Skinny privellege

[Annabella91]

Why is there shops full of clothes for women who are skinnt but nothing bigger i hate going clothes literally can never find anything in a size 16 it's all size 6 and 8 is the fat back in the 90s discrimination trend coming in again?? Shouldn't need to skinny to look nice??

Don't you get it? They're envious. I used to lie to colleagues who made a thing about my coffee-break cake, saying I'd have to knock 400 calories off my eating for the rest of the day. And if they called me skinny, I'd say thank you.

It's not bloody difficult.

@GarlicGrace , who are these very thin actresses and models?

@Okunevo but people only tend to look “unattractively” thin when it looks like they have a medical issue. Then words like emaciated work better.

I think skinny tends to be used in a fashion sense. I thinks it’s used positively as much as anything because being thin is considered attractive. We have Skinny Cow branded ice cream, we describe kids that run around healthily as skinny, skinny Malink is used as a term of endearment.

You’d use scrawny differently from slight even though they both describe thinness.

It's nothing to do with western beauty culture. Across pretty much every culture, through history, the female ideal beauty standard is a .7.7 breast/waist/hip ratio. This is because "beauty standards" come about from an evolutionary mechanism that makes men want to mate with a woman who is likely to be healthy and bear healthy children. It works the other way around too, and women (on the whole) are most attracted to strong, healthy looking men, who will provide us with healthy offspring.

It's also why we see youthfulness as attractive. It's not a messed up beauty standard. But on average, younger looking people are healthier and live longer. We're animals with a driving need to survive and procreate. We will always be instinctively most attracted to people who look healthy, appear to have good genes and will be a benefit to us in older age rather than a burden.

The 'Western beauty standard' is anything that deviates from our base instincts, here in the West.

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

I struggle to put on weight. My natural weight is always a bit thin. I drink Complan build-up drinks to keep the calories up. I don’t like it. Finding clothes is difficult. People comment on my weight a lot. It’s unpleasant and makes me feel rubbish.

@GarlicGrace , seriously, who are they?

I think people complaining about weight at either end of the spectrum can be pretty tedious. This thread is about ‘skinny’, hence the invited comments.

IRL, v few women talk about being underweight. Whereas women go on and on and on and on about being overweight. Even size 12-16. During meals. During every interaction. It’s so dull but I feign interest as it’s clearly important to them.

I am not sure I have ever been bored to the same degree by women whining about being underweight!

No one is acting hard done by. The reality is a lot of thin people particularly women are sick of fat people saying things like “real women have curves,” “men like something to grab onto,” and denigrating them because secretly they’re jealous.

I sometimes struggle to find clothes that are in a smaller size but that’s life. I’m not hard done by and I’ll buy online.

no I won’t become a size 18. I was miserable at size 16 and am pretty damn proud of the fact that I’m now a size 10. If it’s so damn tough at bigger sizes why don’t people do what others do and lose weight? Instead of directing ire at smaller people?

am pretty damn proud of the fact that I’m now a size 10

Well exactly but at least you're honest unlike a lot of posters who are on this thread saying how they can't put weight on and they hate people telling them they're thin and they're victimised over it and it's just as awful as being fat

Because there's a double standard, not because it's not rude/personal/offensive to tell someone they're 'skinny'.

Honestly I'm not victimised for being slim.

Arseholes and people with their own body hang ups and victim complexes sometimes make stupid comments, and even more stupid comments about how I should take their unwanted comments as a compliment because everyone must want to thin like me/they only say it because they are jealous.

Most people don't give a damn because most people aren't so absorbed in their own weight issues that my body would even cross their mind.

When I go to the shops there's sometimes things that fit and look nice, some things don't, and sometimes things fit and look awful (but would probably look lovely on another woman).

Ify size isn't in stock it's a little annoying, just as it must be annoying for another woman when her size is sold out.

The difference is I don't go through life moaning about a conspiracy, moaning that shops don't cater to me me me, and making silly claims that people think I shouldn't exist.

I think it depends on how you feel about yourself partly. I have been slim all my life. It’s great. Society celebrates being slim etc.

But for a couple of years I was under huge stress and lost loads of weight despite eating; I don’t know how. Even size 2 hung off me; I know I looked awful. People’s sneering comments really got to me. Partly because they were nasty and partly because I know I looked emaciated and I was so unhappy with life anyway.

