I (18F) am studying abroad in Paris for my freshman year of college. One of the few courses I could take to meet requirements was Nutrition.
For context: I was diagnosed with anorexia at 14, went through recovery, and later gained weight while on mood stabilizers for bipolar 2. My parent, who is a bit of a health freak, for lack of a better term (though I love them otherwise), encouraged me to go on Wegovy last year, and I lost 45 lbs. So, I’ve had a complicated relationship with food, weight, and “healthy eating.”
Back to class: the professor had us calculate our BMI and share it out loud. When some students said they didn’t know their weight, she replied, “Oh, you don’t weigh yourself at home? You should!” I spoke up and said that asking a group of 18-year-olds to share BMI is a recipe for a toxic environment, and that there are better ways to teach it. She told me I “didn’t have to share if I was uncomfortable.”
Then she assigned us to take pictures of everything we eat for a week and make a slideshow so the class could analyze it. I again raised my hand and said I found this extremely uncomfortable and harmful for people’s mental health, and asked if we could do an alternative assignment. She brushed me off, saying she understood my concerns but “wasn’t going to change the assignment for one person’s discomfort.” When I said it wasn’t really optional if it affected my grade, she basically told me if I couldn’t stop “interrupting and criticizing her curriculum,” I could leave. So I did.
Now I’m wondering… AITA for speaking up in class, or was I right to push back?
Edit: i didn’t choose to take this class, it was the only thing that fit into my schedule while still filling the requirements. because my history i didn’t really feel comfortable taking this class but when i explained about this i was told that there was nothing they could do
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I (18F) am studying abroad in Paris for my freshman year of college. One of the few courses I could take to meet requirements was Nutrition.
For context: I was diagnosed with anorexia at 14, went through recovery, and later gained weight while on mood stabilizers for bipolar 2. My parent, who is a bit of a health freak, for lack of a better term (though I love them otherwise), encouraged me to go on Wegovy last year, and I lost 45 lbs. So, I’ve had a complicated relationship with food, weight, and “healthy eating.”
Back to class: the professor had us calculate our BMI and share it out loud. When some students said they didn’t know their weight, she replied, “Oh, you don’t weigh yourself at home? You should!” I spoke up and said that asking a group of 18-year-olds to share BMI is a recipe for a toxic environment, and that there are better ways to teach it. She told me I “didn’t have to share if I was uncomfortable.”
Then she assigned us to take pictures of everything we eat for a week and make a slideshow so the class could analyze it. I again raised my hand and said I found this extremely uncomfortable and harmful for people’s mental health, and asked if we could do an alternative assignment. She brushed me off, saying she understood my concerns but “wasn’t going to change the assignment for one person’s discomfort.” When I said it wasn’t really optional if it affected my grade, she basically told me if I couldn’t stop “interrupting and criticizing her curriculum,” I could leave. So I did.
Now I’m wondering… AITA for speaking up in class, or was I right to push back?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> i think i might be the asshole because i did seriously criticize my teachers curriculum and i basically told her that i shouldn’t have to do the assignment because i didn’t agree with it and i left her class. i’m not sure if i should have just sucked it up and done the assignment and now im not sure if i should apologize for what i said because some people in my life are saying i should
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NAH. Where you more interested in an accommodation for yourself or pushing back on the ideas being taught?
Info: if you already have a toxic relationship with food. Why take the food based nutrition class?
You wrote in your first paragraph it was one of a few you could chose from. And it is the one you have a personal issue with. Why take it?
Nutrition and nutritionists do need to talk about food and weight. Two main things they discuss. What best way to learn that thru your own eating habits.
You have bad nutritional habits and maybe still do if you feel this much shame on a school assignment. Maybe even afraid.
As a fellow anorexia survivor, NTA at ALL. People who haven’t had their lives impacted by eating disorders are often blissfully oblivious, but you don’t have to have had a diagnosed eating disorder to have a poor relationship with food and your body. I would bet there were other people in the class who agreed with you.
You have the right to not share your private intake of food.
But as the class is about Nutrition, talking about your own Nutrition seems very logic to me. Share your own experiences.
And if this is something you want to avoid, then this is perhaps not the class for you.
From that point of view, NTA for walking out.
Yikes, I would be uncomfortable with that aswell, especially since some people have really intense ideas about what is and isn’t healthy some people are super restrictive and judgey and others are more relaxed and work snacks into their day and eat candy in moderation. We all know whose going get shat on and whose going to be seen at the “healthy one” who never eats sugar. It’s a recipe for disaster and I do wonder if others shares your feelings and didn’t feel comfortable speaking up. Hard to say. I’m reserving judgement for now.
NTA. Been there, and while this is still (for some unknown reason) standard practice, it shouldn’t be. I know people with mental illnesses who do psychiatry courses, there should be no reason your issues with food should affect your ability to do a nutrition course.
The teacher should be making accommodations for what is a common and growing issue in the demographic she is teaching. If she really wanted examples to analyse, she could use herself, make up a hypothetical person or ask for willing volunteers, rather than force group participation from students she doesn’t know the mental or physical health of. She could even use food bloggers on instagram. It doesn’t matter, because what she shouldn’t be doing is using her students as examples. That would be like conducting live therapy in a psychology class. It’s demeaning and unethical.
