I'm NOT fat

[TheJollyPostmansWife]

Name change as about to give all details as too late to text friends for advice. Visiting DHs family today, out for lunch where I had a prawn salad. After I finished I reached over to nick a bit of my dds bread and as I did so My DHs grandmother piped up 'not watching your figure then?'. This is not the first time she has been rude about my weight and to be honest I am really pissed off. We see them very rarely and I don't think she has any right to make personal comments at all - last time she said something she suggested I would lose my looks and therefore my husband if I carried on the way I was. I don't think it's important as I don't think anyone should comment on others appearance but for context I go to the gym 3-5 times a week, walk the dog at least an hour every day and see a personal trainer weekly. I am five foot one, 9 stone 3 and size 8. I'm not normally so sensitive but I don't want to see the woman again, she is elderly and not in good health and adores my dds. Aibu to refuse to see her? I would never stop the dds but we live the other side of the country which is obviously limiting.

I'd still be too short for most high street clothes. There's no hope for me. :(

I'm not, incidentally, the one calling other people fat (and I'm an obesity epidemic (TM as you said) denier. I'm just saying dress size is no indicator of anything these days. Because the shops just make shit up.

Hi, OP. Hope you are feeling a bit better today. Advanced age is never an excuse for being unkind (excepting where there is dementia). You are a perfectly healthy weight, exercising regularly and seem to be eating a healthy diet. You also sound lovely.

People who have not heard of the "obesity paradox" might find the following article interesting:
www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/the-muddy-waters-of-body-mass-index-bmi-1.2660175

Everybody knows obesity has an impact on one's health. However, there is very little evidence that being moderately overweight (which the OP is NOT!!) affects health or longevity. On the contrary; people who maintain moderate overweight seem to live longer! It's probably healthier, for example, to maintain a BMI of, say, 28 consistently than bounce repeatedly between 20 and 28.

GetAHairCut's post above was so excellent and incisive, I am taking the liberty of reposting it!

"OP women of that generation were extremely limited in what they could do in life.

Their choices were limited and their powerlessness made them very protective of their few assets. Looking 'good' would have been one of their few assets.

Unsurprisingly this generation often find it hard to get past those social imperatives, which include policing not only their own physical appearance but that of other women too.

Those social imperatives beat all manners and common sense.

Feel sorry for her. She has probably lived her life with almost no voice except on issues such as these.

Posters who come on to tell you that in fact you are fat have no such excuse. They are just dull at best, self loathing at worst ( because why else would someone say that to another woman in this context?)."

I don't know what I weigh. I don't believe this has impacted me in any way, ever. Certainly not negatively. It might have had a positive impact I suppose. I know my inches because I had to have a posh frock altered recently, for a thing. Knowing them hasn't changed my life at all.

I do know my brain training scores though and how quickly I do the crossword every day and frankly that's a big enough burden to carry. I can't cope with anything more than that.

I think my position is - if you are healthy it doesn't matter what size you are. People shouldn't imply or infer that sizes bigger than some magic number indicate fat or smaller than it indicate thin. But vanity sizing has had a negative impact on the smaller (possibly older) people and that's not good. Shops should carry sizes that reflect the population and that includes smaller people. We don't all want to wear kids clothes all the time or pay for clothes to be altered. And nobody should pass comments on the appearance of others unless it's to say 'you look nice today' or similar kind comments. Being unkind is just shit, nobody needs it, and it just sucks the joy out of life.

And I do genuinely believe that most people are just fine and the newspapers are fanning the flames of a fire that shouldn't exist.

"clearly most people in the country aren't obese"

There are an awful lot of obese people in the town near me who are obese. Clearly, it depends on where you live.

My name's Olivia and I'm fat... It's been 20 minutes since I scavenged some chips off my son's plate.
I'm so ashamed that I am a HUMAN DUSTBIN and not nearly as uptight and controlled as I am supposed to be.
I hope one day I can stop eating altogether so that I may look down on everyone else from my hungry perch on the judgemental high ground.

