to be pissed off with comments about my weight?

[KingStraub]

especially while I'm eating?

I am a small build, about 5'2", and weigh about 7.10 stone.

Aibu to be annoyed with (albeit jokey) comments along the lines of:

"Oh, you really don't deserve to be so skinny" (while eating a bacon butty at my desk)

"You could do with feeding up!"

FFS. I EAT. I can't bloody help it. And I am fucking sick of being told that I need to eat more.

And, btw, I'm not even skinny, in the true sense. I'm just small!

There were two obese women in the pub where we were having lunch today. Dad's 80th birthday so we were there with mum, dad and my auntie. As soon as these 2 women sat down my auntie started with the shocked face and the not so sotto voce comments. I'm quite sure that it wasn't news to these 2 women that they were fat but I am also quite sure they'd like to get a break

Try being hugely overweight and see the sort of comments you get then. They probably won't be to your face but they'll be nastier and also meant to hurt. Being fat is far more of a sin than being fat.

YADNBU.

DD is very slim and constantly struggles to gain weight (5'8" & 8 stone). The other day a colleague asked her what she weighed, and when she told him he sneered 'what guy would want to marry an 8st woman?!' Despite the on her face, he continued with 'well, a woman in a child's body'.

She was furious and told him how offended she was, but he truly didn't see it as a big deal. She actually said afterwards that it would be easier if she were anorexic because at least people would 'get' it

So many people have issues with their weight, whatever it is, and thoughtless comments like many here just compound the problem.

Regarding whether the OP is skinny, I am 5.4 and used to (sigh) weigh just under 8 stone and I was slender -- an 8 (which weirdly I am at 8.5-9 stone as well), not at all skinny. Had curves although not much body fat and was just little.

OP, I would be a little irked too.

I am currently 9 stone and 5-1/2 months pregnant and a size 8-10 (I have lost weight this pregnancy and haven't put any on once it levelled off) and people are always telling me I don't look big, hardly pregnant at all and 'am I alright?' Yes, I am, I am not Mia Farrow in Rosemary's baby.

I put 4 stone on with my first so don't mind the change this pregnancy has so far brought, but given that most pregnant women harbour some sort of anxiety about the health and size of their unborn babies and these are mothers saying this, I get pissed off.

Why comment? How do you think it makes me feel? Grateful I have a bloody small foetus? I just don't get it.

Whether you are or look skinny at your height/weight depends on your build, I think. I'm the same height and admittedly a little heavier (just over 8st) now, and certainly nowhere near 'too thin'. In fact I have a bit of weight I need to lose, and most of my clothes are size 10-12.

No excuse for people making rude comments like that though, either way. I would not dream of commenting on someone's weight or body type or eating habits like that.

And even when I was 7st I looked slim, certainly, but not overly 'skinny'. Looking back at photos from that time, I think I look perfectly normal and fine, and if anything am a bit chubby now. I agree with the earlier comment that a lot of people have lost all sense of what a normal healthy weight looks like, we've got so used to the majority being overweight.

I agree there has been slippage and that size 8 is regarded as very slim, if not skinny (a loaded word, don't like using it). A size 6 or lower and you are 'ill' or anorexic.

I recently tried on an M&S size 10 and it was very, very big, I'd say a designer 14 at least. Even an 8 is roomy. It's not jsut M&S, pretty much all the high street is large on sizing. Designer less so, but still.

I have a lot of vintage clothes and some M&S trousers (to use the same make as an example) in a 14 are very slender.

My mother (not skinny by any means, was Britain's first page 3) was about 7 stone and my height and considered curvaceous in the 70s.

I think the OP simply doesn't like people scrutinising what she's eating and being personal. Whether or not slim is the ideal (it certainly isn't the norm though) it isn't pleasant to be the focus of scrutiny when you are doing something that should be entirely enjoyable -- eating.

Can you imagine commenting on what a larger person ate when they ate it?

My mum quizzed me last week about whether I eat properly (having just been out for a pizza with her). I'm 5' 3 and around 8 stone 6, size 8 to 10 so basically healthy! I'm quite a small build though as I'm curvy with it so I don't think I look skinny, just quite a small waist by comparison to the rest of me. Being a lp I think people assume I'm starving myself as I'm not cooking dinner for my dh every night...(eating with 3yo ds obviously doesn't count!)

I get the same and it is annoying but MOST people dont mean it nastily. Although yesterday a bloke leaned out of a van as it was driving past and shouted 'skinny cow' at me! It was hot so I had a sleeveless maxi dress on showing my skinny arms and collarbone. Dont think i'll be wearing it again :(. I'm 5'7" and only 7 stone so quite underweight, but I always have been and come from a skinny family. People at work comment endlessly about how much I eat but I have to cos I feel awful if I dont. I have to carry food in my handbag in case I get peckish on the move. Its not ideal being skinny. I have to take calcium supplements because I'm likely to have early onset osteoporosis. And its hard getting clothes that fit nicely and suit your frame.

otcha you are so right about sizing - it has got so big compared to 20-30 years ago. My mum is similar build to me but I couldn't squeeze into her size 10 mini skirt (original 60s, suede - gorgeous!) but size 10 in M & S is massive on me, as is Next (even an 8 feels a bit roomy depending on whether it is meant to be fitted). Other brands fit better, depends entirely on the market they are targetting (superdry which is Japanese has very skinny arms imo!)
Surely there should be a standard sizing guide somewhere or do stores get to just make it up as they go along??

YANBU.

My lovely friend who is naturally slim and a great eater gets this too and worse.

She confided in me once that she won't go for a pee after eating a meal, as she's convinced people think she's chucking it back up.

YANBU. I had this same exchange on another thread. I am also thin-ish, it is a PITA having your body discussed by others. Women's bodies are public property no matter what. how about clapping hand to forehead "Shit! Eat! Knew I'd forgotten something!" Or "Small? No, just fun-size" "i could eat to get less thin. Don't know what you do to get less rude" Probably better ones somewhere on t'interweb. you can also amuse youself by shovelling down a few Mars bars under their judgemental intrusive noses

there probably envious that you can eat what you want without having to worry

Thanks, alice, they're great!

I think you've put your finger on why it pisses me off so much; well, apart from being a double standard and a bit stupid. It's exactly that ? that people think they can just comment on your body.

I do not know whay people think it is okay to comment on weight no matter if you are smaller or larger, frankly.

I am 5ft 4. At my smallest (as an adult) I have been 7 and a half stone. At my largest (not pregnant) I have been nearly 14 stone. I am currently just shy of 11 stone. I have had comments at every weight, with the result that I cannot even SEE what i look like now, just what other people think i look like.

The comments hurt. I struggle currently with my weight as I eat alot, but also because I am really having problems with my hormones post baby, and am trying to work that out. So comments that if i have not lost the baby weight a year post birth I will never lose it just do not help.

But what i hate, is that when you do lose weight, and are slimmer, people seem to ascribe some sort of moral 'goodness' to you- I am not explaining it well, but they 'approve'. They 'disapprove' if you are plump, large or tiny.

I am 40, have spent since my teenage years being monitored by everyone from my mother to strangers on the street.

A bit of a sidetrack, but OP, YANBU.

(I also have a sneaking suspicion that this obsession with women's weight is society's way - post feminism - of keeping women in their place. If you are obsessed with weight/ appearance, you just dont have the energy for much else).