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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think people treat you different if you are fat

312 replies

Mammylamb · 30/07/2017 19:49

I have recently put on a few stone which I need to lose. I don't know if I'm imagining it but I feel that strangers were nicer to me when I was slimmer. It sounds daft, but today at a play park I noticed women looking me up and down and one woman pushed past me (quite rudely) to get into the park. When we went to the swings she couldn't grab her bag quickly enough (really, I wasn't going to steal it.). I know that I'm less attractive when I'm fatter and it makes me look a bit "rough" and (whisper) less middle class. My mums weight also fluctuates and she said she notices a difference in how folk treat her too. Do you think this is right, or are we imagining it?

OP posts:
ChasingHighs · 30/07/2017 20:29

I think you were spoiling for an argument from your first post. There was no need to mention class.

NotSuchASmugMarriedNow1 · 30/07/2017 20:31

My weight fluctuates hugely and yes, it is a thing :(

Original poster
Mammylamb · 30/07/2017 20:31

But I genuinely think that not looking middle class impacts how others treat you chasing.

OP posts:
ImperialBlether · 30/07/2017 20:32

She mentioned class because it was mentioned on another thread, though.

Why can't people accept that the OP is struggling with other people's perception of her due to her weight?

lalalalyra · 30/07/2017 20:32

Totally. People treat you differently based on weight.

I'm having serious problems with my denture plate atm. I had my two front teeth knocked out in an accident when I was 19. I have had to be without it on a few occasions recently and the difference in people is ridiculous.

It's made me very conscious when I'm out in case I'm ever judgy.

People also treat you very differently no matter what changes in your life. When DH went away for 6 months for work women who were friends previously were suddenly very wary of their husband being around me. Like I'd suddenly become an attractive cheating prospect.

Wilburissomepig · 30/07/2017 20:32

I actually think you have a point OP. A few years ago when the DCs were in lower school I used to see a very glam woman swish into school. I used to think how together and lovely she looked but she never looked in my direction or gave me the time of day. I lost almost 3 stone over a few months and she began to chat to me one day, invited me round for coffee and we became quite good friends.

I've never had a great relationship with food and the weight started to creep on again over the next year. After I'd put on about a stone she 'jokingly' told me that I needed to 'stop eating all the pies' as she could never be friends with an overweight person. I didn't give her the change to dump me, I just removed myself from her life. I was so hurt by that comment.

stubbornstains · 30/07/2017 20:33

A huge number of people in the UK are overweight so not really in a place to judge anyone based on weight

Sadly, I'm not sure it works like that. The only person I know who is openly nasty about fat people is my mum, who has struggled with her own weight all her life.

DCITennison · 30/07/2017 20:35

The only person spoiling for an argument seems to be you, Chasing.
The weight/class correlation exists. The difference in the way overweight people are perceived exists.
Talking about it is not necessarily agreeing with it. Everyone else seems to get that.

Ginorchoc · 30/07/2017 20:35

Just from my experience op I agree. I've recently lost over 30 lb ive also noticed clothes shop assistants certainly seem to approach me more to ask if I need assistance where as previously I was ignored. In the make up department of department stores I was obviously ignored now they approach me to offer samples. Bizarre.

Onynx · 30/07/2017 20:35

Rollergirl7 I totally agree re glasses/contacts! Thought it was just me. Also true with weight.

agelimit · 30/07/2017 20:36

Wilbur that's terrible Sad

Bluntness100 · 30/07/2017 20:36

You get fat working class people, fat middle class people and fat upper class people, being fat doesn't make you look a lower class or a certain class. Maybe the way you dress with it does, but certainly not your size.

BlurryFace · 30/07/2017 20:36

Wow, Wilbur, what an awful woman.

ChasingHighs · 30/07/2017 20:38

I've never looked at a fat person and thought oh I bet they are WC and I don.t think anyone else ever has either.

Maybe people do treat you differently if you are overweight but it's got nothing to do with their perception of your class.

I've been fat and thin, it doesn't change the way I speak though, which gives more away about my class than anything else.

Wilburissomepig · 30/07/2017 20:40

I still see her around sometimes. When I thought about it, ALL her friends are beautifully slim so perhaps I should have seen it coming.

elfies · 30/07/2017 20:41

Many years ago I was diagnosed with Diabetes and lost 3st, I went down to a size 10 and found shop assistants treated me like a customer instead of watching my movements around the shop like a hawk .
I often wondered if my previous bulk made them think I was shoplifting

HelenaDove · 30/07/2017 20:42

She was probably one of the Mean Girls at school Wilbur. Yep they usually grow into very kind adults Hmm

brasty · 30/07/2017 20:43

Yes it does affect how people treat you sadly. They are bloody idiots.

agelimit · 30/07/2017 20:43

Wilbur that is so unbelievably shallow, how awful! I have friends of every shape, size and both mc and wc plus the odd uc horsey person and believe you me they are generally very energetically built!

Kewcumber · 30/07/2017 20:43

You don't change classes. If you were born working class then you are now.

Don't be ridiculous. Class is a completely made up construct in our own heads, some countries have no "class" system and arbitrarily judge people using other means.

I don't fit into any class despite being born into a working class family. I have a very posh accent (I'm told, it sounds quite normal to me) but live in an ex council house and have no money.

Most classes accept me as one of them (though I have not tried to hob nob with the landed gentry to be fair).

And yes fat is definitely considered to be "low-class" and people are ruder to you.

Wendalicious · 30/07/2017 20:43

I actually agree with everything OP has said! It's hard to put it eloquently but i get what you mean x

Wellysocksbox · 30/07/2017 20:44

I once went into a shop and the sales assistant looked me up and down and said "we haven't got your size."

It was a shoe shop. A bloody shoe. shop.

MrsGuyOfGisbo · 30/07/2017 20:45

There is an association now between overweight and 'lower' class, because calorific food - sugar and fat - is cheap . it used to be otherwise when calorific food was expensive. My own very recent poor ancestors died of starvation. So skinny was poor then.
I have taught in lots of schools - it is glaringly obvious that poor now =fat and rich = slim.
So those salespeople selling you make-up and clothes are just applying logic - thin people more likely to have the dosh to buy their wares.

HelenaDove · 30/07/2017 20:46

Who the fuck was serving you in that shoe shop Welly Al Bundy?

Janiston · 30/07/2017 20:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.