Watch out! According to these plates, if you eat too much, you'll look like a mom!

When Kristen shared Alie Ward’s tweet about the obnoxious mom jeans plates she spotted at Macy’s, our team collectively responded on Slack with multiple variations of OMG or its more descriptive cousin, OMGWTF.

The Washington Post reports that the plates were met with a quick response from Macy’s, and pulled from the NYC store because you know, body-shaming: Not very 2019. Or 2009, come to think of it.

The plates hail from a small brand called POURTIONS which aims to “counteract this unhealthy trend” of overeating — evidently by reminding you of the association between motherhood and unhealthy bodies.

The mom jeans dinner plates are also a reminder that the best way to shimmy into your skinny jeans is to eat your toddler’s portion instead.

Image: Alie Ward

Sarcasm aside, mostly what I think the company is doing, is trying to be cute. They want to blend the premise of eating in moderation — which we can all concede is a noble cause — with the trend of cheeky kitchenware.

However from the looks of the selection of dinnerware and wine glasses on the site, the company’s target audience isn’t necessarily people struggling with portion control; it’s more likely 20-something bachelorette party guests and adorable sorority girls.

Come on, like Act I Elle Woods wouldn’t be all over these?

(Act III Elle Woods, not so much.)

Have we all lost our sense of humor? Maybe. But to me the real issue is that these dishes and barware are not going to make a dent in our legit obesity epidemic. In part, because the statements on these plates are really designed to make you laugh at other people — not at yourself.

I imagine that the 30 million people in the US suffering from eating disorders or serious weight issues probably don’t need a little wink wink don’t be a fatty every time they sit down to dinner. And moms who are working hard to get the extra weight off — which is a lot of us — don’t want to be the target of the humor either.

And if I can get pedantic, the mom jeans joke doesn’t even work now that mom jeans are actually a trend that my 14-year-old daughter asks for. (There are more than a dozen pairs of trendy mom jeans on Hollister right now should your teen be interested too.)

Not your mother’s mom jeans

If your reaction right now is SHUT UPP THEIR FUNNY AND YOU JUST CAN’T TAKE A JOK, check out the link Ali shared to her podcast interview with Renee Engelin, author of BeautySick, a book about “how beauty standards effect the mental & physical health of everyone…and how it’s costing us money, time & even our lives.”

It’s worth a listen.

Or, you could stick around and debate me on the merits of the company’s wine glasses that steal Dorothy Parker’s line about martinis.

First off, my favorite humorist of all time was talking about her third martini, not her 7th ounce of Pinot. Also, there’s no way she would have imbibed from wine glasses with pithy quotes on them. Even if the quotes were hers.