What does thin privilege mean?

[MrsAnamCara]

I've seen a few posts on social media about it, what does it mean? Is it related to the health at any size movement that I've heard about?

Is it about societal created standards and a real thing or theory?

TIA

There's no such thing as thin privilege.
It's an aspect of the patriarchy that women get treated better if they resemble what men are supposed to find attractive. At the root of it is the idea that women are exist for ornamental purposes- to please men.
It's not a thing in itself. And I say that as a fat woman.

This might seem picky of me but we aren't going to understand systemic power relations if every facet of every oppression is split off from its context and talked about in isolation.

Having been both fat at size 26 and thinn(er) size 12 and believe thin privilege is real in the workplace.

As I was losing weight/at my thinnest my career took off, promotions happened, i was asked to speak at conferences, my opinion was listened too etc.

I do question if my increased confidence, ability to dress better/cheaper and increased interest in beauty/style/make up added to it, but i think it was a combo of both.

In social circles I didn't personally notice a difference, but friends said I would get 'checked out' more when I was thinner.

Sadly, I am now back to size 22, so am feeling the fat shame side once again :(

You have no influence over your skin colour. You can't influence your gender unless you have an expensive therapy and surgery. Privilege to me is something you get without any influence over it.
But your figure is something you can influence. Very very few people are overweight because of health issues. Most are overweight because they eat more than they need to.
I am very honest and I will say that I am also prejudiced. I do my best to work on it and not being judgmental.
However, my experience with overweight people was as follows: "Oh, I feel great in my body and won't let anyone tell me otherwise." followed by "Oh, I shouldn't be eating the cake, need to start with the Slimming World again."
You either feel fine or not. If not, stop bullshitting yourself and change your lifestyle.
And stop talking thin privilege. Thin people are not privileged and they didn't get their weight handed over to them on a golden plate. They are slim because they keep their weight in a healthy range.

Well said @unlimiteddilutingjuice that is exactly it!

Clandestino : "Very very few people are overweight because of health issues. Most are overweight because they eat more than they need to."

This is absolutely true. However we cannot ignore the structural, societal reasons at play which make people eat more and eat unhealthily. Over the past half century, corporations have put millions of pounds into marketing and advertising initiatives to push their products. It is literally some people's job to ensure mass overindulgence. Of course, many posters on this thread will just say 'Well people shouldn't be so foolish and weak willed.' Maybe they should not. But I am just pointing out the reality that there are influential forces at work designed to make people eat more than they need to.

As a person of average weight and height (been the same size for the last 20 years) I have had plenty of comments from people claiming I am too thin and too fat. As a woman you can't win.

A summary if you can't be bothered to read the whole thread (sarcasm alert):

Thin people work very hard at being thin.

Fat people are lazy and lack willpower and self-control.

A lot of people describing themselves as thin on this thread are scratching their heads about this whole privilege malarkey. It sounds vaguely American so it's OK to dismiss it and be sneery about it.

We have also had Islamophobia (unchallenged the last time I looked)

...and finally some ground-breaking advice for the fatties: drink water, snack on seeds and eat your food with chopsticks (that one has to be the best ). I'd love to see anybody eating pumpkin seeds, with chopsticks, on the go

Or, more succintly:

Christ, there's some utter bollocks on this thread.

There might be any number of reasons why someone is fat and it's really hard to lose weight. But if someone is really obese, for whatever reason, it suggests they have some issues, whether down to poor health, greed, laziness or poor education, that prevent them being able to manage to keep themselves healthy, and therefore will possibly make a worse employee than someone of normal weight (even though this isn't their fault as such). Excessive thinness would probably be the same (I'd wonder if someone was on drugs or had an eating disorder). Excessively thin people are much rarer though.

But I am just pointing out the reality that there are influential forces at work designed to make people eat more than they need to.

Yes, that's been the case for decades now and since it's never going to go away, it's more important than ever that we work hard on personal responsibility.

