Page 6 | MNetters obsession with weight and dress size

pagopago · 2023-03-25T21:11:14+00:00

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.

ReneBumsWombats · 26/03/2023 11:24

Tiddler39 · 26/03/2023 11:14

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

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I'm sure, but it's so basic that they could find it out in minutes in many places that don't come with a pro ana overtone.

Macaroni46 · 26/03/2023 11:25

TheSnootiestFox · 26/03/2023 09:04

I actually think it's a lack of understanding that not everyone is built the same or has a body that works the same. As I've mentioned before, I have stage 3 lipoedema and am sick to the back bastarding teeth of explaining that lipoedema fat is different to normal fat, it's not metabolic so no amount of dieting and exercise is going to shift it and it just keeps on growing. It's a genetic disease and my mum has it. I'm 2/3 of the way through my liposuction treatment and while I feel better, I don't look much different because of the loose skin it's left behind. Combine that with the fact that I have my dads ridiculous ribcage and I am never going to have a normal BMI even when I'm dead 🙄 plus I'm 5ft 9.
I need hernia surgery but our CCG refuses to give any sort of surgery unless life saving, to either smokers or anyone with a BMI over 30 and even my GP acknowledges that with my marvellous genetics I'll never get there but they just won't budge.

This is nothing to do with what I eat (I did a food based degree as I'd been on a diet since the age of 11 and already knew about calories and nutrition) and I've spent most of my life starving or making myself sick, but according to most of MN, I deserve to be bullied and thought of as a drain on society and repulsive, it's all my own fault dontcha know, because some 5ft 2 size 6 framed fuckwit knows my body better than me. If it wasn't so damaging it would be hilarious!

I feel your pain. I have the same condition. Starved myself as a teenager to the extent my periods stopped and my upper body was so skinny yet I still had fat legs.
Now I have arthritis in my knees. No chance of surgery because I'm classed as overweight. However I am lucky to have a very understanding GP who has given me constructive advice.

Mephisneon · 26/03/2023 11:27

My belief from trying to lose and maintain weight (still fat!) is it's so life consuming and limiting that if you're doing the work to maintain a low weight you need to feel its worth it. That often involves talking negatively about bigger people than you and also talking about your choices positively.

So therefore lots of chat about size and weight.

Fizbosshoes · 26/03/2023 11:28

ReneBumsWombats · 26/03/2023 10:51

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...

🙄 I remember that one.
Or the person who was terribly stressed by being asked to order a 2 or 3 course lunch and dinner on the same day. (As if there was going to be an interrogation if she chose only to have 1 course)

And cue posters coming on to say they naturally had a tiny tiny appetite and couldn't manage a whole biscuit or whatever and that they honestly couldn't help it!

PurplePineapple1 · 26/03/2023 11:28

It's always been like this but it has got worse in recent years. Some MNers can't help themselves on any thread with their 'I'm 5 foot 5 and 9 stone' and 'oh gosh I'd look huge at anything over 10 stone'. I find a person's weight the most uninteresting thing about them. Get a life!

PurplePineapple1 · 26/03/2023 11:32

I don't agree with normalising obesity

What does this even mean? How is a person existing in their body 'normalising' anything? People aren't one size. Some people have EAs. Some people have dieted their whole lives and decided enough. Some people blah blah. It is nobody else's business. So tell me please what does normalising obesity mean? That fat people exist? Have friends, lovers, colleagues? That they dare to enjoy themselves and smile and have fun in their fat bodies? Should they hide away until they can get their body to a size that you deem acceptable? Are they free of 'normalising obesity' then? Utter tosh. What you mean is I don't like seeing happy fat people.

ReneBumsWombats · 26/03/2023 11:33

Fizbosshoes · 26/03/2023 11:28

🙄 I remember that one.
Or the person who was terribly stressed by being asked to order a 2 or 3 course lunch and dinner on the same day. (As if there was going to be an interrogation if she chose only to have 1 course)

And cue posters coming on to say they naturally had a tiny tiny appetite and couldn't manage a whole biscuit or whatever and that they honestly couldn't help it!

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Yeah. The number of people who couldn't or wouldn't understand that the issue is not that they have small appetites and don't finish the meal.

There is something really adversarial about the whole thing.

FrostyFifi · 26/03/2023 11:47

I have a history of eating disorders (anorexia/bulimia as a teen and then ongoing issues with BED and yoyo dieting) and I now actually tend to orthorexia, intermittant fast etc but I still agree with the majority of the posts on this thread.

Size, weight and food intake is absolutely used as a stick to beat other women with when there's any post about any sort of spousal abuse, bullying etc. Like if the woman isn't at least in the normal BMI range (and heaven forbid even at the top end of normal, as apparently so many posters would feel simply huge at that) then it's their fault and they actually deserve the shitty husband making hurtful comments.

