AIBU to say that big is NOT beautiful!

[SummerSummerSummer]

So, I'm not expecting the MN community to take this statement well (or who knows), but I have come to the conclusion that the whole 'Big is Beautiful' stuff is complete nonsense! Big (I'm talking overweight here) is unhealthy, unattractive, and normal healthy weight is what we should all aim for.

Pre-DC, ten years ago, I was of normal weight, attractive and full of energy. I would cycle to work (in London), go running, rollerblading and do yoga classes. Whatever clothes I wanted to wear, I did with no problems. Everything looked great.

Children happened and the sleep deprivation, lack of me-time and the general exhaustion made me seek comfort in food and I gained a lot of weight. I would eat chocolate secretly behind my family's back to reward myself for something or to celebrate a moment or whatever reason really.

A few days ago I saw pictures taken of me on a family holiday and I can't fake it anymore. I look awful! My belly looks like I'm 6 months pregnant, my thighs are full of cellulite and my bum is enormous (however fashionable it might be at the moment). And I don't look good either. I hate getting into a swimming costume for everyone to see me, I cannot find any nice clothes to fit me and I'm so unfit!

It's easier to tell yourself in the winter that you're not really that big when you can wrap yourself in big jumpers, coats and scarves. You can do your hair and make up and kind of look ok. But in this heat there's no hiding from it, and no amount of make up or time spent on hair can fake you a healthy looking figure. And I hate the way I have to pull my t-shirts down over my belly instead of tucking them in like it's fashionable at the moment! And any leggings, tights or bottoms with elasticated waist always roll under my belly rather than stay up where they're supposed to be! Let alone the fact that this is now my preferred wardrobe due to jeans and smarter trousers feeling really uncomfortable! And tops! Spagetti top is a no, sleeveless top is a no, t-shirt is a maybe if it's the loose kind because of big wobbly arms!

So the reasons I'm saying big is not beautiful are:

1. Being overweight is unhealthy and puts you in risk of all kinds of illnesses (such as diabetes which I worry about)
2. You are constantly fixated on food and treats. What you are going to eat next, when can you eat it, how can you hide it from everyone else etc..

3.Nothing fits you nicely. You can not participate in the fashion scene.

1. You get out of breath so easily. Even going upstairs becomes a nuisance let alone having a game of football or tag with your children!
2. Telling lies to yourself is not healthy for you mentally. Healthy body, healthy mind.
3. Not wanting to appear in photographs. Editing yourself out of family photos which is super sad.

Being beautiful or not isn't the issue at all.
Being healthy is.
Women can be big and beautiful or slim and beautiful.
People have all sorts of hang ups and worries about how they look, but it doesn't just effect "big" people.
I don't think you can make generalised observations about anyone.
You must live in a very narrow world to make judgements like that.

Sadly obesity seems to be everyones business. We are the reason why the NHS is struggling, lazy, fat stuffing our faces in front of the telly and out if breath with skin infections etc etc.
Well op my weight has fluctuated lots over the years. Dress size 10 to 20 approx.
Now I am just obese but I walk half marathons just for fun. My weight is coming down because I feel good about myself. It is nit possible to feel good about yourself if you are told you are fat and ugly.
Have you thought that rather than helping disillussional disgusting fat people seet he error of their ways you are actually making them reach for the donuts.

OP you have issues. Go sort them out and stop trying to justify your own self help mission to reduce the size of your arse by dragging down the rest of us with you FFS.

If you're genuine is that really how you want to live? Being obsessed over the way you look? Got news for you love, no one gives a flying fuck what weight you are apart from your GP. So stop internalising all of the self hatred and either get up and move about and eat better, or shut the fucking fuck up. It's BORING. You are being BORING. Is this your personality? If not why are you making it part of it? How fucking dull. Are you that wanker in the office sipping slim a soups and eating ham salads topped with sugar filled shite Muller light from the slimming world book?

