“A friend doesn’t go on a diet when you are fat”

“A friend doesn’t go on a diet because/when you are fat” is a saying that has been printed on many images. The saying means that a friend doesn’t make you look bad (fat).
 
The saying is from American humorist, newspaper columnist and author Erma Bombeck (1927-1996). “My friend doesn’t go on a diet when I am fat” was written by Erma Bombeck in Good Housekeeping magazine in March 1975. “But a friend doesn’t go on a diet when you are fat” was printed in Bombeck’s book, The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank (1976). “A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat” was written by Bombeck in the Ladies’ Home Journal in September 1991.
   
 
Wikipedia: Erma Bombeck
Erma Louise Bombeck (née Fiste; February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996) was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s. Bombeck also published 15 books, most of which became bestsellers. From 1965 to 1996, Erma Bombeck wrote over 4,000 newspaper columns, using broad and sometimes eloquent humor, chronicling the ordinary life of a midwestern suburban housewife. By the 1970s, her columns were read twice-weekly by 30 million readers of the 900 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.
     
Google Books
March 1975, Good Housekeeping (New York, NY), “Friends I’m Glad Aren’t Mine” by Erma Bombeck, pg. 40, col. 3”
My friend doesn’t go on a diet when I am fat.
     
Google Books
The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank
By Erma Bombeck
Greenwich, CT; Fawcett Publications, Inc.
1976
Pg. 205:
“All I want is to be someone’s friend.”
 
“I know you do, Estelle, and I’d like to help you, but first, you have to understand what a friend is.”
 
“Tell me.”
 
“It’s sorta hard to understand. But a friend doesn’t go on a diet when you are fat.” 
 
26 November 1976, The Province (Vancouver, BC), “Along with chicken soup: Sex Over-rated” by Kay Alsop, pg. 28, col. 4:
(Book review of The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank by Erma Bombeck.—ed.)
“You want us to be friends? Well, first, you’ve got to know what a friend IS,” Erma told her. “A friend doesn’t go on a diet when you are fat.”
 
Google Books
September 1991, Ladies’ Home Journal (New York, NY), “Last Laughs: Don’t You Wish You’d Said That?,” pg. 246, col. 2:
A friend…doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat. (...)—ERMA BOMBECK
 
November 1997, Women’s Day (New York, NY), “True Friends” by Eileen Livers, pg. 88, col. 1:
“A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat.”—Erma Bombeck
 
Twitter
Farrukh Mughal
@FarrukhRaja
A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat.
Erma Bombeck
10:51 AM - 17 Nov 2007
   
Google Books
The Quotable Guide to Punctuation
By Stephen Spector
New York, NY: Oxford University Press
2017
Pg. 20:
A friend doesn’t go on a diet when you are fat.
(...)
Erma Bombeck, The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank, ch. 10 (1976)
 
Twitter
Tarla
@tarla80
A friend doesn’t go on a diet because you are fat. Erma Bombeck#funny #Quotes #fat #ninjabot 😊)
1:12 AM - 14 Jul 2019