SkinnyScientist I WOULD tell her and speak gently with her. Sure her feelings are very important but what about her HEALTH?? Sometimes it takes that one person to start her on the road to healthy eating and mindfulness. If she is consumes BAGS of garbage in public could you imagine what she is doing in private, and this lends itself to the possibility that she is not aware of gorging on these things.

Tell right away on the next train ride. You seem gentle enough to say it without hurting her feelings or appearing mean or evil but by all means tell her Now! Today! Others may have spared her feelings and sometimes, quite regularly people will pour out their hearts to me...a stranger because I am impartial. Please tell her right away. Understand she will probably be mad at you but I guarantee she will rethink her eating habits and will never pig out on artificial food in public again. And anyway you are the person who is there and none of us here on the Internet can feel the situation as you in that moment.

You will save her do NOT miss the opportunity!!

You probably come across a dozen morbidly obese people every day. Do you have this talk with all of them? Hand out flyers maybe, to save time? Or, put on an orange dhoti, hang out at the airport and hand out flowers and surgery advice?

Meat-vangelism?

The holy sepulchre of the crunchy bacon.

How would you have reacted if a stranger "spoke gently" with YOU pre-op because they were supposedly interested in your health?

I swear that I checked to see if this account was just created today because I thought this was a troll response.

How do I do that? 

I think it is..but one never knows. Sometimes I write things I really mean and people call up and ask "You really want that?"  Me: "Yeah. I really do!"

This is BAD, BAD, BAD advice. You may not save her, but send her deeper into a state of denial, depression- whatever thats causing her to eat the way she is. 

I recall once shopping for underwear. I complained to myself, but audibly that others around me could hear- that I couldn't figure out what size I should get since the packages were sealed and I couldn't view what each size looked like.

A woman- who was probably "well-intentioned" walked up to me and said " well I wear a size X, and my mother wears a size Y, so there's no way you'll get into anything less than a size Z."

Mind you I was maybe 20 something-- this lady had gray hair and compared me to her & her mother. So not only was I uninterested in her "old lady perspective" I was hurt/mortified and shaken that she essentially called me a fat a$$ in a veiled attempt to "help me".

I still remember the meal I ate to "teach her" (aka cover my devastated feelings). 

This is BAD, BAD, BAD advice.

-Thank you.  I totally trust you and Julie and Grim on this. 

Much love

Skinny Scientist!

If you cared about this woman's health, you would care about her mental health as well.