Go and have a congratulatory hobnob and get off your arse and get a bloody hobby.

I only have one thing to say really, who are you to judge what others think is attractive?

Beauty is different for everyone and statements like yours are ignorant and harmful.

Perhaps address your own issues before you make such bold statements and assume they're valid and correct because they are certainly not. You're projecting your own self-hatred for whatever reason but I do have some advice - keep it to yourself.

You're clearly unhappy about yourself, so instead of sharing your ignorant thoughts, why not do something about what's making you unhappy?

People are beautiful no matter what their size, race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation - the lot. What I find attractive you may not, and that is the beauty of this world. We are all beautiful in our own way and promoting positive messages about the body is not wrong.

You can certainly say that the bigger you are the more health issues you could face that is fact, but that can be said for those who are severely thin too. However, saying that big is not beautiful? Fuck out of here. People are shamed enough as it is, stop adding more hate.

I think that I’m general, bigger is less healthy (generalising massively). BUT beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

2. You are constantly fixated on food and treats. What you are going to eat next, when can you eat it, how can you hide it from everyone else etc..

No - that’s what happens when you’re on a diet.

I agree with you. Big is not beautiful. The big women shown on media are well proportioned with a toned stomach, however, most women who are big have a big flabby belly. I used to be skinny but gained weight when I stopped breast feeding. At first it was mainly due to eating more unhealthy things as I was used to when I was breast feeding but I was burning all those calories. As soon as I stopped BF it all crept up. Now I have health issues due to which I am struggling to loose weight. I hate it that I look 6 months pregnant when I am not. I know it's my fault. I need to exercise more and eat more healthy food. And no, I don't look good. I know that. It's not self hatred, it's the reality.

@bananasaidso I think you've put it in the way I couldn't. Loosing weight is so hard, and even more so with health problems. If it was easy we would all just do it in a flash. It creeps up so slowly, and it's such hard work mentally and physically to loose it. I've taken the first step and stopped eating secretly a few days ago, but it's also important to be honest with yourself (myself) and recognize that it takes more than that and I might not succeed. However now that I know I've been lying to myself, I can also spot the lies and hopefully stop the overeating. I'm also still wondering if I should tell my husband I'm doing this because what if I fail? I wish you the best of luck also. I think it's probably like quitting smoking. You have to be in the right mindset to do it, or it just won't work.

OP, your opinion won't be popular at all here. I do understand what you mean, and I agree with you.

You are definitely speaking on behalf of yourself and not necessarily anyone else OP. I don't think you can apply your list to absolutely everyone who is overweight and likewise there are people in all weight ranges who might feel some of those things.
You clearly have issues with your own body image and YABU to imply that all other overweight people ought not to love themselves the way they are.

Fit and toned bodies are more efficient. Why wouldn't you want a body that works as well as it possibly could to carry you through life?

@Shinygoldbauble :

The simple fact is that people were thinner in the past because they had less food and more physical jobs. They weren't morally superior people who made better choices than us fat, greedy modern people. I'm fairly sure that if they had access to copious amounts of tasty, cheap, fast food they would have filled their boots. Their lives were difficult in many ways, our lives are difficult in different ways

Absolutely spot on. Worth repeating. So I did

I'm glad you are now at least beautiful on the outside.

I’m a size 14/16, my BMI puts me just into the obese category but I don’t have rolls of fat or cellulite. I do 3 hours of exercise a week including weights, body weight exercise, cardio and Pilates. I’m fit and the only health problems I have are not because of my weight (underactive thyroid - if anything the cause of me being bigger!). I don’t feel unattractive and in fact I often get complimented on my clothes.

I’d still like to lose weight and get into that healthy BMI range, but it’s not easy and I have to be uber strict about dieting to lose weight. But life gets in the way of that and I want to enjoy meals out or the odd boozy night out or takeaway. I’m not someone who scoffs packets of biscuits or eats in secret. Im not ashamed by my size. I recognise I could reduce it but it’s not that big a deal to me. That’s body positivity and I’d rather be this way and overweight and not hate myself!