I am a ‘normal’ slim size now and know that it’s all much easier for me than for someone who is overweight.

Those couple of years were genuinely tough for me though and people’s sarcasm and mockery at my thin body really did not help. I don’t think you should undermine people who have felt that way.

Agree. They make clothes as if all bodies get bigger as they get taller, which isn't the case for someone like me. Trousers that fit round the waist flap around my calves. Jumpers/tops that are decently fitted in the torso have sleeves halfway up to my elbows. If I want sleeves long enough I have to buy about two or three sizes too big. I'm not saying only slim people have this problem; clothes makers generally seem to make things for some 'average' person who doesn't actually exist.

I think people complaining about weight at either end of the spectrum can be pretty tedious. This thread is about ‘skinny’, hence the invited comments.

Agreed, @TrainedObserver. Worth remembering that @Annabella91 didn't come here to moan about her weight! All the same, we have pages & pages of women moaning about being thin ... So I disagree with the final part of your post!

Agreed re the tedious comments from both sides, however, it has become clear that @Annabella91 is unhappy with her weight.

Personally I think she should give herself a break at only 6 weeks post partum, however, if she's unhappy about her weight then moaning about the lack of bigger sizes isn't going to help. Diet and exercise will.

Yes, @Calphurnia88, baby weight's a thing. It'll most likely resolve of its own accord, and OP - if she's feeling sufficiently recovered - can help it along a bit.

clothes makers generally seem to make things for some 'average' person who doesn't actually exist.

From my POV I think I am that average person - I rarely have problems buying clothes. I can confidently get clothes online and (taking vanity sizing into account) know they will fit.

The thing is I am not average. I am taller and slimmer than the average woman. I get a size 8 in something from M&S and it fits me fine. I get an 8 (or even a 6..daft) from Next and again, it's fine. Zara, &OtherStories, Uniqlo, Phase 8, Sainsbury's - all fine.

clothes makers generally seem to make things for some 'average' person who doesn't actually exist

They make them to fit the 50% of the people at the top of the anthropological bell shaped curve. That’s their market. They don’t really care about the ones at either end. They just want profits.

I don’t think slim people are ‘hard done by’ but I think they get fed up of having to listen to all the excuses made by overweight people as to why they need to bleed the NHS dry, and how unfair and discriminatory everything is when a) it isn’t and b) they’re 100% able to do something about it. Like I said slim/fat aren’t both immutable and harmless body types, one is a bit more effort but healthier and therefore desirable. The other is unhealthy, costs the country a fortune and is the result of over eating.

b) they’re 100% able to do something about it

Then by that reckoning the posters on here who were saying they were skinny/underweight and hated it should just be able to do something about it?

I guess you've got lucky proportions or something!
I'm 5' 10" and a size 8 in waist and torso/bust terms (although often 8s or even sometimes 6s are too big in the torso and bust). I know I'm fairly unusually tall and lanky, but I'm not THAT freakish and I have to wonder what clothes other women of my size and shape do. Like, what does an off-duty model wear? (I'm obviously not saying I'm a model, but I am towards that end of the proportions spectrum).
I've just resigned myself to wearing casual trousers only (fitted/tailored ones just do not come in the right proportions to look nice on me) and either putting up with too-short sleeves, wearing massively oversized jumpers, or sometimes buying men's/boys' ones, which weirdly tend to fit fairly well in the torso while also having longer sleeves. Colours and styles are a bit limited in the men's though.

In m&s this weekend looking for a pair of trousers. Couldn't find anything below an 18 and the style I wanted all sold out in size 10 & 12 online. Same with H&M

I've been fat and thin being called fat hurts more than being called skinny. Because in many circles being skinny is seen as the beauty ideal. It signifies discipline.

The poster who said being underweight is healthier than being fat is not true. When older you are much more likely to die during illness because you have no fat reserves left to fight . The normal weight/ overweight person more likely survives. The NHS spends a fortune on dieticians special drinks for malnourished and underweight people.

I know I'm fairly unusually tall and lanky, but I'm not THAT freakish and I have to wonder what clothes other women of my size and shape do.

I am a couple of inches shorter than you and (unlike my straight up and down Mum and sis) do have curves.