Could this be passive aggressive fat shaming?

[Blueberryancakes]

Im a UK 20 and I feel the heat. I’m always a bit warm. My work gets very hot. Big windows and no ventilation.

I rarely put the air con on because as soon as I do some of the woman I work with complain it’s too cold. I bring a desk fan to
work with me and keep it aimed at me and no one else.
I work at a doctors surgery. Lots of the patients make comments about how hot it is in the waiting room. Some even wait outside.Very often woman patients always make a comment on my fan saying how they could never work with a fan as they’d be freezing. If the air con is turned on some woman will comment how cold it is.
I think FFS it’s not you that has to sit in here all day. Men never complain, never comment. It’s mainly middle aged
woman. Yes I’m fat, yes I get hot. I try my best to have a small discreet fan on my desk. But woman seem to make such a song and dance about it.
My husband said today he thinks it’s a passive aggressive way for them to call me fat.
Anyone else think there’s any truth in this?
Is it a way to come across ultra feminine to be cold?
Sorry if this come across bonkers?

@ratherbesurfing I get this too people saying just eat the cake when I don’t automatically pick up a cake or I choose something else and saying I am boring with the food I eat. A man asked me last week ‘do you ever eat any carbs’

If it was a dinner party, I'd agree there. Inviting someone over for food and then not eating might be a bit odd. But this scenario was just friends popping over for a catch up. DH asked if they were hungry, they said starved, so he whipped them up a pizza while we hung out and chatted.

Same as if we went to a pub and someone ordered a pizza for the table but you weren't hungry. You're there for the company, the food is just a take it or leave it extra!

Exactly, more like ....it's about being a particular type of person who over hypes all these things and makes a big performance so everyone knows how she's at the centre of EVERYTHING and everyone's thoughts, and how every thing anyone does is only actioned with how it will impact on her?

@GiddyRobin admit it!! Your nefarious plan to invite people to your home and subversively mock them for eating food you've supplied while staunchly, performatively NOT eating has been RUMBLED!!

Ahhhh, you've got me! And I'd have got away with it if it weren't for those pesky kids! Poor DH and I had to take it in turns to inhale crisps on trips to the loo to keep us going the whole time! We were WEAK, I tell you, WEAK! I only hope our friends had a good conversation about our teeny tininess in the taxi home. 😌

Whining on that someone who invited you over for food is doing it wrong is also ill mannered. Unless your a competitive under eater this shouldn’t bother you.

With regards to the OP I think some people just feel the cold more than others. You always have disagreements over whether the window should be open/closed or the heating should be on/off.

DoreenonTill8

GiddyRobin admit it!! Your nefarious plan to invite people to your home and subversively mock them for eating food you've supplied while staunchly, performatively NOT eating has been RUMBLED!!

It's worse than that.
She had to befriend them for 10 years first just so they'd go round to her house all unknowingly, so she could passive-aggressively not eat at them.

I thought it was circulatory so I used to windmill my arms frantically to move blood to the fingers and it did work a bit after a minute or two ( clock minute not colloquial few seconds). Less I could do about my legs as they aren’t easy to windmill! I ski a lot and it often ruined the day. Mittens work better than gloves .
In hindsight, I think it was more about very low body weight as I particularly experienced it outdoors, so often when walking briskly or skiing etc which should have had my circulation moving. I think it’s just the body keeping vital organs sufficiently warm where there is not enough fat.
Well done for losing so much, it must have taken real application and I don’t mean to detract from that ( given this is a thread about passive aggressive shaming 🤣) but at 23 bmi I really don’t think you could be far away from triggering an improvement ( I promise that wasn’t a “ you aren’t all that skinny” comment, just trying to help you find the sweet spot) so maybe even try gaining just a kilo and see if it makes a difference? For me there was definitely a point at which it resolved but I only noticed after passing it. Its why I now think two things: firstly bmi is only an approximation of a good weight and people will differ as to where their body is functioning well; and secondly I don’t buy into this the lower your weight the better mindset. For me I lived, in hindsight, well below optimal function for all my life until a little weight crept on with babies. I was always reassured that around 18/19!was ok but for me it really wasn’t.

