Skinny shaming

[Bobski123]

I was doing some moving and handling training for part of my job. The trainer required a volunteer, I offered and she said "Oh no not you, you're far too skinny."
She then chose a larger lady.
I get it's supposed to be some sort of compliment because being thin is 'desirable'.
However if she'd said "Not you, you're far too fat." She'd possibly be out of a job by now.
However it's ok to say the opposite.
I should've responded really.
It's like that meme going around with a picture of Sophia Loren and the caption "I'd rather eat pizza and drink wine than be a size 0."
A few of my colleagues posted it and I just think, yawn. They aren't mutually exclusive, ok, size 0 is very small but the point is you can enjoy pizza, wine whatever and still remain slim. I'm just over it.

But everyone's bodies are different. I genuinely find it hard to put on weight. Some of my friends and family are the opposite and find it very hard to lose weight. Many people are somewhere in between and don't really have to think about food very much. So it's possible to:

• eat normally and struggle to lose weight
• eat normally and struggle to gain weight
• eat normally and more or less stay the same weight

Assumptions and personal comments about people who are either overweight or underweight are really unhelpful. Comments implying that being thin is 'hard work' and requires being 'very careful' just play into stereotypes

Considering how much of the population is overweight or obese, I'd say vast majority of people don't struggle to put on weight.

You seem to think your experience is the rule of the land and no one could possibly differ.

You found it incredibly hard work to not put weight on, you find it worse to if an insult is about being fat rather than skinny.

Your experience is not universal.

You seem incredibly obtuse.

You are completely fixated a out this1% gene.

People are talking about the variants in the other 99% of people - who are not all overweight. You don't seem to be able to grasp that at all.

About 64% of the UK adult population is overweight or obese...so clearly majority of people don't struggle to put on weight. Thats just a statistic....not an opinion

Did your husband say “I wish I looked like you?”

At no point did I say the majority struggle to put on weight. But I also don't believe the majority of thin people work terribly hard at it and are always "very careful". Suggesting that, as I say, is just reinforcing negative stereotypes about thinness being boring/neurotic/self-obsessed/vain etc

Could it just be a poorly worded way of saying

"in order to demonstrate moving and handling it would be useful to use someone larger because moving someone small is easier and im trying to show you what to do in a circumstance that you are more likely to find yourself in"

?

Thats not the same as suggesting everyone finds it hard work to not be overweight just because you did.

Well many thin women don't actually want to admit to working hard at it because they fear they will come across as vain. I remember a woman I knew who always said she was naturally thin....her lunch was iceberg lettuce. No dressing. Every single day. We'd all be naturally thin if we ate like that. But it gives, dare I say it, cool girl status. Oh I look good and I'm thin but I'm not vain and don't even have to try.

Of course it does. Or do you think some of the people in the 64% of the adult population who are overweight or obese have purposefully tried really hard to be that way? Its a statistic. Its fact. You can't actually argue against it.

I don't think it's that. It's probably because if they say they work out and eat well fat people will take it as a dig at them.

"Many thin women etc" and "I remember a woman I knew" who lived off iceberg lettuce. Like I say, stereotypes.

Do you really not know any thin people who eat normally?

I don't believe for a second you ever saw a woman eating only iceberg lettuce

It is not a fact that everyone finds it "hard work" to be skinny. Just because that was your experience doesn't make it reality.

I would argue that most of those 64% simply over eat and drive too much therefore leading sedentary lives. Controversial but not untrue. There is piles of research suggesting genes don't override a healthy diet so the vast majority of overweight people could lose weight with a normal healthy diet.

I knew one girl at uni who was very slim and genuinely ate a lot. The other thin women I know work at it and are careful with their food intake.

I mean look at the diet industry. It wouldn't be so lucrative if people found it easy to be thin.

As her only lunch every day.

Honestly people used to make comments like this if I had a salad when I worked in a big office. A salad with loads of oil dressing, avocado, nuts, cheese, maybe some fish. Its telling that many people look at a meal like that and have the never to call it 'rabbit food' while moaning about being overweight.

I didn't say everyone finds it hard work to be skinny, there's always outliers to every trend. But, the fact that the majority of the population is overweight tells us that most people don't struggle to put on weight.

That's a proper meal. I mean she literally filled a tupperware box with plain shredded iceberg lettuce every day and ate it like that

I think the narrative that thin women must not eat a lot exists so that the others can feel better about themselves, aka "she may be thin but I bet she's miserable and depriving herself constantly, so at least I win on that level".

It's like the other baffling trope, that rich people must be unhappy, "money doesn't buy you happiness", which I've always found so weird (disclaimer, I'm not wealthy at all). I mean, it may be annoying to think it, but there are probably a hell of a lot of rich people out there who are also very fulfilled and loved and living great lives, just how there are thin women out there who eat cheeseburgers, drink beer and don't do any exercise.

I'm sorry if that's depressing, but life isn't fair

I did. She had a figure like a catwalk mode.

It's not stereotypes it is a fact as being very thin (as opposed to slim) would be very hard - hard for the 99% of people to achieve as unlike the 1% who don't have AKL gene they are not resistant to putting on weight. Being skinny in that context is a purposeful objective, it takes work to be underweight or environmental factors but you are Not naturally underweight. Whereas to be overweight doesn't take much effort at all for 99% of the population. They are not equal in their meaning.

I don't think the vast majority of people, skinny or overweight, struggle to put weight on.
Slimmer people are like that for the most part because they don't overeat compared to their BMR, most overweight people do overeat compared to their BMR. For the majority of society it is that simple. That doesn't mean it is hard to not overeat or that skinny people are consumed with this 'hard work' to not get fat.

People only struggle to lose weight because a, they are used to overeating and struggle to adjust to what their body actually needs at a more health size, b, start faddy diets which don't teach them a reasonable balance of nutrition and portion sizes so when they stop the fad they gain weight because they eat like they did before.

just how there are thin women out there who eat cheeseburgers, drink beer and don't do any exercise

And how strange it is that if you eat like that and don't put on weight you are seen as morally superior compared to someone who eats like that but is overweight.

That doesn't mean it is hard to not overeat

Most people would prefer to be a healthy weight than overweight yet they're not ..so they must find it hard.