MNetters obsession with weight and dress size

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Why are MN posters so obsessed with weight and dress size?

There have recently been quite a lot of weight related threads.

Depressing to see that women are still very much judged on appearance and body size. I couldn't care less what size you are or how much you weigh. Just be a decent, kind person.

No fat shaming or body shaming from me.

@anonymous98

Yes, I understand obesity is an epidemic etc. but I'm sick of seeing perfectly healthy weights being derided as 'too fat'. Also sick of these lines being trotted out everywhere:

'Oh I would lookhugeat 9 stone'.

'We've lost sight of what a healthy weight is.'

'11 stone is always overweight [regardless of height].'

'I am definitely overweight [with a BMI of 21].'

@Pringleface

There are a lot of seriously worrying posts on MN about food and size. The competitive under eating and posts saying stuff like ‘size 14 is huge’ and wide-eyed claims that half a tin of soup is too much for a grown adult to eat.

MNHQ need to do more to discourage the boasting about disordered eating, imho.

This. ^ I have also noticed the obsession with weight and body size and dieting on here. (And eating as little as possible!) It seems to be rife lately. I don't agree with normalising obesity, and sigh, and shake my head when I see women on TV adverts who are pushed forward as 'real women' when they are clearly some 6 to 8 stone overweight. THAT is offensive. Saying a woman is only a real woman if she is overweight (or 'curvy') is rude. Thin-shaming is no better than fat-shaming. But normalising obesity is ridiculous too.

The ice skating woman on (I think) an advert for sanitary towels is a typical example. She is clearly carrying too much weight. But the obsession on mumsnet (from some) for bragging about being a size six, 7 st 11, and with a 22 inch waist, and if they go over 8 stone they are fat, is just ridiculous.

The 'teeny tiny' comments where people say they're fat at 9 stone (at 5 ft 5,) and they 'feel like a heifer' should be deleted. There IS a pro ana feel on here right now. There was a thread running yesterday (probably still running,) where people were posting photos of themselves, and saying 'am I fat? Opinions please?'

Not a single one of them was THAT big. A couple were maybe 2 stone overweight tops. One claimed to be 17 stone, when the photo said different. Clearly no more than 12 stone. Unless they were 6 ft 2, there's no way she was 17 stone.

The obsession with weight on here, and how little some people claim to eat is disturbing. As a pp said though, the competitive overeating is tedious too, and quite alarming.

We deified thinness in the 90s. Heroin chic. Waif look. Diet books and shakes and clubs everywhere, eating disorders out the wazoo. No nice clothes for anyone over a 90s size 16. Kate Winslet was a brave choice of casting in Titanic because by the standards of the day, she was chunky (yes, I know). A lot of people were thrilled to see her, but a lotcomplained. It got tongues wagging. She was not the norm.

Then there was Renee Zellwegger in Bridget Jones’ Diary. She apparently gained a lot of weight for the role, but she never looked overweight in the film, she just looked normal and looked fabulous in the bunny girl costume. But she went on about how great it felt to be “voluptuous”, then immediately lost it after the film.

I doubt it.

And an over-eating thread wouldn't be as insidious, damaging and shaming as then pro ana stuff that we're seeing at the moment.

This thread has some shocking comments.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/style_and_beauty/4766059-losing-weight-is-the-only-way-to-look-good

@PrettyMaybug I can happily confirm I AM 17 stone and will post a photo of the scales if anyone really wants to see
I'm 5ft 10 and a size 16

I remember that one!!!

Hilarious and good for her

Shock horror, she had a beef and horseradish sandwich for breakfast, it broke MN!!!!

A lot of people on Mumsnet seem anxious not only about their own weight but about policing everyone. Why? They're not like that about other health issues such as alcohol. Maybe it's one of those nervy control issues. If you control your weight, you control your life kind of reasoning maybe.

It's just just a Mumsber obsession is it? Women in general are obsessed with weight and body size. Yes I know some women aren't but many, many are.

