This conversation made me angry AND broke my heart...

Reminder:

You don't need to have an opinion on anyone else’s body, Keep your comments to yourself, and be kind.

I was out to dinner this weekend, and in the small, uncrowded dining room, two tables of strangers struck up conversations with one another.

And those conversations were all about other people's bodies.

Someone's sister, who eats half a bear claw pastry every night but "doesn't look like it."

Someone else whose weight fluctuated from a 0 to a 2 to a 4, but "it's ok, because now she can find pants that fit."

And the worst one of all -- the sister-in-law who was "50 lbs overweight" but then lost all the weight.

Here's how that conversation went:

Table 1: "Oh, his sister got really big, she was at least 50 pounds overweight."
Table 2: "Well, that does happen."
Table 1: "Yeah, but then she did get down to a size 2."
Table 2: "Oh! That's great."
Table 1: "Well, she passed away. She had lung cancer. She lost a lot of weight from that at the end."
Table 2: "Oh...that's terrible."
Table 1: "Yeah. She struggled for awhile. But she was good looking when she passed away."


AT LEAST SHE WAS THIN WHEN SHE DIED??
BECAUSE SHE HAD CANCER??

This is why we don't talk about other people's bodies.

This is why diet culture is so evil.

Someone passed away from cancer. And when discussing her life with complete strangers, the first thing her family talked about was what size she was.

They didn't talk about how they missed her. How long or hard she fought cancer. If she left behind a family.

Nope. The first thing her family talked about was her weight gain, her weight loss, and that at least she looked "good" when she died. If that’s what they focused on after she was gone, I can only imagine the conversations when she was still alive.

It makes me sad, and it makes me sick.

Focusing so much on someone's size, weight, and outward appearance is dehumanizing.

Every single one of you reading this email is so much more than that.

You have families. You have careers. You have friends. You have hopes and plans and dreams and fears. You are making a lasting impact on the world every single day in the way you show up and interact with the people in your life.

We all are. And we all deserve to be liked, respected, and remembered for more than our bodies.

As yoga teacher Kathryn Budig has said: "Your body is just a meatsuit for your soul."

It's kind of like saying: "Beauty is on the inside" or "It's what's inside that counts."

And diet culture is the nagging voice that comes back and tells us it's somehow acceptable to discuss someone's pant size with strangers in public after they die.

We can tell ourselves and our children that "It's what's on the inside that counts" all we want, but then we also need to push back -- HARD -- against conversations and cultural messages about size and weight and appearance.

We can do that by checking ourselves. I'm confident that 100% of us have noticed or had thoughts about someone else's body or appearance. (Think you haven't? Check out this Reel from Alex Light on pop culture messages about weight and size.)

When we notice those thoughts, it's our responsibility to pause, keep it to ourselves, and then ask ourselves: "Where did this come from?" "Who told me to think this way?" "Would I want someone to think this about me, or about my child?"

It's our responsibility stop perpetuating the idea that someone's weight has any relation whatsoever to someone's worth or to their health.

The woman who passed away? She'd lost weight. She was thin. She wasn't remotely healthy.

Weight is not an indicator of health. And no one's body or size is anyone else's damn business.