The BMI scale has not changed.

It has, actually, in 1998. To allow more people to be classed as overweight and obese. This despite the best health outcomes being in the category called 'overweight'.

Seeing OP scavenging for food from another plate may have made her look like she is greedy or lacks self restraint and therefore may become fat in the future rather than that she is fat now.

You realise, Marmalade, that this says a whole lot more about what's in your head than it does reality?

Coming at this from the equality angle............there was a case years ago when a bloke in his 90s knocked down and killed someone with his car. At the time there were a lot of ppl who thought the system should go easy on him because of his age.

I see the same line of thinking in this thread. I dont think ppl should get away with being ageist but not being discriminated against due to age should mean that you are treated the same as everyone else. That also means taking responsibility for your actions AND the things you say just like ppl in younger age groups have to. Equality means taking the rough bits of it along with the smooth not just the bits that are nice.

So the great grandmother here should take responsibility for what she says because you cant have it both ways.

Obviously my post doesnt include ppl with Alzheimers.

Surely all that matters is the size of grandma.

People who qualify anything with age are part of the problem. People that offer an opinion about Brexit, spluttered in casual racism on LBC, then say I'm 84, when challenged are appalling,

Being rude, is being rude whatever the age. It's like you replying, with all due respect, fuck off. Adding with all due respect doesn't make it right and her age should never be a mitigating factor

My DM has been making comments like this to me all my life, 's just water off a duck's back now. Agree with previous poster about internalised misogyny, comes out in other conversations too.

Birdsgottafly to be fair, 135 is Ronda's fighting weight, I think her un-cut weight is about 150? Gives her a BMI of 23.5, about the same as me though it's possible she has a teensy bit more muscle than me (and maybe a slightly better armbar )

StrangeLookingParasite thanks for that link- very interesting. So prior to 1998, 28 was the cut-off point for being overweight. Just goes to show how arbitrary the number is. Someone just decided one day that 25 should be the magic number instead.

Why would they do that? Could it be that it creates a massive new market for all the bloody 'slimming' products, because unhappy people are a very easy sell, especially if you frame it in terms of health.
I am very cynical about this change. Very.

age should never be a mitigating factor

I hope you meet with more tolerance when you are old, possibly struggling with dementia, and at the mercy of younger generation with a different outlook from yours.

"God this thread is depressing. So fucking what if you're lighter than op and a bigger size. Everyone carries weight differently. Women can be so bitchy."

If that refers to my comments. I wasn't being bitchy. I think it's a bit of a shame that weight is a topic that we can't discuss at all, but I guess it is sensitive.

Someone up thread described how muscle takes up less space, that makes sense to me. So I've learned something. But it shouldn't be taken as the worst thing ever.

I don't think anyone has said age makes it ok, and therefore not rude. Just that it probably means the intent behind it isn't the same as someone from a later generation saying it. And that age explains why her idea of overweight is different to the modern one. i.e it wasn't rude because dgg can clearly see she's slim and is just being a bitch, it was rude because personal comments always are, however dgg will be from an era where it wasn't considered bitchy to do so.

I think some of the posts on this thread have been quite rude. Jolly, I completely understand feeling sensitive about the comment made by your DH's grandmother. My FIL often comments on my weight. I recognise why he does (he is from another culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to make such remarks, and I think he does it more or less automatically). I'm not overweight, though I did spend my teenage years feeling I was fat (I was slightly overweight as a teen). When my FIL makes these comments, I immediately revert back to feeling like that insecure teen. Oddly enough FIL himself is obese.

for you, Jolly.

m0therofdragons and women can be so nasty, there was no need for that vicious comment. I wasn't being bitchy, I asked a question to someone who was virtually the same height and weight.

I weigh that and am 5ft 8 and a size 10-12 so I'm not sure what shops you go to! I'm sure you're not fat though. And even if you were it would be nasty to make comment. Are you sure she's not just trying to be funny?