I think you need to look at health separately from beauty. I have seen some very beautiful stunning women who are 'big' and some who are not so nice on the eyes that are are very slim. Beauty is not defined by health . I was overweight, but you couldn't pinch a cm of flesh from me, it was all muscles, some people thought it looked horrible, my DH loved it. Health will certainly be impacted by weight but there are some very unhealthy slim people out there and some healthy overweight people too.

this is about you and a disgusting thread.this is how you feel inwardly about yourself.
becasue ive seen some absoltely stunning people.
it would be different if you said obese isnt really healthy for you.
but to bring such a thing as beautiful into how heavy you are is exactly what is wrong with this world.
put on hold health...what made rolls not beautiful.or fat.or stretch marks.who decided this.something or someone decided this culture would be so and that is how you beleive.it.if youd been brought up in a world that saw the oppsoite as beautiful you would be saying that too.
you dont get to define beauty and neither does diet culture and other horrible people with such vile views on who people are.

Yeah but it pads out your face so you aren't as wrinkly and look better, yeah?

And I'm beautiful on the inside

"being beautiful isn't everything"

But I am beautiful, my husband tells me so, so do my kids, so do the random people who occasionally compliment my hair or style. Being fat is only one part of me and it didn't melt my face into an ogres just because I gained weight. I can still put on my high heels strut my stuff and feel damn good about myself (on a good day) and that's in part because of the big is still beautiful stuff. It's certainly not down to the people who feel it's their duty to tell me I'm fat and unhealthy in either supposedly kind words or shouted unkindly from a moving vehicle.

100% agree with you I'm over weight now and hate it I don't think it's because I want to be skinny for anyone else it's because I used to be so much healthier have so much more energy and I was happier. I don't think body positivity is doing anyone any favours as it is, if it was normalising size 10-12 over size 0 sure but they way they have gone with this is trying to normalise morbid obesity such as Tass Daley who's probably size 22+ and cannot be physically healthy. I don't think it's beautiful for a lot of the same reasons you said and we have a crisis on our hands with weight!

OP, I find your post horrible - but I recognise the unhappiness in it. As a fat person, I don’t feel as you do and I don’t think fat has to mean you are unhealthy, or ugly, or less worthy. I am currently losing weight and this is because I have some health problems that will be alleviated by this - however I am motivated by self worth not self disgust. It took a while to get out of habits of eating for comfort and reward, and to replace these habits with something more positive. I hope you’ll get there too. It’s such a shame to feel like you should not be in family photos, you deserve to be there! You brought those kids into the world after all.

Kateandme - well said 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

I'm with you OP I'm disgusted at the size I've let myself get to, my stomach is the worst. 100% committed to doing something about it now

Fat adults (of which I'm one) can be beautiful or not so much (hello me). But fat children break my heart. They are either fat through illness which is sad or through lack of exercise and overeating. Which just makes me upset.

@MitziK If I ever manage to get back to my normal BMI, I will be happy. I have wrinkles (in my early 40s now), they don't bother me. I have stretch marks, they don't bother me either. I have a huge CS scar. It doesn't bother me. My hair is going grey, doesn't bother me. I wear thick glasses. No problem. I haven't gone out to take botox, laser eye surgery or dyed my hair. Its all ok. I'm not talking about achieving perfection here. I'm talking about achieving a normal healthy weight so that I can feel good about myself and run around with my children without being out of breath and red in the face. Go shopping and find nice clothes that fit. Thighs not chafing and getting red and sore. That kind of thing. I think you're talking about something else completely. Wanting to loose weight is not a mental illness. Eating too much isn't either. I have given myself many opportunities to not care. Gaining weight is easy, loosing weight is so so hard, but I think I'm onto something here.

That’s quite an offensive post.

But it’s true