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.

It's more normal to be a chubber these days. "Normal" weight people are in the minority.
So yep everyone's perception has changed. The new norm isn't to be slim.

I don't give a shit what anyone looks like. Fat, slim and eveeythingbelse around thatbi irrelevant to me. Personality is far more important than looks in my life.

Contrary to popular belief, people don’t comment on someone’s size / appearance because they’re jealous. They usually comment on something acceptable because there’s something majorly unacceptable overall about someone’s appearance; or they are bullying you. It’s either one or the other.

For example there was a lady who was fairly slim but unhygienic at work (never washed her clothes, they would smell etc) - many colleagues tried to help and they often said things like ‘you are so tiny / slim I bet you could get your pick of clothes’ and then launched into where the offers / laundrettes / dry cleaning services were etc. They were all trying to help though.

Then there’s the bullying. I was bullied big time at my last job and people would find anything to make comments about. My hair, my clothes, my shoes - they would make a seemingly innocuous comment and then give each other funny looks. The next day I’d get a worried friend come up to me and tell me they had ripped me to shreds with the manager over something innocuous. The truth was my face just didn’t fit. I was much happier when I left the team - I am now more professionally successful than everyone who bullied me back then but I still struggle with the trauma of it. So if it makes you feel uncomfortable try to leave the team.

The truth is that we live in a world where being fat is considered to be the worst thing in the world and being thin is great,

I disagree. I think the ultimate body goal is currently that exaggerated hourglass figure, think size 12 bottom and 8 top. Thin people who have “unsexy” boxy figures still face judgement regardless of being thin. If you’re straight up and down, society won’t necessarily concede you have a “great” body, you still get nasty comments etc.

It's not a lack of knowledge about what's a healthy weight, it's just defensiveness. It's a pretty normal reaction tbh. Many people are overweight and unhappy about it. It makes them feel better to think of slim people as unusual and comment on it. Similarly many people drink too much and it makes them feel better to think of infrequent drinkers as unusual.

This is why you see so many posts on MN ridiculing people for 'probably just having a thimblefull of sherry once a year at Christmas' or 'claiming they couldn't possibly eat more than a spoonful of ice cream' etc. Nobody is unaware that slim should be normal. They just feel bad for not managing it.

When I was a teen way back in the 90s I was a size 12 and that was a normal average size to be. Would have loved to be a 'tiny' size 10 but tits and arse did not allow.

So I always considered myself to be a size 12 and I naturally pick up that size when shopping. Sometime, maybe in the last 10 years, the 12s are always too big and I usually fit a 10 or even an 8 now (Monsoon, M&S) But it's definitely not me that's smaller as my few remaining old size 12 clothes from my 20s fit just the same.

I also do sometimes get 'oh you are so tiny' comments that I feel are weird and undeserved as I consider myself to be a very average normal size and build.

I think it is the case that the world has generally got a bit fatter.
It's really no surprise either when I think of how available junk food, 'snacks' and takeaways are. Stuff my kids consider an every day snack was a once a week treat for me as a kid.

I think most people need to make a conscious effort not to be fat in today's world.

I think there’s something in it OP. I thought I was a healthy weight. Turns out I’m 5 stone heavier than I should be I’m just smaller than most people around me

Oh god this, again. These ‘I’m thin and you should be too’ threads are irksome stealth judging and nothing else.

@handsoffmyrights right so it's fine for people to feel uncomfortable when people mention them being fat but not the other way round?

I get similar and I’m not that thin at all! Just normal/slim. BMI I’m actually just in the higher half of normal. “There’s nothing of you” etc. It doesn’t bother me at all, I find it quite flattering !

You know things are finally getting back to normal when you get more than one batshit weight/eating/stealth boast thread in a week .

Most people do, it's just that we live in a society where telling a woman she's skinny is seen as a huge compliment. I doubt very much that most people think you're skinny.

I don’t know why some people are being so dismissive, defensive and rude to the OP!

OP - you are completely correct! Society has conditioned most to not know the difference between overweight & healthy. People are generally getting bigger. You are definitely not being unreasonable!

I think there is an element of people trying to pay a compliment too.
I absolutely hate it. To me someone's weight is not a topic for discussion either way.
I am happy to get a compliment about what I am wearing or my hair style but my body is off limits for comment (apart from DH)

The other thing is it might be that they are (clumsily) trying to pay you a compliment. "You're so skinny" used to be considered the same as "aren't you gorgeous" when I was a teenager. People shouldn't do this though. If everyone could just not comment on anyone's size at all and we wouldn't have any of these problems or any of these threads, which do come up all the time. Not the OP's fault, but it does illustrate how often this happens that we get these all the time.

There's such an undertone in these threads of unpleasantness...like everyone else is such a fat bastard they think I'm skinny...it's all over these boards and its very tedious.

I'm so small I can be picked up! A large man could hold me on the palm of his hand. Often massive normal sized people mistake me for a fairy

I've voted YABU as it feels like a stealth boast which is why pps were bored.

Disagree, I've had this all my life, I'm tall and in the healthy weight range for my height, I wear size 14 clothes and have had people comment on my weight, had people ask if I'm anorexic. Started a new job recently and a man said to me I look under weight to him, he is over weight, I wouldnt dare have said he looked over weight to me. I was bullied at school for my weight and remember eating unhealthy crap just to try and pile the weight on

YANBU - you only have to look at films of everyday people even 20 years ago to see that we are all getting bigger and it isn't healthy 😏

Wow @gypsywater "enjoy your diabetes", that's nice

A healthy weight doesn’t have a particular look as it covers about 2 stone so from quite skinny to reasonably plump.

Enjoy your diabetes.

😂 😂 😂 😂
I agree with you OP. I've got four children but am still a healthy weight, I'm a size 10. People always say ' how are you so thin when you've had kids!? Do you not eat enough?' etc etc. Gets right on my nerves.

People get defensive because they hear accusations that they're fat/lazy/eat too much - which, unfortunately, isn't far off the truth statistically for a lot of people (me included). It's too easy to slip into eating too much and too unhealthily, and it's hard to lose weight once its on.

It's also completely normalised to have three big meals a day when historically that would have been unheard of for most people.

Yanbu I'm a 12 and 10.5 stone, when people discuss diets and exercise and I mention I'd like to lose a stone I'm told I'll "look anorexic" if I do. I'm overweight for my 5ft5 height!

People just don't realise how much we see sizes differently - our eyes have become so accustomed to fat shapes.
I recall a year or so ago seeing an old Top of the Pops episode, with the lead singer of 'Bad Manners' - remember them? In my teens, he was enormously grossly fat. Now the same video and he looks just slightly over average.
Same with the scene from the film about the black teacher in the East End filmed in the early sixties - I think it might be 'To Sir with Love' - there is a scene in which the evil PE teacher makes the fat kid jump a gym horse. When I was young this kid was really fat, but now he looks about average.
Try watching a film from the thirties or forties: it is not just the stars who look as thin as rakes, everyone does, even background characters.
So yes, our eyes are deceiving us.
And OP - it is rude for anyone to comment on anyone's weight, unless maybe they are closest friends or family.