Woman Explains to ‘Heavier’ Friend How to Lose Weight — Gets Slammed for Being ‘Privileged’ But Others Think She Was Right

While removed by some years from school, the woman described how she and seven of her friends she grew up with made a pact to get together once a year for a meal.

It was during the most recent reunion when a blow up over eating habits and privilege seemed to fracture the group.

All of which led the woman to post to an anonymous forum on Reddit — the infamous AITA (Am I The A–hole) community — seeking advice.

While OP (a.k.a. “original poster”) was unanimously declared in the wrong by her high school friend group, there was a more mixed response on Reddit.

Read on to see how the whole thing played out.

“A few years back, 7 of my friends from high school and I decided that no matter where we lived or how busy we were, we were going to meet each other for brunch once a year for the rest of our lives,” OP wrote, kicking off the post.

“We don’t have an exact date, but we usually pick a week in June or July when it is warm, and fly/drive to our hometown for bottomless brunch at our favorite spot. Keep in mind that for some of us, this is the only time of the year that we see each other,” she explained. “I, in particular, live 2500 miles away, so I hardly see any of these girls. Regardless, it is always a good time, until recently when one of my friends ‘Rue’ would not stop commenting on my food intake.”

OP went on to describe her history in competitive sports.

“For some background, I am and always have been a very active person. I ran track and cross country for our college and I now compete in ultramarathons. For this reason, I eat a lot of calories, and I stay pretty thin. I also eat reasonably healthy, balanced meals most of the time. However, for the one day a year at our favorite restaurant, NOTHING is off limits. I eat plate after heaping plate of cheesy eggs, pancakes, hash browns, sausage, bacon–literally I could eat the entire menu.”

“Rue has always been on the heavier side,” OP wrote. “While I don’t really pay attention to someone’s weight changes or eating habits, Rue points it out, so I can’t help but notice. ‘Every year I eat nothing but oatmeal and I keep getting bigger and bigger, and [OP] is over there gorging herself and is stick thin!’ ‘It’s like every calorie [OP] eats shows up on MY body!’ Soon my friends started to chime in, saying that I was lucky I have such good genetics and can eat whatever I want.”

“This really bothered me in part because it completely invalidated the work I do to maintain my healthy body, but also because I could tell Rue was frustrated with her weight, and I felt my friends were doing more harm than good,” she recounted.

“I explained that I do not normally eat like this, and I also exercise very frequently, and that people shouldn’t look at a snapshot of someone’s life and think that’s how they live on the daily. I also said eating salads for every meal and never enjoying a meal out with friends is just going to make her more frustrated, which will slow her progress.”

“I thought this was going to be helpful advice, but my friends all looked at me livid,” OP recalled. “One of them called me incredibly privileged and said I wasn’t aware of my privilege, and accused me of shaming Rue. The rest of them followed suit and told me to get off my high horse. Eventually I’d had enough. I said I was just trying to help and that they’re only going to hurt Rue (Rue was silent the whole time.) I packed up my things, paid my bill, and left.”

Since that moment, things eroded even more between OP and her friend group.

“Now I’m feeling torn because it’s been a few days and none of these people will talk to me. I reached out to the person in the group I was closest with and she said I really overstepped and should apologize to the group and at least to Rue. I had good intentions, but if these people won’t talk to me, maybe I screwed up. Did I?”

While it was pretty much unanimous, among Redditors, that the friend group crossed the line in commenting at all about OP’s weight and eating habits — the forum was more divided when it came to how she reacted to that scrutiny.

As one highly popular response noted: “[Everyone sucks here]. Your friends shouldn’t comment on what you’re eating, period. You didn’t bring it up, they’ve got no rights to comment. They should keep their insecurities to themselves.”

“However, it sounds like ALL of your friends were commenting, even if Rue was the one who started talking first,” the Redditor continued. “So it probably would have been better to just shut them all down, not make the interaction about giving advice to/’fixing’ Rue’s habits. Although she was rude first, it didn’t improve anything that you also commented about her body and habits uninvited. You also put focus on Rue when -all- of your friends were behaving inappropriately, so you weren’t really getting to the heart of/resolving the issue, you were just piling onto it.”

“In general, y’all should just stop commenting on each other’s bodies or healthy habits unless one of you ASKS for advice,” they concluded.

Another Redditor agreed, writing: “[Not the a–hole] for the information but maybe for how it was delivered and directed more at Rue. I would apologize for that. I think I would have just shut it down with look you guys it’s not genetics I’m an athlete and I have to maintain a high caloric intake to keep up with my activity level. That’s just facts. And then say nothing about Rue.”

While yet another advised: “Maybe now is the time in the group text to come to an agreement to not talk about other people’s food, eating, body shape, etc and just enjoy the company instead. This really seems doable for one meal a year.”

What do you think?