I guarantee you were not the only person in the class uncomfortable with this, and I’m proud of you for speaking out. Take care of yourself
YTA – I feel like having people publicly state their BMI is weird and not against calling that out. Recording food and then analyzing it? That makes perfect sense to me.
You willingly entered into a science course where you could be potentially required to critique/analyze food, culture, society, history and habits. If that bothers you then talk to the instructor on the side or find a different course.
YTA because this is a private conversation you have with your professor asking for an accommodation not something you debate about publicly in class. The assignment itself was fine, analyzing your diet should be a part of the curriculum, but if you spoke to her privately I imagine it could’ve been resolved with a “analyze a stereotypical diet in your area”
NAH. Based on U.S. standards, you behaved appropriately.
However, other countries do not share our values nor our views on what constitute conditions that require accommodations.
ESH: First of all, I think it is completely appropriate that you called out the professor for effectively asking students to reveal personal medical information. I get the professor trying the assignment as this is something of a medical class. To learn anything medical, you need real people at some point.
I’m a little less critical of the assignment on taking pictures of what you eat. Now I’m ASSUMING, the only thing you have to take a picture of is the food at the start of the meal, and not exactly how much you ate. So if exactly how much you ate isn’t being recorded, and if you are not having to reveal your weight, height, and BMI, there isn’t much to say about you… especially since you can maintain some privacy since you can complete the assignment without telling the truth … If you think people will say you are eating too much, take a picture before you fill your plate. Think people will say you are not eating enough, add to your plate for the picture but don’t eat it.
I’m not going to give you a full yta because you do bring up some valid privacy concerns. But at the same time, we are talking about a medical class.
I do not understand the logic of taking a class about a trigger topic and getting mad about getting triggered.
YTA – you should have approached her after the class with your concerns. Instead you challenged her directly in front of everyone. She probably has a successful clas ciriculum that has worked successfully for years.
Just becsuse she said take a picture of what YOU eat for a day didn’t mean that’s what you had to do. You could have looked up “healthy French didt” and taken pictures of that. I bet the person that included 10 cookies with each meal didn’t take pictures of that.
It does sound like it wasn’t the class for you. But you could have found that out after speaking with her privately.
YTA. It’s a nutrition class. Sharing your own nutrition is relevant. This is NOT the class for you. Also, double YTA for debating this with the professor during class instead of waiting to discuss it with her privately after class.
NTA. You know what I find especially horrifying. A nutrition professor bringing up BMI, something made by a mathematician, is actually weird. It’s widely considered inaccurate because weight is carried differently on everybody. Not to mention, nobody should weigh themselves constantly. If she had actually paid attention when she got her degree, she’d know constant weight watching has a serious affect on mental health.
>I spoke up and said that asking a group of 18-year-olds to share BMI is a recipe for a toxic environment, and that there are better ways to teach it.
This should be raised outside of class.
>I again raised my hand and said I found this extremely uncomfortable and harmful for people’s mental health, and asked if we could do an alternative assignment.
Again, this should be raised outside of class. It’s not a matter of who is right/wrong. It’s not the correct forum for the discussion.
I suggest you drop this class if you can’t refrain from disrupting it.
People who are ‘in charge’ such as professors often feel threatened when their methods are questioned. Sad, but true. Would have been better to have a conversation about such toxic teaching methods after class.
I’m also disappointed that BMI was used at all when a waist measurement is more accurate for health concerns. She’s a bit out of touch. I’m not sure about the food log – it does seem like a lot of opportunity for body shaming and lifestyle shaming.
NTA but should have been addressed outside of class – and you should have stayed. Maybe pushing past the discomfort would have been a good challenge for your relationship with food.
YTA It’s a nutrition class. I understand that you didn’t want to take it, and it’s a trigger topic for you. But are you asking for the entire class to NOT talk about nutrition just because you are in it? Your problem is with the administration that set you up in this class, not the professor who is doing their job, teaching nutrition in a nutrition class.
NTA. The professor’s assignments obviously have a rational basis, but just as obviously were inappropriate, for reasons you tried to explain to her.
You’ve had anorexia and your parents pushed you to go on Wegovy?
I can see where the anorexia probably came from. That’s just a gross “encouragement” overall.
YTA. This type of class obviously has to delve into things might trigger you. This class is meant to teach people and that’s not always going to be comfortable. Not everyone is, going to be harmed or affected by they things she’s asking for.
If you can’t handle it then drop the class but it’s not on you to try and make it a “safe place” for you.
Esh. BMI doesn’t need to be shared so nta there, but you are in a nutrition class so sharing food seems like a learning experience so yta there.
I’m going to say YTA but it’s very mild. Basically: you should have talked to her about the issue you were having privately. The way you did it, you came off as challenging her control of the class and curriculum.
I think if you talked to the prof privately about you and your comfort level with the assignment, I think the prof would be happy to work with you. And if not, you could bring in campus resources that could help. But doing it this way wouldn’t be questioning whether everyone ELSE should do the assignment, where there’s no specific reason for most people why they shouldn’t.
