To call out friend on 'body positivity' delusion?

[treesandflowers95]

My bestie (i'll call her 'J') and I have been friends since primary school. She's godmother to my DD and we almost see each other as sisters as friends.

J has always been a curvier girl but as we've gone through our 20s, she's steadily put on more and more weight. She's 5ft 2 and now a size 30. Over the last couple of years its been noticeable how much into the 'body positivity' movement shes got. Her socials are full of shared posts about it, and she'll often bring it up in conversation.

Its not something i've ever really made an issue of with her before as though it worries me for her, i've always been of the view that everybody's body is their own business.

However we were on a hen do a few weeks ago, and honestly it was a real eye opener to just how big she's got and the impact that's starting to have on her health. The first one for me was that she needed a seatbelt extender on the flight and she seemed to think it was hilarious. We stayed in a villa on the edge of a little area with a strip of bars and restaurants. It was 350yds (i put it into Google maps) and slightly downhill on the way there and uphill on the way back, but nothing major. J was struggling to keep up with us on the way there, and on the way back was having to stop at least once because she was so out of breath. Bear in mind this was a group of girls quite a few in heels etc so its not like we were sprinting, and shes sweating and bright red. Aside from that, even basic stuff round the villa like walking upstairs (it was over 3 floors) and she struggled climbing up and down the ladders in and out of the pool. I didnt say anything to her at the time but its played on my mind.

This weekend there were four of us (all close friends) who'd been on the hen do out for drinks in the pub. We were talking about the hen do and i can't remember how it came up, but she started talking about the walk back to the villa and how steep the hill was etc. I said to her something along the lines of 'Oh it wasn't that bad' to which she replied 'Are you joking, it was so steep!' and was basically trying to get the other girls to agree and I just left it.

A bit later in the conversation she was talking about some body positivity stuff and how its about how you look after yourself and not how much you weigh. I've bit my tongue at stuff like this loads of times, but this time i said 'I think that's true to an extent but there's a point where you can't argue that you're healthy'. She didn't look happy and said 'what are you saying?'. I basically said that the fact she thought that walk on holiday was so difficult that she should have struggled with it so much was worrying, and might suggest her health wasn't as good as she seems to think it is. The reality is (and I didn't say this to her) that she eats really badly and drinks quite a lot. She spends loads on hair, make up, nails, etc which she considers as looking after herself.

She got really frosty with me, and has been funny in texts since, not her usual self, so i know i've annoyed her.

Fully accept it may not have been the best way to bring it up especially in front of others (but it wasnt like it was strangers, we're all mates back to primary school) but i just felt like it wasn't a time where i could just say nothing in the moment.

So i guess question is AIBU to have brought this up with her, and any advice on how to handle things next.

She didn’t find that seatbelt extender hilarious. She found it mortifying. She was putting on an act.

She knows she’s fat. She can’t not. The problem is that she doesn’t seem able to find a way to do something about it. Your intervention therefore didn’t achieve anything apart from breaking a bit of the brittle shell she has built around herself.

She’s only going to face facts and start losing weight when she is forced to, one way or another — but probably not as a result of comments by friends.

You didn't bring it up with kindness and love and let's face it, you made a deal of that hill not being steep to have a dig.

Yes your friend is hugely overweight but if you are really worried you approach it with kindness and support.

Also - sounds like she weighs 3 times what I do - I try to imagine what it must be like carrying a 100kg weight. I'd not be able to take a step! Let alone walk up a gentle hill. So yes it's caused by her weight and possible lack of fitness but of course someone that weight will really struggle to walk and get hot and puffed out quickly and it probably felt like a mountain as a result.

No but equally the friend can’t railroad everyone into agreeing that being a size 30 can be healthy and that a 350 yard walk is inherently difficult.

If the friend wasn’t insistent on forcing others to agree with her it wouldn’t be their business, but she does. So YANBU

You are a good friend. Hopefully your comments might encourage her to focus on how she can improve her health and fitness.

The tone of your post is very much that you wanted to be right and her be wrong, and definitely doesn't portray you being concerned about her health or wellbeing.