It’s interesting to see how much hatred there is for the idea of a fat jab too! I’m not sure anything available yet is actually right - too many side effects and it’s very likely you put all the weight back on afterwards. BUT if there was a jab which solved the problem of obesity for good by changing your metabolism I would take it. Yet it seems the people of relatively normal weight would hate that!! I assume because they are proud of their supposed superiority in being slim. If there was a jab and it removed all that expense from the NHS then why not? Just as the Covid jab stopped the health system from collapse.

In the past our ancestors walked everywhere or rode horses, food was sometimes scarce, many jobs involved a massive amount of physical labour. Now food is abundant (and processed) and we have cars and desk jobs. That is really why so many people have weight issues.

It’s not morally superior to be slim. It means you either have the right metabolism for modern life or you starve yourself. It doesn’t necessarily make you beautiful and even the beautiful people age - it doesn’t last. Inner beauty is more important anyway.

It's the demonisation of carbs that gets me. There was a thread once about pasta serving sizes and everyone was falling over themselves to state they couldn't even manage 50grams and anyone eating more was surely a big fatty. I don't know anyone in real life who competitively under-eats but it's definitely a thing on MN.

Absolutely this. The sneering and horror that someone might get physical help to lose weight, in much the same way people get physical help to come off fags or booze or heroin, but for food there is some moral superiority with it and you're demonised if you need medication or surgery.

Strange

I always feel sorry for people who are obsessed with their weight, calorie counting, ‘not getting fat’, always making comments like ‘I couldn’t eat that much’ etc. No one who is secure and happy in themselves would talk like that or give a toss about anyone else’s body/diet. Aside from your body being the most boring bit about you as a person, it’s ridiculous to think there is a standard for all of us given we are all different genetically, physically and mentally, all of which are contributing factors to size. Live a little, add that milk to your coffee 😁

And yet food is something we all have to eat! Heroin, booze, smoking, even dangerous sports really are choices and not choices I’ve ever made. Restricting food is much harder because it is everywhere and is needed for life!

It's not always about appearance. I'm working towards a sustainable and healthy lifestyle change because being overweight is a comorbidity. I don't want to die young like a close obese relative of mine. Another close obese relative of mine has recently had a very serious health scare. Mumsnet has been a really helpful place to get tips, like basing each meal around protein and doing more strength training.

We had a thread recently about competitive undereating which was (mostly) a welcome antidote to all this shite. There were still a few, though. One barrel of joy informed us all how she always complains to the waiter when the food first arrives that the portions are all too big, and that she has to do this to fight the obesity epidemic.

Can't imagine she ever got invited out to dinner more than once...

Mumsnet has been a really helpful place to get tips, like basing each meal around protein and doing more strength training.

This is very basic stuff. You didn't need Mumsnet to find that out. I mean, I'm glad it helped you, but you could have found that out anywhere without all the "massive salad" "teeny tiny" crap.

I agree, some posts are a bit pro-ana. It seems that lots of people on MN want to put down literally anything people enjoy. Food, drinking, holidays, pets… miserable gits!

The ones that I find most upsetting are the ones that imply you probably deserve shitty/ abusive treatment because really, you are a fatty aren’t you?

One recently where a woman posted her husband monitored her exercise, gave her the silent treatment if he didn’t feel she’d done enough, was generally awful and toxic and abusive.

Lots of ‘well of course he shouldn’t be abusive, but did you realise OP that being overweight is unhealthy, maybe he’s just concerned about you? I’m not saying you deserve for your husband to call you horrible names and then refuse to speak to you for three days but actually it’s probably the least you can expect for letting yourself get fat … I’d definitely at least verbally abuse my husband if he skipped the gym for more than one day but that’s only because I’m so concerned about his health’ type posts.

In real life I honestly don’t know anyone who gives that much of a shit about what others weigh - that may well be self selecting though in that I’ve filtered out anyone who is a dickhead about it.

mmmm... I'm intrigued by posters who are same height as me saying they would be "gaunt" at 1 stone heavier than me. My BMI is 21 so not low. I also have a big rib cage/broad shoulders.

