To think people do not know what a healthy weight looks like.

[reducingfootprint]

I am a healthy weight for my height and i constantly get comments on my weight like "gosh youre tiny" or "i could just pick you up" and "what do you eat to be small, just eat a burger" from people i work with etc. Do people really not know what a healthy weight is anymore? I just think "im not tiny i am a healthy weight and yes i do eat fucking burgers"
Im glad shops are more inclusive and plus size models are more common but i still think commenting on someones size is wrong no matter the size.

[ohnomesandwiches]

@JaniceWebster I seriously think you need to calm down. Where did I say it was acceptable to make comments? I actually said the opposite.

[verybritishproblems]

You can’t ever win as a woman and that’s regarding comments from both men and women.

In school I was too skinny apparently even though I was healthy weight. Teachers used to comment and random strangers, asking if I was anorexic... yep teachers did say that to me. I put on weight in my early 30s due to a medical condition (12 1/2 stone at 5ft 9) so not fat and a stranger called me fat in the Tesco queue and I went home and cried. Now I’m 11 stone so healthy weight and I get done people saying... oooh have a cake theirs nothing to you” and others saying I’m a Chubb. Moral of the story, people are dicks and you will always get comments from these type of people.

[verybritishproblems]

Early 20s*

[MrsAvocet]

You may be right ohnomesandwiches. People are strange creatures and some will pick on others to bolster their own egos over just about anything. But I am not sure how you can tell who is "genuine" and who not, and I do think there is a general tendency (not meaning you specifically) to accuse people who have had negativity over low weight of stealth boasting when their personal experiences may well have been highly unpleasant.
I have been every size from very thin to obese over my life, and my personal experience is that I attracted more negative comments when I had a low BMI than a high one. My sister was very badly bullied for her low weight. My daughter was interrogated repeatedly at school about her eating habits as she was a naturally very thin teenager. As she is a dancer, and therefore by definition must have an eating disorder according to some, she attracted a lot of scrutiny from the teachers. And as I say, my son has been called horrible names but its been dismissed as jokes. Fortunately his personality is a lot bigger than his frame and he largely ignores it, but that doesn't mean he doesn't mind. I'm perfectly happy to believe that others have experienced the opposite, but my family has definitely had a lot more grief from being (allegedly) underweight than over.
I'm probably a bit over sensitive about it. My family are mainly slim, and as youngsters we were all very thin, but my in laws are big people. I have had decades of being told by them that my children are too thin, I don't feed them properly etc, whilst minding my own business and making no comments at all about the obese children in other parts of the family. Thin people can indeed be very nasty to overweight people, but it can, and does work the other way too. When you've had that kind of experience and people disbelieve it or accuse you of stealth boasting it can be quite hurtful.

[ohnomesandwiches]

You're right Mrs Avocet. People tend to base things on their own experiences and although I've been slim I have never struggled to maintain or put on weight or felt ridiculed for my weight. Others have and I'm sure most of people posting about this kind of thing are genuine.

[SerenDippitty]

@tubbatops

I think people have lost sight of "normal" & we now have extremes. Very thin or overweight with little middle ground.

I agree. I think I look slim in this picture - I certainly felt slim at the time - but a lot of MNers would say I was a “normal weight” not slim. So what is “slim”?

[gypsywater]

@Seren defo look slim to me!

[LycraLovingLass]

Slim and a normal weight are the same thing in my opinion.

You look both in that picture @SerenDippitty.

I have days where I feel tiny and days where I feel huge and I weight within a 3lb range so it's not like i have massively changed shape.

[PurpleDaisies]

Slim and a normal weight are the same thing in my opinion.

For me, I can be a normal weight at the top end of the bmi range but I definitely don’t look slim! I carry weight on my stomach and looked very pregnant.

[tubbatops]

@serendippitty I said that & think you look slim & normal. I think "normal" has a range if that makes sense.

[Cloudhopping]

I agree OP. I was at a work conference with my team and one of my colleagues grabbed me around the waste in front of everyone asking how I could be so thin and did I eat anything. I was really embarrassed. I’m 5ft 9, size 12-14 and not slim-I’m a fairly healthy weight for my height but not slim! The majority of my team though were quite overweight at the time.

[Inkpaperstars]

My perspective is very skewed from having gone to an all girls school where anything other than really thin was unacceptable. At about 13, anyone who was not very skinny felt pressure to diet. We were not overweight or even anywhere near the upper end of healthy bmi range, but we weren't thin enough.

I went on an 800 kcal a day diet as did many of my friends (again, we were all middle or lower part of healthy bmi range). We would pass in the corridors between lessons and say, 'what are you on? I'm on 300, you've only had 80? I am so jealous'. I couldn't join in family meals anymore and starting microwaving horrible weight watchers ready meals.

If I weighed over nine stone, that was it, above the knee skirts were out until I could get down again...the shame!

If you were very thin you could have an emotional crisis and it would be dramatic, mysterious, intriguing. If you were not thin then your emotional crisis was an unattractive embarrassment.