Your friend isn't an idiot. She knows how big she is. And she knows how unhealthy she is. You witnessed her struggling but she's actually living it.

You sound like a bit of a dick really.

I disagree. I feel like OP could’ve said ANYTHING in reply to her friend (apart from just ‘yeah yeah I agree yeah’) and she would be called condescending/judgemental. People say it’s the tone but it isn’t - they just feel embarrassed when anyone correctly states being morbidly obese is unhealthy, and they shouldn’t be forced to say it isn’t.

What are you hoping to achieve by “saying something?”

She already knows. People don’t lose weight because someone tells them to, and many struggle despite knowing the health risks. If you find her body positivity stuff irritating (and I can see why you do), just ignore it.

I am aware of that, nor is a ‘funny’ snarky reply necessary. Trust me, if private emergency services, A&E etc existed in this country then I’d be the first person to happily pay for them rather than deal with the chaos of the NHS. Bar a few short A&E visits both her ACL surgery and her arm fracture were able to be sorted and done completely privately. We live near a private minor injuries service which has also been very helpful. It’s as much of a weight off the NHS as we can physically take at the moment with the current limitations of private healthcare.

She didn’t ’say something’.

She replied to repeated comments made by the friend. Who brought up the topic.

Big difference.

I think you are right in general. You sometimes have to be "cruel to be kind". Of course, the best way would be to show her a photo of how she looked when she was slimmer and say "what a knockout you were in your 20s - it would be so easy for you to look like that again" (implying she is not technically "overweight" and it is just a question of dropping a stone or so...).

I have to agree, I really have no time for this bollocks. If you’re a size 30 and keep banging on about body positivity, don’t be surprised when someone points out the obvious. Being a friend doesn’t mean pandering to peoples delusions.

I have been obese for about a decade and accumulated a number of health issues as a result. I'm gradually losing my excess weight now my circumstances have changed (out of abusive marriage) because I don't want to drop dead before my allotted time or be incapacitated by obesity-related events or conditions.

BUT

There are about as many reasons for obesity as there are obese people. Everyone has their story, everyone's story has dimensions to it that encourage denial or resistance, plus for women particularly there is also a powerful and very valid parallel narrative about not being told by others how you ought to look or what you ought to be allowed to eat.

Your friend is firstly entitled to make her own choices. They may be bad ones, they may be ones you disapprove of but making them based on her own criteria is her right.

Secondly, your friend is going to need to be ready to address the causes of her obesity before she'll be able to successfully make different, "better" choices. That may not be the case yet. It may not be the case ever. She may not want to discuss any of that with you.

And thirdly, even if she acknowledges that her obesity is impacting her health negatively, acknowledges that she would like to make the changes needed to lose weight, and feels ready to embark on that journey, it's a tough bloody road and she's likely to make multiple false starts and fuck ups. A bit like we say that it takes 17 attempts, or whatever, to leave an abusive relationship. (Because at the moment, she has an abusive relationship with herself.) She has to be ready for it herself, not responding to prompts from others, however justified that might feel.

She may already be on that journey. How would you know? If your idea of supporting her is calling her out on her excess weight publicly, in a situation where everyone was meant to be having a nice time, then I'm not surprised she hasn't confided any goals, hopes, fears or insecurities to you. Perhaps her body positivity narrative is a defence mechanism against the judgemental people she finds herself surrounded by.

If you're genuinely concerned for your friend - and not just for her appearance or fitness but for her wider wellbeing including whatever has caused her obesity - then I think it would be OK to voice your concern to her ONCE, in a private situation, offering her your support in whatever form she needs it. Anything more would be nagging, judgemental and ultimately pointless.

I think you need to give a bit more thought to this, beyond fat = unhealthy = bad. It really is a lot more complicated than that.

It’s very hard OP.

I really worry about my sister; she has steadily gained weight over the last 6 years and now has health issues; she has terrible pain in her feet, chronic back pain, she cannot walk at a steady pace at all (constantly asking us to slow down on the 10 min school run), etc.
However, my mum raised it with her and it’s caused an almighty fall out.

