niece's health and are likely worsening her health instead.

In fact, comments about others’ weight are often driven by a person’s own body dissatisfaction. So, Aunt Sue’s words may come from her own internalized weight stigma, or reduced self-worth linked to her own........

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