All the explanations the (gaunt but high BMI) offer don't make sense. So I wonder if they are delusional or just straight up inventing a story for their own entertainment.

I know that clothes sizes don't mean much, but... posters my height were saying they were 3-8 stone heavier than me and wearing same clothes sizes as me. So that was weird.

The food purists are also weird.
I get caught in threads looking for the weird.

I had posters despairing of me for saying I did 900 active minutes of exercise a week. Even though that meant I spent 4980 minutes a week sitting on my arse or doing other life stuff (remainder was 10 hours/day in bed). So that's like 85% of my awake time being sedentary or doing life admin, but somehow I'm painted as a deluded over-exerciser with an impossible to replicate lifestyle. Call me weird if you like that I manage to spend 15% of my life moving not sedentary.

Speaking of which, the bathroom won't clean itself...

Theres one this morning isnt there a bit like this, someone was at a party and some associate (not even a friend a such) told her that she was pretty but fat and how much prettier she would be if she lost weight or something like that

Cue some posters using it as an opportunity to slate OPs 'self esteem' for a) not telling her to fuck off b) the self esteem issue is becuase she knows she fat and doesnt like it so why not do something about it instead of feeling sorry for herself

Agree. It’s not helpful and I worry for the poor daughters of these people who obsess over calories and weight as they’re likely to be growing up with a disordered view of food and eating.

However, being overweight DOES have serious implications for your health and I agree that by telling ourselves being fat is ok we’ve normalised it.

No one should be shamed into feeling bad about how they look, but I also despair at the ‘haha I’m obese and love it’ brigade. It’s not healthy.

There’s a girl at work who can’t be more than 24 and I’m literally watching her sleepwalk into a life of yo-yo dieting because she becomes overweight then starts drinking shakes instead of eating, then loses some, then puts it back on again etc etc. She seems to have no idea that she is irreversibly ruining her metabolism and setting herself up for a lifetime of poor health.

We need to educate young people about healthy eating and that becoming overweight in the first place makes it very hard to maintain your health as you get older. It’s not about how you look, it’s about how healthy you are.

(And yes, people who obsessively calorie count or under-eat are not healthy either.)

You’d be amazed at how many people don’t know this.

Exactly - me too, multiple losses plus all the steroids I was on to try to stop me miscarrying. Noone knows why some people are overweight, it’s not always PIES.

@Tiddler39 so the woman at work is actually trying to solve her weight problems and you are deriding her for that? Don’t you realise this is usually the only way for those who have been obese since childhood? A sort of fatorexia - you can lose weight but only by restricting calories massively. Not everyone has the same metabolism. The genes which make us fat were a huge evolutionary advantage in the past but not now when food is abundant.

You know what else has serious implications for your health? Berating and shaming people for their weight.

Like I said, we tried it already. And all we got was an uptick in mental illnesses, especially eating disorders...and a fatter population.

We know the health implications of being overweight. Seriously, a person with their head in a block of cement could have picked that up by now.

But the phenomenon some of you are complaining about right now - that of obese people stating how healthy they are - is also a result of the OTT shaming on that count. The more you insist that the sky will cave in if you have a BMI of 27 or skip a gym session, the more a person with a high BMI will see that despite all the opprobrium, they're not dead yet (they can dance and they can sing) and therefore start to discredit everything that's being said. Since the purpose appears to be not a genuine health concern, but a satisfying opportunity to fat bash. Which it usually is, to be fair.

It's also why so many obese people believe they're not obese, because they don't look like the extreme examples of morbid obesity that are always used to illustrate stories like this. Hey, we're not being sensationalist! We're just worried about your health!

All this shame and sensationalism does is create a sense of defiance, a push back and, of course, shattered self esteem that leads to more overeating. "If I'm such a fat worthless pig, I might as well eat the cream pie..."

If you won't stop doing it because it's horrible, then stop doing it because it makes people fat!