Tired of the Joking

pearlsgirl96

Okay, so her is my suggestion, which you are totally free to ignore.

Tell them the real uncomfortable truth about why you are dieting. Do you hate looking at pictures of yourself and looking in the mirror? Are you struggling with obesity and feel like you are in a fight for your life? Struggle with depression leading to weight gain, or weight gain cause depressing thoughts? I guarantee that if you sit down with these people and explain to them in all the gory detail that they will have no temptation to tease you anymore. It may make things really awkward for a while, but they will realize that this is not a joking issue to you and may end up being one of your biggest supporters.

You know, I am living in China right now. Culturally it is not such a horrible thing here to make an observation out loud to a person's face about the fact that they are fat. To them it is about along the lines of "You have brown hair" or "You are wearing a red shirt." Sometimes a cab driver will ask me "Why are you so fat?" I have just started replying by telling them the whole unabbreviated truth (Lots of deaths in the family, plus moving = long term depression and using food as medication). This is NOT the answer they are looking for (not sure what is...) but it quickly opens their eyes to the fact that it is not the greatest question to be asking. I turn that realization into a learning moment and go on to explain that in most Western cultures it isn't polite to comment or ask questions about a persons weight, age or salary. The cab driver thinks it is really interesting and doesn't leave the conversation thinking bad things about Americans, and I don't leave the cab with my feelings hurt.

Joking is about the cultural equivalent I think, and you could even point that out. Say something like "When you send me a picture of chocolate cake it makes me feel like you are reminding me of what a fatty I am and telling me that I won't ever be able to really lose the weight." Expressing yourself calmly but honestly and firmly is much more successful than passive attempts to mold how the people around us act. You don't have to ask them to stop sending the emails, just tell them how they make you feel and let them choose once they can make an informed decision. Anyone who keeps sending them after hearing the truth is just a jerk. Consider blocking or at least filtering their emails.

So while my situation was a cultural misunderstanding, at its core yours is too. You are now part of "losing weight" culture with its own sense of humor and propriety. You may need to be the one to facilitate intercultural learning on the issue.

Good luck!

I couldn't agree more. However another cultural problem I find we have here in America is the reaction is usually anger when someone tries to make the offending joker think!

arewethereyet

when I had an issue with this I took a picture of me doign a full out pushup and kept in on my phone. When I got a pic of my friend slugging down a margherita, I shot back the pic of my accomplishment!

Last one I ever got :laugh:


I have more of an issue when I am eating at work and ppl are commenting on my plate. Once I asked the girl behind me to tuck in my tag (size 8) when she commented I had an aweful lot of salad and no roll, a roll wont kill ya.