I also can't stand the sort of pursed-lipped puritanism about food. As a PP has said, it reminds me so much of older women when I was growing up who seemed to view food intake through an almost moral lense and eating "too much" or anything enjoyable was viewed as sort of wanton.

I've got lifelong issues now thanks to those attitudes and I also have to constantly check myself for the massive internalised fatphobia I have.
I'm almost phobic about processed food, I intermittant fast. I tell myself and other people that I've researched this and I'm being optimally healthy but the reality is I still need the control. It's life long.

DeeCeeCherry · 26/03/2023 11:55

I try to avoid those threads where I can. Competitive under-eating, stick thin is everything, oh I've weighed the same for 20 years, the glee and smugness when they sight an opportunity to criticise someone about weight, everybody in UK is fat, children are obese, I see fat kids every day...blah blah blah. Just sitting home chatting shit craving to feel special, and for all anyone knows is big as a house anyway.

I really hope their DDs don't have access to this forum they'll end up feeling absolutely rubbish about themselves with all this food and weight miserable af obsessing.

I've not scrolled up this thread but I just bet they've already landed here like bats with their tedious argumentative nitpicking about diet and weight

TorringtonDean · 26/03/2023 12:04

Sometimes as a fat person I have felt like the skinny obsessive brigade and some of the medical profession would just like to eliminate us. As if we are not also valid people with our own lives and own good and bad points. I think it’s something drummed into the psyche - gluttony was one of the deadly sins etc. Except many obese people these days are not gluttons. They eat normally for the modern world but that does not agree with them. I don’t shovel chips in my mouth all day or eat fry-ups - the sort of lazy assumptions I hear. I eat a lot of healthy foods, fruit and veg and lean meat etc - but unless I am Uber strict like one of the thin obsessives then I gain weight extremely easily. Sometimes life is not so easy and it gets in the way of obsessing about the calorie content of all you eat. Life shouldn’t have to be like that anyway. I care about my health and being here for my family but I don’t much care what anyone else thinks about me. Although on occasions when I do hear those comments they really do hurt a lot.

Tinybrother · 26/03/2023 12:07

Tiddler39 · 26/03/2023 11:11

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.)

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What a stupidly contradictory post.

you can stop worrying that “by telling ourselves being fat is ok we’ve normalised it”, because that hasn’t happened

the poor girl you’re observing wouldn’t be doing the things she is doing if she believed that “being fat is ok”, would she

so no need for the concern that everyone is totally ok with being fat, it’s ok, they know you disapprove

Tinybrother · 26/03/2023 12:08

Tiddler39 · 26/03/2023 11:11

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.)

Show quote history

What a stupidly contradictory post.

you can stop worrying that “by telling ourselves being fat is ok we’ve normalised it”, because that hasn’t happened

the poor girl you’re observing wouldn’t be doing the things she is doing if she believed that “being fat is ok”, would she

so no need for the concern that everyone is totally ok with being fat, it’s ok, they know you think it’s shameful

Tinybrother · 26/03/2023 12:09

Tiddler39 · 26/03/2023 11:11

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.)

Show quote history

What a stupidly contradictory post.

you can stop worrying that “by telling ourselves being fat is ok we’ve normalised it”, because that hasn’t happened
the poor girl you’re observing wouldn’t be doing the things she is doing if she believed that “being fat is ok”, would she

so no need for the concern that everyone is totally ok with being fat, it’s ok, they know you think it’s shameful

Tinybrother · 26/03/2023 12:09

Sorry, MN went nuts there for a moment

Fizbosshoes · 26/03/2023 12:13

Another thing that grates is the assumption if you are poor or fat, that means you don't know how to cook properly, and will need and appreciate a lesson from MN on batch cooking (it will involve bunging and chucking things in the oven, probably)

coeurnoir · 26/03/2023 12:25

My 24 year old daughter was fat shamed at school. She wasn't particularly fat, just a bit overweight like most of our family (I'm not one of those MNetters with 6 ft beanpoles...both of my kids are under 5'7" and a tendency to be a bit on the big side).
We knew she was a bit overweight at the time and as a family we were starting to eat more healthy and be a bit more active - it helped that we had a manic puppy at the time who never seemed to tire.
She was starting to lose weight in a sensible way....

Then she had a falling out with someone at school and in that nasty teenage girl way, her old friendship group turned against her and started a period of intense bullying mostly focussed on her weight.

Her response to that was to stop eating, then binge eating and abusing laxatives and making herself sick. It took us a few weeks to notice but when we did she denied everything. We started putting in what felt like draconian and controlling measures like stopping her leaving the table, making her finish her dinner, not allowing her to be in her room alone for a while after dinner. She railed against us and went to live with her biological father....where she was allowed to do what she wanted, so spiralled quickly.

