Is it ok for people to comment if you’ve put on weight?

[cooperbug]

Would you be offended if family members and other random people had commented that you had put on weight or asked if you were pregnant?

This has happened twice to me this week and I’m so angry and upset by it?

How would you respond?

One day without pain for my love. I mean that she could have had one day without pain in the last weeks of her life.

@PurpleDaisies
So sorry you are dealing with this very painful difficult condition. What I'm trying to say is that someone saying you are pregnant surely pales into insignificance stacked against the actual experience of having endometriosis. How can what people say hurt that much?

[quote joystir59]@PurpleDaisies
So sorry you are dealing with this very painful difficult condition. What I'm trying to say is that someone saying you are pregnant surely pales into insignificance stacked against the actual experience of having endometriosis. How can what people say hurt that much?[/quote]
Because somebody congratulating you on your happy news when then think you’re pregnant brings all the feelings about not being able to the surface.

I guess a sort of suitable to being asked “how is your partner doing” and having to say they’ve died. The honest answer to that question is “I am not pregnant and I never will be”. That is devastating to have to deal with in the middle of Tesco when you’re not expecting it.

@joystir59

No. Being told you look pregnant because you are overweight isn't devastating. It's just a comment about ow you present to that person. Being unable to bear a child is devastating. Devastation is a huge state of affairs.

You have no idea which comment will tip someone in that situation over the edge

@PurpleDaisies said it better than I ever could

Being asked how my partner is by someone who hasn't heard the news is a pin prick, quickly forgiven and forgotten next to the devastating loss of her which has changed my life beyond compare. Being told you are fat, when you are indeed fat, is a pin prick next to the devastating effect your weight is having on the quality of you life.

I don’t know what happened to the words there. They got garbled and I didn’t notifice before posting. I was trying to say that I guess it’s sort of similar to being totally blind sided by a question about how your partner is.

But people say things in error, in lack of judgement, and perhaps unfortunately with malice, all the time. Noone is going to move through life without hearing hurtful and offensive things. And words do hurt. But not against the realities they perhaps touch on. It is realistic to expect only to hear kind words or no words, at times

I've been totally blindsided lots of times since DW died. So what?

Clearly I’m talking to someone who has had an empathy bypass. There’s no point.

I hope you will never ask any woman whether she’s pregnant or not in future.

*unrealistic

I've never nor would ever ask a woman if she was pregnant, or tell a woman she looked pregnant.

@PurpleDaisies
I wish you good health and recovery and all you want for your future.

It is realistic to expect only to hear kind words or no words, at times

Especially when you seem to have such trouble dispensing them.

Well, that was a poorly timed cross post and I apologise because your kind words to Purple Daisys were very gracious.

Alright.

No it's not ok, fat people know they are fat, we don't need to be told by other people. It's really insensitive

@DysmalRadius

My ex fil used to delight in tellling me I’d gained weight when I’d gone from a size 8 to a 12 despite his own wife sitting next to him being several stone over weight

He was rude, but why is his wife's weight the issue? Did she say anything to you? Because its mostly women who are critiqued on their bodies and the idea that he shouldn't comment because you were still slimmer than his fat wife is not much better than him commenting in the first place.

The fact the because he didn’t like me, he commented on my weight whereas his own wife had gained several stone and he never mentioned it. Therefore his comments had very little to do with weight and more to do with spite

@joystir59

I've never commented on anyone's weight but plenty of people have commented on mine. I don't get why it upsets people so much.

My weight has tended to fluctuate a little, over the years. When I've put weight on, I bloody know I've put weight on and don't need someone to tell me about it.

@Heartofglass12345

No it's not ok, fat people know they are fat, we don't need to be told by other people. It's really insensitive

The OP was talking about weight changes, not people who are underweight or overweight or obese but whose condition hasn't changed. Usually if someone's appearance has changed for the worse then something is not right. I was grateful that people noticed when I wasn't well and expressed their concern. Yes, I already knew I was dangerously underweight, but they were showing that they cared.

Not ok. But in my experience, family members think it’s acceptable to pass comment.

One must be really lacking in empathy, sensitivity and imagination if they genuinely can’t understand why a comment about weight might be very difficult for some people. (Caveat - I know some cognitive conditions e.g. dementia affect the way people process and deliver information.) Even if it isn’t the case that you’d feel upset, it’s a normal human thing to try to put yourself in another person’s shoes.

Quite a few people negatively commented on my appearance (skinny limbs but bloated belly and face from high dose steroids) following several weeks on life support in a medically induced coma. Those shitty comments really were the icing on the cake.

I didn’t put on a lot of weight during pregnancy and my baby was very small. I had to have a lot of intervention with St George’s foetal medicine. I lost the small bit of weight quickly and when I saw a certain friend about two weeks post my ELCS, she ‘jokingly’ told me to fuck off repeatedly for being slim again. She went on and on and on to everyone who would listen. I felt utterly humiliated as everyone we were with turned their attention to my healing, recently pregnant body. Awful. I felt exposed.

I also used to suffer with terrible periods, and particularly bloating in the run to it. My MIL once grabbed my stomach completely randomly to see if I was pregnant. I leapt away from her, utterly horrified. It was like she couldn’t help herself. Fucking awful.

The shape of my body, nor anyone else’s body, is up for discussion, criticism or judgement.

"Would you be offended if family members and other random people had commented that you had put on weight or asked if you were pregnant?"

@kowari the OP asked specifically about weight gain. I have put on a lot of weight over the past couple of years and I know I have, I don't need other people pointing it out pretending to be concerned