What adults do is up to them but the fact childhood obesity is at an all time high, just shows how badly children are being failed.

AndhowcouldIeverrefuse, do you mean the comment from Rottweiler (re Islamaphobia)? I didn't challenge that as they're clearly trolling and don't deserve to be fed.

My comments re seeds and chopsticks were clearly stated as things that have successfully enabled me to lose weight. Not advice to fat people. Not sure why you chose to take it in that way?

A load of rubbish.

Tip to stay thin: don't eat on the go, wait for mealtimes and then you will be able to manage the chopsticks more easily

lemon I was talking about rl, conversations I've experienced. Eg a so called friend who was astounded I had self harm scars, the words were pretty much 'but why would you have felt like that? look at you'. Whereas I wouldn't have thought, let alone said 'but why would you comfort eat? Just look at your lovely family'

But my experience is possibly different to yours. The idea of filling up on water or pumpkin seeds to stay a healthy weight is alien to me. I eat/ drink what I like, when I like, without any conscious thought. And ime it's the lack of effort I put in that people who struggle are most likely to resent.

No argument from me that self regulation is luck/ privilege, but that isn't related to my clothes size. People who are slim/ slightly overweight but stable often self regulate without any effort too. And if people associate the luck of self regulation with being supermodel size, it doesn't fit with the image if they acknowledge that life can be shit or amazing regardless of how you look.

Don't forget, a lot of people who are overweight and unhappy/ lacking self esteem tell themselves the former is the sole cause of the latter. It is much easier to pretend life would be great if you were thin than it is to acknowledge you are still suffering from a past trauma, or that you have relationship problems, or financial problems etc. Therefore if you accept the thin person might also have similar experiences, you would be forced to admit being thin won't wave a magic wand for you either. And some people can't/won't face that.

'Thin privilege' may be a slightly clumsy, whiny term - but it certainly describes what is blatantly on display here. If you keep on banging on about how the good things in your life are all down to your own efforts (and completely ignore the effects of luck along with structured advantages that come with being white, heterosexual, male, able-bodied, raised by nice, competent parents, a decent education) then you are privileged. And a smug twat.

I get what you're saying, hog. I also have self harm scars but luckily they're not too visible anymore.

I actually don't really do the water to fill up thing as much as I should, only when trying to lose weight! And I love pumpkinseeds just in general, not specifically as a low calorie snack. I do just eat what I want and don't really think about it and manage to remain a healthy weight (BMI is fine) but I know within myself i prefer how I look and feel slimmer and would prefer to get rid of around a stone.

I don't think the idea of thin privilege is that things can't be shit if you're thin, just that certain things are shitter if you're fat (the way you're treated, discrimination etc).

It is not a patriarchy thing, as it applies to men too?

i personally have issues as a fat person.

long-term bulllying, some very bad luck, abusive husband. hundreds of rejections from employers from i left uni 20 years ago. when i wasnt fat, just naive and kind and probably too nice.

i concentrated on making sure my kids got the best they could from me, with what was in my power to achieve. they are healthy and fit and i'm not. Go me. Full on lazy-arsed hyprocrite [hmmm]

i'm heartily sick to death of the judgement. its like my best is not good enough, i will still be condemned by narrow minded people who think they can pass judgement. Its as daft as saying all thin people are mean and nasty because you have met a few who are.

fuck that. as a PP said, you'll get judged whatever you do.

Esker - how about personal responsibility?
Nobody is forcing down crap down people's throats. Nobody forces them to eat the humongous portions of chips and burgers and whatever else and eat the huge boxes of biscuits and crappy chocolates like Cadbury Roses etc. for Christmas and wash it down with booze.

I don't think the idea of thin privilege is that things can't be shit if you're thin, just that certain things are shitter if you're fat (the way you're treated, discrimination etc).

Which is why I think it should be called 'fat discrimination' instead of 'thin privilege'.

Thin privilege kind of implies that only thin people discriminate against fat people and that's really quite far from the truth in my experience.

