It’s mid term, you’re exhausted and you stuff one last mini doughnut into your face before you head on over to the staffroom. As you’re standing there, waiting for a coffee, you overhear one colleague say to another: “Have you lost weight?” The second colleague giggles and replies, “Yes! So glad someone has noticed.”

She walks away, feeling great about herself. You’re left there to contemplate whether it was a good idea to wear the dress you have on, whether you really should have had that last doughnut and why no one has asked you if you have lost weight.

And so the spiral begins again.

Comments on weight have somehow become an accepted part of school life. Yes, we work together and, essentially, become one big family. And, yes, we end up knowing all sorts of things about each other. But I have a real issue with weight becoming a fixture of conversation in schools.

One issue is that it infers a value judgement: in congratulating someone on losing weight, we are suggesting that weight loss is something to celebrate and that being skinny is synonymous with superiority.

Another issue is that this is largely a judgement placed on female colleagues. Male colleagues are asked whether they have been “working out” - a judgement on how sculpted their physique is - but for women, it’s all about how slim they are.

The dangers here are multiple.

I may well have lost weight but it may be down to the fact that I work for hours on end, that I don’t have time to eat because I am too busy to cook anything, and that I’m stressed. This is not something for which anyone should be congratulated.

Or what if I haven’t lost weight and, actually, the “have you lost weight?” question could be interpreted as workplace bullying? On the face of it, the comment seems innocent, friendly even. But in reality, it’s far from it.

And then there’s false flattery. It’s like a verbal tic. Quick! Shabnam is coming my way - I should say something nice. “Have you lost weight?” Why weight? Why make it an issue? Why not compliment my dress, my hair? Indeed, why mention my appearance at all?

We talk to students all the time about body image, about the importance of being who they are, not who society wants them to be. And yet, every day, how I look as a teacher becomes something open to interpretation and judgement.

So, let’s leave weight out of it. Language matters. Context matters. We need to model that to our pupils.

My appearance, and in particular my weight, isn’t anyone else’s business. I have a mirror; I already know what I look like.

Let’s celebrate something else about each other instead of how our bodies look.

Shabnam Ahmed is head of Year 12 at a secondary school in London

This article originally appeared in the 15 January 2021 issue under the headline “Weighed down by comments”