So it would be my advice to talk to the prof privately. Focus on that you just want her to modify the rules for YOU, but if the prof makes a big deal of it, apologize for not starting by addressing it privately.
YTA – why did you take a nutrition class if you didn’t want to talk about nutrition?
NAH. Clearly this class wasn’t meant for you and that’s fine, nutrition is a trigger topic that you might want to avoid. Hopefully this leads to that professor adding a content warning, I’ve seen that for some classes.
That being said, I do think some issues (especially for the second assignment) would have been better addressed in private. You also keep saying you had no choice in this, but since nutrition is a trigger and you were able to drop it, you might have been able to skip that class and get added to another one, just talk to administration about it.
YTA,
Whilst I’m sympathetic towards your eating disorder, you’ve no place on a nutrition course where your issues around food are going to interfere with the class and you’ve no right to start dictating.
>it was the only thing that fit into my schedule
Again, this doesn’t give a pass for your behaviour. If you’re doing a class you didn’t want to do then your expectation should be that you have to make an allowance and knuckle down, not that the class should change for you.
It was on you to raise any concerns before enrolling on the course.
NTA How does criticizing students’ nutrition and health help them understand the fundamentals of nutrition?
You could teach this class out of a textbook, or make these projects that look at students’ own health a private matter instead of publicly shaming them.
YTA
NTA
NTA for raising concerns BUT this should probably have been raised after the class, maybe in a written format, directly to the lecturer. Not as repeated call outs in the middle of the class. You could have made your point more methodically using reputable sources for why these actions can be harmful and why in particular they are triggering for eating disorders. Interrupting the class repeatedly was never going to get the best result even if your lecturer would otherwise be willing to engage. It will automatically have made them defensive in the moment & prioritising keeping the class on track. Approaching it differently would let you read over your response to make sure the gravity of what you’re saying is clear (i.e. it’s not just “I don’t like this” it’s valid concerns – BMI is poorly regarded now, can be triggering etc – and you could also suggest alternatives or even just ask if trigger warnings about certain assignments could be given in advance of the classes starting).
I get calling out the BMI thing bc that is really trash of them to ask and it’s not a highly regarded tool in most circles now (although still used) but the rest of it I think should have gone in a professional email. Then perhaps a follow up conversation one on one.
I think if the professor had you study your own nutrition, that’s one thing. But to share with your classmates all the things you did or didn’t eat in a week is questionable at best. I doubt you’re the first student nor will you be the last to be uncomfortable with this assignment. I also think BMI is bs so to see someone use it in this setting is not a great sign. And again, sharing it with the class.
If the professor wants everyone to have data, then she needs to come up with her own fake data set. Not have everyone in the class share their personal business. Honestly it would be surprising if she didn’t have access to data like this in course materials already.
I also don’t blame you for objecting then and there because she was assigning the work. It might be more difficult to talk to her after class and then she has to get ahold of everyone to change the assignment.
NTA
NTA, are you still within the two weeks to drop or switch classes? I know you said a lot were full, but during that period, a lot open up generally.
NTA – but just submit a fake slideshow if you need to pass the class. or approach her 1:1 and ask if she’d let you submit a slideshow about someone else and then see if you have a friend or loved one who wouldn’t be triggered by this who would document their meals and let you analyze them for a project.
YTA your past issues don’t dictate how the professor teaches her class. There’s actually nothing wrong with what she’s doing. Either drop the class or do your assignments
ESH. Just do the assignment–it doesn’t have to be 100% accurate, just complete. But she’s also going about this the wrong way by asking people to share medical info in class. I treat eating disorders–I would not support her method of teaching if it includes making people share BMI, but she did say that was optional.
NTA. It is a toxic way to teach. It is amazing that you are pushing back.
Since pushing back isn’t working, you should go to the head of the departments
And I would encourage you to fake the photos of the food pics. Send me a DM and I will send you some pictures of food. I have a lot of pictures I could share.
NTA – Why must they use the class to do these things? Why not just put up pictures of food and ask the class to analyze that way? Why not show pictures of random people and analyze them that way? Why must they put people on the spot for data that others are not entitled to have?
YTA-What puts you here is that you were in fact constantly interrupting the class. Doing so made all your issues public anyway and caused the attention to be on you. This just made the instructor say something that was what it was. What you should have done is waited and asked after class. This could give the teacher a better opportunity to explain the curriculum.
This is what is part of every nutrition class you can take. Most likely this is a preset curriculum that the teacher doesn’t have the ability or control over. I say this since it is a low level freshmen class. Most lower and upper level college courses require some sort of social interaction that divulges personal information and preferences. It inspires conversation and discussion.
You outed yourself and basically put the teacher in a box where they needed to get the class back on track and shut your constant interrupting down. Take this as a learning opportunity and wait until after. I bet you thought interrupting class in high school was the right way as well but never got shut down there.
NTA. But comply maliciously and claim you’ve eaten 14 packets of biscuits and drunk nothing but rose wine for a week. Derail the experiment.
You arent an asshole but this isnt a good class for you. Any issues you have should be addressed privately at a separate time but you really should be finding a different class.