To cut a long story short, she ended up collapsing and being admitted to a secure unit after trying to kill herself because she felt she wasn't skinny enough - she was. I'm not going to post her weight and height.

It's now 8 years later and she's doing ok. I won't say she's better because we all know that her recovery is fragile and she is easily triggered by stress into the habit of skipping a meal or binge and purging. It will be a lifetime struggle for her. She has gone from being a confident, happy and active 15 year old, to a broken 18 year old having to be tube fed, to now, a 24 year old who has fought back - retook her exams and got good grades, went to University and now starting a career.

Some of the posters on those weight threads remind me of my daughter.
Others remind me of her bullies.

SadOrWickedFairy · 26/03/2023 12:43

ItsBeginningToScabOverNow · 25/03/2023 21:13

There’s a seriously pro-ana undertone here of late.

Yet I see the opposite - posters glorying in overeating and being cheered on for doing so.

Threads before Christmas - eaten all the sweets/chocolates/treats bought for Christmas weeks before.

Threads at Easter - competition to see how many Easter Eggs can be consumed.

General threads - eating a sharing bag of crisps/sweets/pack of biscuits/cake in one go without sharing.

The obsession with snacks, no day can be complete without at least three occasions for snacking.

If MNHQ are to stop threads which posters on here deem as competitive undereating then the same should apply to the competitive overeating threads, neither is healthy.

coeurnoir · 26/03/2023 12:44

I've just informed my (slimmish, middle aged) husband that him fancying my horrible fat body means that he must have a fetish, because it's not normal for men to find fat women attractive.

He found it really funny and reminded me that he married me for my money not the size of my arse 😂

Actually, it was my wit and charm, apparently 🤷‍♀️

Miajk · 26/03/2023 12:47

flowagurl · 26/03/2023 02:51

Literally getting to the point of being sick of being lectured. Some, women actually would like to be a certain number on the scale/ dress size. I don’t care how healthy or not it it is. Please let us be

But it's not just about you? It's about the example you set for your children, for other younger people.

My mom is a victim of diet culture and I have all kinds of food issues now due to observing and listening to the way she was about food, size, body image.

The fact that grown women can be so vain and brainwashed is really sad.

KatherineJaneway · 26/03/2023 13:03

The competitive under and over eating on here gets ridiculous. On one thread, a MNer said she could never eat a whole chicken breast, another said they would only be satisfied eating three.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 26/03/2023 13:03

I think a lot of posters start threads because they are feeling under confident and want some reassurance eg changing circumstances after illness, having a baby, end of a relationship etc. but what happens instead is a load of people come on and make them feel worse. And so many posters make things around them rather than the OP. And people with obsessions around particular eating plans.

MrsDoylesDoily · 26/03/2023 13:10

ItsBeginningToScabOverNow · 25/03/2023 21:13

There’s a seriously pro-ana undertone here of late.

I've been on MN for about 13 years and it's always been a strange place when it comes to food consumption or lack of it.

So many 'proud' under-eaters and so many 'proud' over-eaters.

It's just weird. Eat as little or as much as you want, but why the obsession with letting everyone know about it?

I don't care if nibbling at a salad fills you to bursting point, or if eating a whole multi pack of crisps and Mars Bars is your thing.

You just do you.

ShinyAppleDreamingOfTheSea · 26/03/2023 13:15

underneaththeash · 25/03/2023 22:05

Obesity is a factor in almost every major health issue; heart disease, hypertension, cancer, diabetes… and it’s become normalised.
Being overweight is, for most people, just eating more than you can fit your particular metabolic rate.

Are you going to be as rude and mean on this thread as you were to the OP on a thread yesterday? I recognise your user name .

VyeBrator · 26/03/2023 13:21

Miajk · 26/03/2023 12:47

But it's not just about you? It's about the example you set for your children, for other younger people.

My mom is a victim of diet culture and I have all kinds of food issues now due to observing and listening to the way she was about food, size, body image.

The fact that grown women can be so vain and brainwashed is really sad.

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And on the other side of the coin are children growing up in homes where both parents are overweight and doing absolutely nothing about it, often leading to the children being overweight too.

It's about the example you set for your children, for other younger people.

Not a great example at all is it?

Anotherparkingthread · 26/03/2023 13:23

Last week I wad telling a story from school where we got in trouble for breaking the metre sticks by resting them on the table and sliding down them. It was in fact just one extremely overweight girl who broke them. I laughed about it.

I looked her up on Facebook out of curiosity and swas surprised to see that she's dead. First she lost a leg to diabetes and then a couple years she died, im not sure the exact cause. I'm only 35 and she would hsve been the same age as me.