My thoughts on the matter are - she knows. She knows her size she knows where she is struggling. She doesn’t need us pointing it out to her, especially if we can’t help. It’s a tricky situation, but I can see why your friend is upset that you pointed that out in a group.

Saying it wasn’t that bad was Op’s attempt to brush it off. Unfortunately friend hasn’t picked up hint and kept pushing it.
Op’s friend bought it up in public in front of 2 other people.
Some posters are making it sound like Op ambushed friend out of blue.

Exactly, she knows she’s very fat and unhealthy and is currently ignoring this. Looking after herself using hair/nail/makeup products is a diversion. I guarantee, like I was, she is deeply insecure and therefore defensive. I used to avoid mirrors except to put on makeup up close and I’d hide in clothes. She might even flaunt her body but there’s no denying that she’s extremely overweight and would probably far prefer to be a more average size. Having formerly been morbidly obese, I think she’s kidding herself.

She may or may not come to the point where she does something about it, telling her or denying that the minor uphill path was anything other than Everest like will shut her down.

According to some posters here, you should have to pay for any and all NHS services (which will inevitably precede your PHC) used following any horse riding (or ground based) accident, since it could be avoided if no equestrian activity was entered into.

People don't make sustained change when most under attack or shamed. She's more likely to feel able to embark on a long and challenging journey when feeling safe and supported and in touch with the existing positives about herself and with her own positive vision for a different future. She may eat to cope with difficult feelings and being publicly judged by your best friend will generate difficult feelings.

But her body is stopping her ability to do things.
It's strange that you can't make that connection.

You appear to have taken my comment out of its full context. I actually said:

But I think that's just it: the whole body positivity movement is about encouraging people to 'love the skin they're in' even if they are morbidly obese.
It's telling people that it's OK to be this size and that they shouldn't feel the need to lose weight.

Since I don't subscribe to the 'body positivity' movement, I would be encouraging them to lose weight. As any good friend would.

I think body positivity can be helpful provided it doesn’t stray into pretending being very overweight isn’t unhealthy. We used to have horrendous standards of stick thin models that if we didn’t comply with we were fat and disgusting. That is entirely wrong and body shaming doesn’t help anyone.

That said, being very overweight is bad for physical and mental health and we shouldn’t pretend otherwise. Encouraging health and fitness is always a good thing- health at any size rather than healthy at any size I think.

Your OP says “aibu to have raised this with her”

It would have been unreasonable to raise it. But you didn’t. She raised it first - by saying it’s not about what you weigh but about looking after yourself. All you did was disagree (quite gently IMO). She expressed her view, you expressed yours. You shouldn’t have to nod along to a view that you disagree with, especially a view that is actually quite harmful.

People don't make sustained change when most under attack or shamed

Yes, this is true, but what is OP supposed to do when she keeps bringing up the body positivity stuff? is she supposed to agree with her friend and say its all great and lie about it?

OP said:

A bit later in the conversation she was talking about some body positivity stuff and how its about how you look after yourself and not how much you weigh

If you genuinely dont agree with that what are you supposed to say- or are you meant to just agree with whatever she says about weight knowing you are lying?

It's not what she said to her friend really, it's the context. The OP was watching and judging her friend throughout the holiday. She couldn't keep up, couldn't get up and down ladders, couldn't climb the hill, eats unhealthily and so on. That's what I found judgemental and condescending on top of what she said in front of the others.

The need to contradict her in public and point out that she was unhealthy, came across to me as spiteful.

We don't know what her friend may be going through or what her background is. For example, I had a friend who was much bigger than a size 30 but she had been sexually assaulted by her dad for years and was traumatised. She had very low self esteem but came across as very self confident and proud of how she looked.

We don't know what other people are struggling with and perhaps her friend talks a lot about body positivity because she is trying to convince herself that she is perfect as she is. She might have an eating disorder or tried for years to lose weight with little success.

Gently pointing out the obvious is not an ‘attack’ for god sake, and being offended doesn’t make someone right.