'You look well'

[lemoncats]

AIBU to think 'you look well' means 'you've gained weight'?

I saw a family member who I haven't seen in 3 months. I know I've gained some pounds over the past few months after having very disordered eating from stress and anxiety for 3-4 years. I've tried to avoid weighing myself at the moment as it's triggering, but I need to eat healthy and unfortunately I bounce from one extreme to another (restricted eating v eating everything in sight). I find it hard to achieve a happy medium.

Maybe I'm being over sensitive but I feel 'you look well' is saying I look like I've gained weight.

When I say it I mean that they are looking good. No hidden meaning.

I would never use it for looking heavier. Genuinely would only say it if I did think someone looked good.

I read mn sometimes and wonder how many people I inadvertently upset or annoy or insult just by trying to be nice. Even what I think sound like compliments are twisted and turned beyond recognition to mean the complete opposite.

With that in mind then, "You look well," obviously means, "You look like a dog's dinner, your skin is an atrocious, spotty mess, your hair resembles a bird's nest and oh my God did you get dressed in the dark?"

People only ever usually say that to me when I lose weight!

My Nan says “you look well” to anyone who’s gained weight. Last time I saw her she told me I looked too thin and she fetched the box of chocolates from her room, usually she tells me “you look well” 🤣

I think it depends who’s saying it, if it’s a friend they probably do think you look well and not necessarily fat. If it’s your Nan saying it….

I would wonder if I looked really crappy the last time I saw the person. Weight wouldn't have crosses my mind. And I would (try) to take it as a compliment.

It means you look well. Any other meaning is really going to depend on who they are and what they are thinking which you can never know.

It could be connected to your weight, but even they don’t realise that. If you go from one extreme to another it could be that you have been very underweight and put on some weight and so look well. But the person saying it may not realise you look well because you out weight on, they just notice you look well.

I definitely only say it to mean someone looks well! I.e. bright eyed and bushy tailed etc.

I guess there are circumstances where increased wellness could correlate with weight gain: I had a couple of very thin friends who looked really quite unwell with their weight, and they would genuinely have looked a lot more well once they had gained some weight. Equally for someone overweight (including me!) it might imply I've lost weight. Or that someone is looking glowy or their hair is shinier. Generally it's when the specific thing that's causing the wellness isn't easily identifiable to me but where I feel they're looking "good".

No, it means 'you look well'. If the relative had said 'you've cracked some timber on' then you'd have a point but well just take it as the compliment it was meant to be.

My friend said this to me yesterday and it never occurred to me (I've definitely put on a few holiday pounds recently).

I'll ask her if that's what she meant next time I see her and I'll let you know 😂

No it doesn’t I generally never tell people they look well unless they do. A lot of the time it may be to do with someone looking radiant.. not to do with weight

No it doesn't mean that. I use the phrase, I used it a couple of days ago towards someone who had struggles with mental health in the past and often looked tired and worn down. They were glowing and looking really healthy. It was very literally that they were looking well.

Exactly this!

i just read the title of the thread and did a 😬internally. It’s what my mother (looks fascist and weight obsessed) says to people she likes (despite their elephantine bulk if they’re over 10st 4) and wants to say something nice to but they don’t actually meet her standards of saying “you look fantastic / beautiful / gorgeous.”

You look well - you look good.

Nothing to do with weight.

I briefly, during a weird period in my life, lived among some fairly down and out junkies and crackheads.

“You look well” definitely meant “you’ve gained weight”

Although they may have meant it as a compliment.

North East. Our neighbours used ‘looking well’ for anything that looked good, so the garden could be looking well, a nice day could, people could look well and even your new front door could look well! Never heard it used in relation to weight.

My god, I’d clearly better stop saying this because when I say it I genuinely mean the person looks well. As in healthy, happy, nice outfit/hairstyle, just generally on good form.

Never occurred to me it would be seen as weight related.

I tend to get “you look well” when I’ve bothered to blow dry my hair.

I hear 'you got fat' too @lemoncats when someone says 'you look well!' And clearly a number of other posters do too. I think many people probably don't mean anything bad but I do think a few people DO mean 'you've gained weight.' Maybe people who have issues with their weight are more likely to think it's suggesting they have gained weight. But yeah I believe some people mean 'you have filled out.'

I don't see why people have to comment on how you look anyway. I don't need to be told I look well. I know I do. I also know if I DON'T look well.

Like, I don't need anyone telling me that I have lost weight as a 'compliment.' I lose weight because I WANT to, and I NEED to, not for compliments. I don't want or need anyone telling me I have gained weight either. I fucking know, and feel shit enough about it as it is. Do you think I need you to tell me I got fatter?! Do you think I don't know?

I had an eating disorder in my late teens/early 20s - never really recovered 100% as no-one ever does really - and I was a stone to a stone and a half underweight for a year or so. I looked so gaunt and tired and pale and thin, but thought I looked great at the time. I gained a stone over 6 months, and looked healthier and felt better. But a neighbour of my parents said 'hello Crocodile, ooh don't you look well? You look SO much better now you've gained some weight. Much fuller in the face.' I was like >>> 😐

Set me back a year that did. As soon as the 'you look better now you got fatter' comment came at me, I started starving myself again and lost a stone again.

Along with 'you look well!' I also hate 'you look different!' I fucking LOATHE that. It is never meant as a compliment. ANYthing described as 'different' is never a compliment! My friend said her husband told her 3 years ago when she just hit her 45th birthday that her vulva looks 'different.' She said 'different to what?' He said 'different to how it looked when we met 22 years ago.' She said 'how?'

He squirmed a bit and said 'forget I said anything. it just looks different. I mean you are nearly a quarter century older now. It's not gonna look like a 23 year old's is it?' She said 'well keep that image of that 45 year old vulva of mine in your head, because you won't be seeing it again!' She said she was so hurt and upset about what he said and he couldn't fathom why. He had just 'told it like it is!'

3 years later they are 48 and 50, and she says he has never seen her vulva again. In fact, they stopped shagging 2 years ago (a year after he said it,) because she just went off sex as she felt he was judging her body. Probably comparing her boobs to how they were when she was 23 too!

Oh dear I use this and mean it as someone is looking good! Had no idea of the weight connotations!

As I said, I believe many people don't mean 'you got fatter' but also I don't 'get' why anyone has to comment on someone's appearance/how someone looks. Why say 'you look well?' I don't see why anyone would say this unless the person they are saying it to has been very ill, and is looking 'better.' Even then, why comment?

Like I HATE comments about weight. I lose weight to feel better and healthier (and look it.) I don't want comments on my weight. Whether I have lost it or gained it. I don't want unsolicited comments on my appearance. I believe that most people feel the same.

You don't like to be told you look nice?

Seriously????

Not everything in life is a personal attack on you.

The only person who gives a fuck about your weight is you.

Can't say anything these days without someone getting offended.

YABU and that is your paranoia talking.

However, you are not alone as this question gets asked on here every few weeks.

I've told 3 people they look well recently.
1 had been in hospital about 3 months ago and looking quite 'drawn' when I last saw them.
1 had just got back from holiday and had caught some colour on their face (she said it was more of a 'wind tan' than a sun tan but she had a really healthy glow about her).
1 was someone I bumped in to who had retired from a stressful job 10 months ago, and boy, did they look well - relaxed, a really ready smile, just less strained all round.

None of them were carrying weight.

I don't think it means anything to do with weight.

If I tell someone they are looking well, that's what I mean.

I shall obviously have to be more careful in future!