AIBU to mention weight loss injections to an overweight male colleague?

[NoNewClothes]

Worked previously with this colleague in our early twenties and he was well built, but tall so not obviously overweight. We’ve now been working together in the same company for about 3 years and in the time I can’t help but see that he had put on considerable weight and is now probably in the morbidly obese range.

I know his wife to see but not really talk to (not that kind of work place). She has the look of a sporty fit slim type. He, like me, early 50s, teenage kids etc.

I know that speaking about weight issues to a spouse is mired in difficulty; from reading on threads here too that’s very much a no no. However I’m now on WLI myself after really struggling with my menopausal weight gain that led me to a bmi of over 30 and finding it so so hard to reverse the upward trend.

The reason I started? Speaking with female work colleagues who are also on mounjaro and had normalised it, plus coming on here and joining one of the many WLI threads.

This colleague is such a sweet guy, and I would just mention in passing that I’m on them - I would be subtle and kind but make it clear I’m available for advice without pushing it.

Reading the healthy life expectancy report out yesterday is prompting this.

or AIBU and only bring it up if he mentions his struggles (which he never does)

I would be angry and insulted. Don't!

Im currently overweight and very aware of it. I don't need it pointed out to me. I'm trying to address it. I know about weight loss injections, not for me. I don't need to be told about them

Btw I've been fat shamed by complete strangers all my life. From the age of 9. I wasn't obese - nothing like it. I was fat shamed at a size 12 in my teens too. I wasn't big. Just slightly bigger than my friends. I remember after the suicide of a relative - I had put weight on and someone who was a couple of years above me at school shouted - see you're still a fat bitch then. All I'm trying to say is when some people are bigger - people may have already said something - rudely.

My weight fluctuates and I put weight on during covid as I wasn't training in the gym. A complete stranger put his head out of a car window and shouted haw fatty at me.

I'm not in denial about my weight. I had a triple leg fracture two years ago and I suffer from depression which hasn't helped. I will get back in the gym. I'm trying to eat more healthily. I'm actually a gym instructor so I know what I should be doing. I don't need it pointed out that I've gone up at least two sizes in the past few years. I know it.

Your chat could have the reverse effect. It could completely destroy someone's self confidence.

I get told I need to put weight on but it's ususally by peeps much heavier. I'm in diabetic remission if the weight went back on my diabetes would probably return. I don't let someone who is 18st plus is not going to lecture me at being 9 stone.

If you are even considering bringing up weight loss injections to a colleague who hasn't even mentioned his weight to you, then I'm afraid you absolutely are evangelical.

Also, do you really fucking think that anyone, at this point, has never heard of weight loss injections? They're constantly mentioned in the news, on social media and in popular culture generally. It's beyond arrogant to assume another adult must be ignorant of them.

I'm overweight and currently in the process of losing it. If anyone approached me, unprompted - when I'd mentioned nothing to them about my weight - and started suggesting ways I could shift a few pounds, they'd be lucky to walk away with their face intact.

Oh my goodness, do not do this! I’m on Mounjaro and would never tell anyone they should use it too, unless they asked my advice, and they were suitable candidates.

Not everyone wants to lose weight by using injections. It has to be personal choice surely

It's like some weird MLM cult.

People who lose a lot of weight (or even a bit) often do get a bit evangelical about it. I tried to avoid this when I lost a few stone years and years ago. I totally understood the temptation, you feel madly high about it and want to share it, but I remembered how fucking annoying it had always been and held back. I think. Didn't follow any particular trademarked plan or technique, which I think helped.

OP,
he knows they exist, unless he was leaving under the rock.
plus injections its not a magic, you still need to want and work on your food issues.
plus he might not able to afford them and he might still not qualify for them on NHS.

Do you all get together at a certain hour and walk around and around Trafalgar Square in a happy trance, like the movie Cell?

OP could casually mention that she’s taking them, which might potentially open up the conversation.

But that’s all she could do IMO.

If he’s obese, he‘ll already know about the injections. And he definitely knows that he’s overweight / obese!

