I recently ran a meeting at my job that required everyone to come in on a weekend morning. Although it was a necessary meeting I was still thankful that everyone showed up and wanted to express my gratitude. I was originally planning on bringing in some muffins and bagels and fruit but I ran out of time and only had time to bring in donuts. Out of the 12 of us, only 2 people even touched the donuts, they were men. I was really impressed and then of course I felt bad that I didn't have healthier options available.

Then I also recently had a conversation with a friend about how nutrition. I was telling her that I was scouring the cereal aisle in search of a cereal without added sugar and she said "girl, you still eating cereal???? that's nothing but sugar in a box!"

I know sometimes it seems like only overweight people are on diets but apparently the whole world looks after their nutrition and weight. It's easy to forget.

Yes! And that's also the reason many of those people aren't overweight either.

It's an interesting observation but there are plenty of people who still eat tons of donuts ,cereal and other things that I consider off limits. I think it depends on the people.

It is interesting. Sometimes people express concern on here that if they pass up a slice of cake (or whatever) at an office party, everyone will stare at them or question them or insist that they eat the cake. This has never been my experience, though. First, I am never the only person at the office passing on the cake, and second, it's extremely rare for anyone even to say, "are you sure?" much less make a scene or press the cake upon me rudely.

Here's a story: Last week my department had a pizza lunch. Pizza doesn't fit well into my plan - It is so difficult for me to stop at just one slice that I'd rather eat none at all - so I went to the cafeteria, got my usual turkey sandwich that I eat for lunch every day, and brought it back to the conference room where everyone else was eating their pizza. No one questioned me or pressed the pizza on me. One or two people said, "wow, that looks good!"

Perhaps I am just fortunate to have civilized officemates; but I suspect also that folks are more scared of what others will think than they need to be.

It's really heartening to read your post after so many have posted about having problems with people with whom they work pushing them to take a piece of cake or a cookie or some candy or whatever is being passed around that day. And even if you'd had the time to get the bagels and some fruit, it's still unlikely that most would have eaten them -- probably the same two guys. It was nice of you to make the effort though and an interesting set of observations.

Oh I definitely have had the food pushers. My office is near Costco and the larger group I was associated with would buy 1 large cake and 1 large pie from Costco every month for the birthday celebration. I'd go and wish people happy birthday but usually it was about 10 people total, maybe 15 would show up. Every time I'd be told I'd have to have something but I'd politely refuse and get the look. Usually everyone else had a piece of pie and cake.

Also, ps shredded wheat and wheatabix has no added sugar. I'm pretty sure grape nuts/Kashi 7 grains also has no added sugar as well.

Thanks nelie I've since figured out that grape nuts is without sugar and a teaspoon over my yogurt in the morning adds the perfect amount of crunch without a lot of carbs! OT but I sen my hubby to the store to pick some up and he brought back all-bran buds instead. Insert my sour face here! He claims it was on sale or something and its the same thing. Not!!! They're delicious but only because they're full of sugar. Dummy.

I'm always fascinated when people say they feel pressure to eat by others one because I find it easy to ignore such pressure and two, I'm not someone who likes to be questioned and people know that. But may this be a city vs small town thing? Here in NYC people have so many diets they're on that its unusual to find someone who eats the same way as you do. People are vegetarians, vegans, gluten-free, some don't eat red meat, there are abundant religious and cultural limitations on food and its not unusual to run into any if these scenarios. I know at least 2 people who are doing juice fasts right now. It's unheard of for someone to push food around here unless its an elderly Italian grandmother lol.

Well I've never lived in a small town myself, I've experienced food pushers here in the DC area, Los Angeles and San Diego. Denver was the smallest city I've lived in and yes food pushers existed there as well. It just always seemed an office work thing. And possibly, it might be that I've worked in a mostly male environment (men don't care if you eat or not for the most part), but the few women that worked in that environment would push. I think the ratio we had in the department with the Costco cake/pies was probably 3:1 men:women and that is probably the highest ratio of women I've worked with and that was DC area.

I do have to say the only one I know of who pushes food is my husband because he worries, also when my ELDERLY ITALIAN GRANDMOTHER lol was alive, she ALWAYS pushed food on everyone, no matter how fat you were, to her you were "tooa skenny" lol