Health Snobs

It seems there is an abundance these days of know-it-all "health snobs", and it's exhausting trying to have a conversation around them.

Just the other day I was having breakfast with a group of folks and was telling a couple of ladies about MyFitnessPal. I said that one of my favorite breakfasts now is steel cut oats.

Another woman butted in to the conversation to tell us all she knows about steel cut oats, their fiber content and their health benefits. Our eyes glazed over a bit, but when she said that one of the drawbacks is that it takes so long to cook them, I said that I used the ones that only take 5 minutes.

Well, that gave this health snob another avenue to go into how the ones that take longer to cook are more healthy and the ones I use are less healthy and contain "something else" so they are not pure.

Wow. It was just so annoying. We let her finish her tirade then I changed the subject so we wouldn't have to deal with that again.

Not long ago I went hiking with a group of ladies. Well, actually I ended up by myself - they took off up the mountain to show how healthy they were and left me behind. One stopped, turned around, and begrudgingly said "do you want me to come back there?" I, of course, said "No". I figured if she really wanted to, she would have come back and walked slower with me so I wouldn't have to worry about snakes, mountain lions and bears in the Phoenix mountains picking off a lone person on the trail. I just waved my arms as I walked to ward off wild animals (hey, I figured it was a good work out for my arms, too).

Anyway, at one point I thought this group of health snob hikers was going to literally nail me to a cross and hang me when I mentioned in the car on the way back home that I liked boiled carrots. Needless to say, I don't go hiking with this group anymore. In fact, I don't do anything with them because they are such exhausting know-it-all health snobs.

When did it become "cool" to insert yourself into other conversations at will in order to show everyone how all-knowing you are, or to berate someone about their food or exercise choices?

yeah, this has irritated me before as well. i can see them being helpful to someone who eats food that isn't healthy at ALL, but frankly if someone is already making an effort to eat a more healthy diet then you should just let them be instead of nit picking.

the health and fitness instructor at my high school would stalk people on their facebook and berate them for what they ate/drank. she'd also skulk around at lunch and tell people off for eating perfectly normal food.

The thing that I notice about those people is that most of the time, they're not in a position to be telling other people what to do. For example, my mom is in incredible shape, and not just for a 51 year old woman; she can outrun and outlift men in their 20s and 30s (and has on a number of occasions). Several of her coworkers are substantially overweight. She never offers advice unless asked, never criticizes, but they have the strangest reactions. Either they're somehow offended by her just existing when they're in full binge mode, or they get all high and mighty as soon as they go on a diet and try telling her she's doing everything wrong!

The funniest incident I witnessed was when I went to meet her for lunch one day. She was sitting at her desk and grabbed a few M&Ms from a small bag. As soon as her coworker, who had just gone on a new health kick, saw this, she started going on and on about how bad it was to eat sugar and it was going to make my mom fat and give her diabetes and so on. My mom just kept looking her in the eye, didn't say a word, and ate another M&M.

Whenever I am talking and someone says, "Well, actually..." I assume they are going to be boring, and then I start daydreaming about what I would do if I had a pet giraffe, named Henry, that could talk. Feel free to use this in your world the next time a doo-doo butt wants you bring you down when you are being healthy.