WorraLiberty Ah that's interesting. I've never thought of it as only thin people discriminating against fat. I assumed it was so ingrained that fat people probably hold judgment about other fat people too (And it's a sliding scale, from slightly overweight to morbidly obese).

I think privilege is a better way of seeing it than discrimination as discrimination tends to sound like something active to me, specific instances where someone fat is treated worse than someone thin. Whereas privilege is like air, we know it's all around us even when we can't quite touch it, it's the myriad tiny ways a thin person gets treated better, viewed more positively, perceived as having desirable traits and being attractive. Being fat and ignored for a minute longer in a shop isn't easy to class as discrimination when it's not known by either that person or the assistant that it's because the person is fat, but the thin person being served quickly everywhere they go seems to be part of that privilege.

I'm just rambling btw I have no expertise or real knowledge re this stuff. I suppose I see discrimination as being a bit more obvious to the person doing it (knowingly passing someone over for a job because you know they're gay) whereas with privilege we probably don't even notice the times we smile more readily or warmly at an attractive person than we do someone who is fat and unattractive?

I think it exists.
I’ve been fat and I’ve been healthy (slim) weight. I’ve found life ticked along more smoothly when I was a healthy weight. I was just in general better perceived.

I think part of the reason is that personally I’ve found it’s very hard to look smart when overweight. Shirts gape, I’m more likely to sweat more, I have to layer to cover bits of flab that stick out. Im not saying everyone overweight looks scruffy and sweaty, but I’ve personally found it harder to look smart and clean. I’m sure that must kick off in-built prejudice?

Certainly some points to think about there Lemon.

I suppose no matter what it's called, the most important thing is it gets people thinking about it.

I’m thin....naturally thin and people free to comment on my size all the time. Perfect example was a comment made to me during the last cold snap, a very large lady served me in a shop, she commented that she didn’t know how I stay warm being a bag of bones, I felt like saying you must be toasty with your natural extra layers but I would never be so rude. I find women make thin comments to other women’s faces and fat comments behind their back. I can understand why healthy looking people would fare better in life than extremely thin or extremely overweight people. I don’t believe in thin privilege.

lemon mine are faded too, and as an adrenaline junkie people assume they are injury scars as I have those too. You don't need to explain the pumpkin seeds/water, sorry if it came across as though I was criticising how you eat. I mentioned it simply from the PoV my lack of effort might be why I've had lots of negative experiences. Plus whenever bodies like mine are in the media it is usually accompanied by details of a batshit starvation diet, 4hrs a day personal training and how wonderful & perfect celebrity life is.

Also not denying that fat people get shit based purely on appearance. For me though the difference is it is right to call people out on fat bashing, but skinnies should just suck it up. Plenty of normal decent people wouldn't make personal comments or insulting jokes about overweight people to their faces, but think it's ok to do so if the person is thin. Thin privilege doesn't make it any less unacceptable to make skinny comments than it does to make fat comments.

Obviously I don't know what if any disadvantages I've avoided. But from experience I'd guess at best it's only levelled out the shit I've had. Maybe the privilege is something that is more applicable to slim people, rather than thin/ skinny.

Clandestino I agree, personal responsibility is important. I guess one of the problems with eating habits though is that they are in many ways imposed on a person, due to the choices of the people who raise them. I am a teacher, and when I see students with a weight problem, I'm much more likely to attribute blame to the parents than the child. But of course there does have to be a point at which each person assumes responsibility for their health. It's just difficult to split all these things out.

However, I do think the language of your post drips with disdain for the eating habits of overweight people, and that in itself is an example of the typical 'moral failing' assumption that is often made about those who are overweight. It would be interesting to know what kind of language people would use to describe a thin person over-eating. I think we'd be much more likely to think of thin people as 'treating themselves' or 'indulging' , than using the pejorative terms like 'gorging' or 'stuffing themselves' like we do with fat people. Maybe a part of so-called thin privilege- being able to behave how you like without facing judgement from others.