All OP could potentially (!) do is open up the conversation in a non-evangelical, non-judgemental manner by making it about herself and not his weight issues. But only if they’re actually close enough to comfortably have a conversation about weight and weight related issues…

Hey Dave! Dave!

Hi Brenda how great to see you! How are you?

Hi Great thanks. I was just thinking actually how fat you're looking lately! You might not have noticed but I have! And guess what? There are weight loss injections available now, for fatties like you, I guess you are unaware of them or else you'd be a slim Jim by now! Anyway - you're welcome!!!!

No Op YANBU at all. Not sure why you had to ask.. 👀

I've started going to the gym to get in shape. Should I make it clear that I’m available for advice to colleagues who are unfit?

He, like everyone else who doesn't live under a rock, will be aware of the existence and effectively of WLI. Please don't bring it up.

Yes, I agree. The op clearly cares for her colleague and doesn't want a tragedy like the ones I've described but we've all had to bite our lip when we think we know something that could help someone else. I do think people are being unfair to the op. She went on them after hearing people saying they work brilliantly. Sometimes that might be all someone needs to hear to go from thinking about it to actually doing it. However, as others have said, there's no way she could do this in a work situation apart from talk about her experience if the topic came up anyway.

I would be subtle and kind but make it clear I’m available for advice without pushing it.

There is no way to subtly offer injection advice without it coming across as intrusive or offensive. Even bringing up your own WLI use if it is not something you normally talk about would be as subtle as a brick.

I would say your main opportunities would come from talking openly in the workplace to closer colleagues/women you are on them and it might get back to him and tweak his interest, or if he initiates talking about struggling with weight loss you can say you are using WLI as you found it difficult to lose/sustain weight loss/had food noise etc.

I talk to one of dh's friends about them, but only because dh mentioned to the friend I was on them and his friend awkwardly initiated the conversation (he was prescribed orlistat, had awful side effects, and thought they were the same 🙈).

Aside from anything else, he could already be on them. I know people who are on them for diabetes and they don’t get the same dramatic effect. They are still overweight but they are under the doctor and don’t need medical advice from randoms in the office.
Other people have tried them and they are just not effective for them or they can’t tolerate the side effects.
Maybe he has an illness that prevents him from taking WLIs or is on medication that is contraindicated.
I wouldn’t assume anything about this guys health. You don’t really know.

Just email him 'Oi fatso, why don't you try Ozempic' and cc everyone as they might benefit from it.

I think everyone gasping in horror is a bit much personally!

I've been slim and overweight and as a currently overweight person, if someone told me they were on WLI I wouldn't be offended by them telling me that, every man and his dog seems to be on them at the moment.

If you know the chap well and think you can work you being on them into a conversation naturally then I'd mention it myself, a lot of people KNOW about them but don't necessarily know anyone on them to ask real-person information, I would imagine that is especially true of men more than women.

In fact, I had this exact conversation with someone I know recently, but he was telling me about being pre-diabetic, so I bought up that I knew someone on them that had done really well with weight loss, he didn't even know what WLI were so was very intrigued by the prospect and wanted to know everything I could tell him.

I'm not gasping in horror. I'm just talking as someone who has had struggles with my weight for a few decades and have had too many complete strangers giving their opinion on my weight. I think if anyone needs to raise this - it should be his wife. Not a workmate

Of course it's bullying. She is telling the man that in her opinion he is obese, he needs to lose weight and he cannot do it himself.

She may not be using those words but that is what she means and that is what it will sound like to him because that is what it is. She has admitted that this is what she thinks.

Don’t. Leave people to be. Many people are getting wary of adverse reports, affecting some people, about WLIs.

Let people make their own choices.

I’m sure he’s aware, keep your nose out!

@PumpkinsAndCoconuts All OP could potentially (!) do is open up the conversation in a non-evangelical, non-judgemental manner by making it about herself and not his weight issues. But only if they’re actually close enough to comfortably have a conversation about weight and weight related issues…

Impossible. The only way OP could do this in a non-judgemental way is if she starts leaving her pens in the staff fridge and doing her weekly injections in the communal area of the office. Say nothing and let him ask what she's doing if he wants to.

This is an issue he can discuss with his doctor. It is none of your business.