Macy's Portion Plates

Overview

Macy's Portion Plates refers to a set of plates sold at Macy's department store which aimed to encourage food portion control by featuring encouraging words towards the center of the plate and disparaging words towards the outside. One plate featured a small circle in the middle of the plate which represented "skinny jeans", and a larger concentric circle around it that spreads towards the end of the plate which reads "mom jeans". After a Twitter user voiced her displeasure at the plates in late July 2019, Macy's removed the plates from their store.

Background

On July 21st, 2019, Twitter user @alieward^[1] tweeted an image of plates sold at Macy's that encouraged smaller portion sizes by having encouraging words on smaller concentric words and disparaging words on larger portion sizes. She wrote, "How can I get these plates from @Macys banned in all 50 states" and gained over 3,700 retweets and 31,000 likes (shown below).

The plates are made by a company called Pourtions,^[2] who sells the plates on their website, writing "Research shows that people unintentionally consume more calories when faced with larger portions. So, to keep you from overindulging, our tableware collection provides helpful --and hilarious--visual cues. It’ll spice up your dinner table, and your conversation. We'll save a seat at the table for you :)."

Developments

After Ward's tweet began to gain popularity, others expressed anger at Macy's for carrying the plates. Some argued that the plates encouraged eating disorders, including users @susanfeldkamp^[3] and @LizAdams5^[4] (shown below).

Later that day, Macy's replied to Ward's tweet saying that it had "missed the mark" on the plates and that they would be removed from the stores immediately^[5] (shown below).

Macy's response led to a backlash from people who interpreted the move as Macy's cowering to public outcry. Fox News pundit Lisa Boothe called the move "weak"^[6] (shown below, left). User @PunditErrant said "Hi Alie. I can understand you not liking them. But why do you get to decide that 300 million other people don’t get that choice?"^[7] (shown below, right).

Search Interest

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External References