Our attitude to food became very distorted. I remember a party where my friend had made lots of cakes and puddings, no one ate much and then when it was just the two of us left we were like 'thank god they've all gone, now we can binge the rest'. If I bought something to eat while out shopping, I would eat in it the toilet as I was too ashamed to be seen eating, it thought people would think I should,not be eating at my (totally normal) size.

Anyway, guess what, we have all developed a starve/binge mentality and many of us spent years yoyo dieting, all as a result of actions taken when we thin anyway. So depressing. For those of us who have suffered trauma yes, food was in prime position to become about comfort or control.

Also when very depressed people rarely feel up to cooking healthy, sustaining food. Or often literally use the sugar hit from a bar of chocolate to give them the lift they need to get up and go to the loo, to shower etc.

If people have not got a long term unhealthy relationship with food, or have not relied on it to self medicate (massively viscious self sabotaging cycle of course), they are just not going to understand.

[JaniceWebster]

*ohnomesandwiches

As I said in my post, it's rude to make comments like these full stop.
I obviously agree with that

It's just that I sometimes doubt how genuine some of the posts I've seen about being offended at being called skinny are. I sometimes suspect it's being used an excuse to belittle and feel superior to overweight people.
I disagree with that, well sometimes maybe. But you give the impression that most complaints are boasting... as it has been repeated many times on the threads by others.

Just because some people would love to be called "skinny" doesn't mean others have to put up with it.

There are more than a few women who have been bullied and are still more than upset after being called anorexic, boyish, and all sorts of names.

Asking people to stop telling you to eat more is not a stealth boast, is it.

[DrCoconut]

Watch an episode of Tales of the Unexpected called Fat Chance. It gives a perspective on weight and its perception from 1980. Yes it's just a story but indicative of social attitudes of the time.

[BMaman]

I agree.

And I'm not a healthy weight (I'm a size 16/18) but I think as a nation we're very far removed from what "healthy" looks like.

It starts from young childhood.

My daughter is "very slight" - normal kids clothes are too big if I buy her age. They're the right height, but waist/width is way too big.

She's always 30-50% for weight. So she's no way underweight or boney.

But compared to most of her friends (who are mainly described as "solid") she's a lot smaller.

And her cousins who are all very overweight (family issues - partly what causes my size) are described as having puppy fat. And it's not seen as unusual that my sister has to buy age 9-10 for my 5yo Nephew and turn them up. Because his older cousins had to do the same.

I'm doing my best to have my daughter have a healthy attitude to food and exercise and working on my weight and fitness too for both of our sakes.

[formerbabe]

It's also completely ridiculous to pretend it's so HARD not to over-eat

You made this unpleasant comment @JaniceWebster.

Would you say to an anorexic person..."it's not hard to eat"?

[SchrodingersImmigrant]

I think many people have same damaged outlook on weight as on their life approach.
They is just no middle.
Either size 20, or size 6. Either a victim or a winner.
Either way, there is a fear of being average. Just nothing extra, nothing bad (The subtle art of not giving a fuck. Eyes opening)
That's not how life works in real though.

[BeijingBikini]

When I was at school, it was cool to be stick thin. With a classic pear shape and BMI of 22, I got told I was chubs with "thighs 3 times the size they should be for my body". Nowadays the "thicc" shape with a small waist, big bum and muscly thighs is finally in - 10 years too late for me! Maybe I would have been popular if I went to school these days.....

[Trandafire]

I definitely agree that 'normal' is overweight now. I have been losing weight over the past few weeks and my BMI has gone from obese to overweight. I'm now able to wear quite a few size 10 items (I'm short - even in the obese category I was still in a 12), and I am quite pleased with how I look now. I can see I've still got a bit of fat on me but I think I look 'normal'. My current BMI is 28. Still got a long way to go before I hit what is really normal and if I get there I'll be what I currently think of as 'skinny'. I'm guessing 'normal' for my height is a size 8, but that's seen as very small, not normal.

[SchrodingersImmigrant]

Nowadays the "thicc" shape with a small waist, big bum and muscly thighs is finally in - 10 years too late for me!
I was moaning about it just few weeks back😂

[JaniceWebster]

formerbabe

My "unpleasant" comment was in direct reply of your post and you know it. Don't try to take things out of context... I am not the one who accuse others of stealth-boast when they had enough to be receive stupid and nasty comments.

[JaniceWebster]

Either way, there is a fear of being average. Just nothing extra, nothing bad

I don't believe there's an "average" body. There's fashion, but women are naturally curvy, boyish, athletic, short, tall...

There should be an "average" size based on height, and most healthy people would fit in it.

[tubbatops]

I wonder if location makes a difference. I'm in London in a fairly affluent area & overweight is definitely not seen as normal.

[CarlottaValdez]

Yes same here if I look at the school mums at DS’ school there are maybe two overweight ones. I think it is very area dependent.

[formerbabe]

But it's what you think. You said that is easy not to over eat. Would you say to an alcoholic that it's easy not to drink so much? If people can have eating disorders where they undereat then why is it so confusing to you that some people may have problems with over eating?