This Fat-Shaming Line Of Dinnerware Can F*ck Right Off

What a surprise, these fat-shaming plates and wine glasses exclusively target women

Podcast host Alie Ward was just shopping at Macy’s when she discovered something truly gross: A line of fat-shaming plates and wine glasses from a brand called Pourtions.

The plates that Ward grabbed a photo of feature concentric rings to show gradually larger (or smaller) portion sizes. One of them says “foodie” for the small portion, and “food coma” if you actually use the space on the plate. The other one, which is even worse, has its smallest ring labeled “skinny jeans,” and middle one labeled “favorite jeans,” and the largest one labeled “mom jeans.”

Ugh.

A trip through Pourtions’ Instagram account shows a ton more dishware that does just as much policing of women’s bodies. The wine glasses, in particular, are here to tell women everywhere that if they want a healthy pour or a second glass, they’re fat, sloppy drunks. Neat.

And it seems like only the tamer items make it to Instagram. The Pourtions website shows very charming selections, like this plate that says “feed bag” as if the person eating off it is a barnyard animal and not a human being who needs food to survive.

Then there’s this one, which suggests an appropriate serving size for fish, and that anything more than it is “foul.”

Oh, and this one, which uses texting slang to label different portion sizes “NP” (no problem), “GR8” (great), and “WTF” (what the fuck).

After Ward’s tweet got a lot of attention, Macy’s ended up pulling the line from its stores, saying in a statement, “We apologize to our customers for missing the mark on this product. After reviewing the complaint, we quickly removed the plates.”

But the line is still available elsewhere, and this doesn’t resolve the underlying issues with the plates. They’re fat-shaming primarily women, because you’ll notice the plates don’t say anything about “dad jeans” and when they say that wine is going to go to your hips, do you think that was designed with healthy portion control for all people in mind? No. These are common ways that women’s bodies are policed and shamed. They perpetuate the idea that women must eat and drink as little as possible to have value in the world. And even worse than that, they promote the kind of intense portion control and calorie counting that’s common in eating disorders.

People literally cannot survive without eating and drinking. It fuels our bodies, simple as that. We are free to eat and drink as much as we want to, and fat-shaming trash like Pourtions can fuck off about it. Skinny jeans are bad for you, anyway. Now excuse me, I’m going to go eat a “food coma” sized portion of breakfast and enjoy every fueling bite.