This is also true. If I'm hungry, then I eat. I don't care if someone else isn't hungry and I'm the only one eating. Will quite happily order a meal in a pub even if none of my friends are hungry, just as I'll also turn down a slice of pizza even if others are tucking in. I really don't consider what people think about what/how much I'm eating on either end of the scale.

I feel those who do, outside of a pre-arranged we are having dinner setting are a bit preoccupied on the wrong things.

Oh, I've been playing the long game. And it's not over yet. Just wait until I open the Christmas biscuits and don't have one. My excuse is going to be coeliac disease. 😈

Yes those situations are fine. Similarly at the movies I won’t always join in and order food as I don’t really like what they sell. But when it’s an eating occasion - eg hosted meal, picnic, visit to restaurant - it’s just really uncomfortable when people don’t. I went to a birthday lunch at a restaurant once and the birthday person wouldn’t eat as she had gone out to brunch with a different group of friends earlier and “ overdone it.” It just made us all feel we were the afterthought celebration.

That's understandable! Reminds me of the first year I cooked a Christmas dinner by myself. My dad (widowed, so the usual Christmas dinner maker!), put his feet up and got through an awful lot of cheese and crackers. It got to dinnertime and he could barely eat a sprout! I think he was more annoyed at himself than I was. 😂

A very cunning plan indeed Robin....

Oh sorry @TheLever : this quote was for you!

I agree with Lentil, your DH is the one that made this a weight issue.

i totally relate to this but apparently there’s a rule that thin people are fair game for any mean comment about their body or eating habits and if they complain get told they are wrong because society values thinness so we should suck it up. Oh and it’s ok to say someone is thin or skinny but terrible to say someone is fat.

I am so thankful I have my garden office. I can put the heating on when I like.
I did struggle when I was in the office. Not so much the temperature, but the way the aircon just dumped air.
They wouldn't let me get a fan heater (PAT testing needed) unless I spoke to occ health, I suppose so they could sign it off as a need. Occ health and I had a bit of a laugh. I told them there really was nothing wrong with me, I just felt the cold more than my colleagues. Her suggestion was to eat some more cake.

I met some family around lunch time yesterday. It was more about meeting than the lunch. They wanted to eat. I eat breakfast late and wasn't hungry. I had a pot of tea, told them I wasn't hungry and no one batted an eye lid.

I do think generally that thinner people feel the cold more as (already said miles upthread) they have more surface area and lower muscle mass. I swim in a lake with a group of women. The larger women are able to stay in longer than others. It's not a judgement. It is quite clear that the cold water is going to effect/affect (sorry, I am on the affect/effect thread, but cannot get to grips with it) the women with less body fat.

😁

It is ‘affect’ 😏

I am genuinely envious of people who don’t feel cold. It is really tiresome always feeling cold, especially in the UK climate. I look like a Michelin man through the winter and hate having to hide my hot water bottle at work.

I have zero desire to draw attention to how cold I feel, but it is difficult at times.

Precisely! 😆

I do think competitive coldness is a thing. Like competitive tiny appetites. And yes, I do think both of those things can be "I'm more dainty and fragile and feminine than you"

Very annoying. Best ignored.

I’ve always gotten cold easily even when I was a larger size, so it’s not necessarily just slim women who get cold easily.

Dainty is a good word to describe it.

It's like a dinner dance event in the 1970s and women would get a separate menu to the men....the womens would have chicken or fish and then men would have beef because women are too delicate to eat red meat.

By the way, has anyone ever met a man who's declared to you that he has a small appetite....I haven't.

I think it more often is though.
But unless you have been both sides of it, you don’t necessary realise it isn’t something more intrinsic to you. Some women will be making an “I’m so feminine point” and others will just be unaware and genuinely complaining.

Your DH seems to be the cruel one, trying to make you see associations with your weight that just aren't there. It would never even cross my mind. I have larger friends who always seem to be cold and smaller friends who run hot.......🤷🏼‍♀️