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?

Equating complaining about it being cold to passive aggressive fat shaming is a stretch. They may just be cold and feel it more than you do.

I think it's your husband who's doing the fat shaming there since he's the first to mention it, but just wanted to blame someone else.

Air con should win. You can add more layers for cold but you can’t strip further if you are hot.
hot and sweaty patients in drs surgery waiting room is surely more unhealthy too.

Where I worked they put in very expensive heating and air con system. I was always warn and unfortunately sat beside someone who was cold. Asking for the air con to be turned up slightly made her have the vapours. Eventually after being off sick the health and safety person while going through stuff with me got me a desk fan when I mentioned being hot. The person beside me never thought about just putting a extra layer on and expected to sit in her short sleeves. I couldn't remove anymore clothes unless I was to sit in my bra and pants. I wasn't asking for really cold levels and was happy to just have it on for just a short time while I cooled down. We were not allowed to open windows.
When too warm the sweat does actually run down my face. Very uncomfortable to work in and I did have to occasionally pop outside to cool off.

You seem to have worked yourself up into quite the froth over those teeny tinies. Careful, you might pop a vein. Or try losing some weight, then you’ll also be a ‘teeny tiny’. You seem so bitter, poor thing.

"Is it a way to come across ultra feminine to be cold?"

No, I am just often cold, I'm not trying to be anything. I would love not to feel cold most of the time. You think people are fat shaming you because you get warm, yet here you are suggesting people who feel the cold are pretending so they can appear feminine. Fake shaming? Stop projecting your crap onto other people.

Maybe people are just more normal where I live but no of course I don't do this and frankly I've never seen anyone act like this in real life either.

If I had a big lunch and someone offered me a biscuit mid-afternoon I might say in a completely non-performative way, "Oh no thanks, I'm still full from lunch". As would everyone who is not a cartoon villain.

I suspect this is exactly what people have done in front of you and you have exaggerated it in the retelling to turn it into some kind of weird personal attack or performance of daintiness.

I thought this was a joke at first. Honestly the insight into some people's minds is incredibly disturbing.

Another great example of what we're talking about. Thanks for saving me the bother of explaining.

Yeah, so what? So WHAT if some people don't eat much/don't have big portions?! Why the snarky and snide comments about people who don't eat big portions?

For someone who claims to have lost 6 stone recently, I would have thought that you would have actually BEEN someone who eats smaller portions.

Why so much loathing and hatred for slimmer women? For someone who is now slim (apparently,) to have so much hatred for slimmer women is very odd indeed!

!

oh they aren't saying it to me!! but I have spent my entire working life in a large mainly female environment (NHS). and yes the "eat half a pea" was my (weak early morning) attempt at hyperbole humour

🥱
Boring.

I would even suggest that she simply has a social media break. Maybe turns off her TV for a few nights a week, and joins a group for women doing some sort of hobby. It may well help her overcome her internalised misogyny and deep seated dislike of other women. The comments made are, as a pp said earlier in the thread, like something from a sitcom.

Therapy could also be useful, because I'm going to assume the notion that performative eaters/cold people/men drinking pints/pigeons avoiding UPFs are watching her every mouthful is only going to carry over.

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

@Comedycook

My boyfriend eats less than any other person I know and openly says he never has much appetite. He will often only have one or two meals in a day, and regularly when I ask if he's had lunch or dinner he'll just say "No, I wasn't hungry." He just has a wiry build. It doesn't seem to affect his health or energy levels.

And if we’re talking feminism, well - there’s nothing feminist about women eating themselves into poor health and an early death. It’s just another prison, an adipose one.

Way more feminist to encourage women to keep as fit and healthy as they can, for as long as possible, so they can participate in all aspects of life for as long as they can independently. So please, don’t give me that ‘fat is feminist/smashing the patriarchy one slice of cake at a time’ bullshit.

There's a big difference between glorifying obesity and competitive under eating. I've known loads of thin women who don't make a song or dance about what they do or don't eat.

OK, just take your small piece quietly then and don't make a bit theatrical production about it like some women do. As evidenced by the thousands of "competitive undereater" threads on here.

I haven’t read all 15 pages but I don’t think this has anything to do with body size. I mean it could do inherently on a population of people but doesn’t mean it necessarily would in an office of a few people.
I feel the cold and I’m very slim but I can be warm around my body and have freezing cold feet and fingers where it’s almost painful while
someone else wouldn’t even consider putting gloves or thick boots on and would be fine in a jacket and trainers. Equally in the summer I can have a fan on most nights as I can’t stand sleeping in the heat.

The problem with this thread, and so many others on MN, is that weight has been allowed to become way too
much of an issue in society. Whether it is thinness or fatness, it shouldn’t be a topic of such emotion - any more than, say, having allergies or not having them. We all have different bodies. And yes sone things will exacerbate certain predispositions more than others, just as certain things exacerbate people’s skin conditions. But no one tries to shame or blame when these things are out of balance. Very thin is as unhealthy as being overweight. Neither is ideal and probably neither person in either situation particularly enjoys it. Why can’t people just be less judgmental? It’s the judgment that causes many of the issues. I know I’ve felt defensive of fat-shaming comments because I have a couple of friends whose lives have been made hell by people’s attitudes. Equally, I’ve known people dying of eating disorders. It’s the negative judgment that escalates and worsens things to this point. Why can’t we be accepting of each other in the way we accept different eye colour or taste in clothing to a much larger degree? Yes of course we have our own preferences for what looks better but there isn’t the vitriol involved. Let people’s weight be a topic for them and their medical professional.

I don’t think this has anything to do with body size. I mean it could do inherently on a population of people but doesn’t mean it necessarily would in an office of a few people.

Yes, that's how statistics works. In general thinner people feel the cold more than larger people - it's thermodynamics.
But obviously not ALL thin people feel the cold and not ALL large people feel warmer.
Just because one large person says they feel the cold doesn't mean that the science is wrong.

@CharlotteBog good luck explaining the difference between data and anecdata on here!

It's like the classic date scenario where the woman says she's cold so the man gallantly removes his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders to keep her warm...

Exactly. And she only orders a salad and delicately picks at it. (When in my experience men quite like a woman who devours a steak...wonder why....)

Exactly what I said last night. The only one mentioning the OP's weight is her husband.

Where IS the OP by the way?

OP, you're being touchy about your weight.

😆