Skinny shaming is so accepted

[chickenbhunalambbhunaprawnbhunamuchroomrice]

I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but skinny shaming is so wildly accepted and tolerated due to slim people being at an advantage due to their body size. As if it's acceptable, because they're slim. I've been body shamed my whole life for being slim. Right from when I was at junior school, to now at 30 years old.

I was relentlessly bullied at school and college. I am not an anomaly, I am a 5'5 size 6-8 female with a normal BMI. I don't need to be shamed about my body. The only people who have ever shamed or bullied me about my weight have been fat or obese people. And I'll be honest I'm trying my hardest not to judge them for their eating habits and size, but when it's a running theme I am starting to think that only fat people have a problem with slim people.

'Skinny privilege' shouldn't be an excuse to exempt bullying and shameful behaviour.
Stop trying to normalise skinny shaming just because it's the 'more desirable' image. It's not our fault that agenda has been pushed so much.

AIBU to think that skinny shaming is just as bad as fat shaming, and that slim people aren't to an advantage on this? I don't believe in the whole 'well at least you're skinny and being shamed.' Interested to know others thoughts.

Thank you, I completely agree

That's simply not true, if you read above what I was subjected to, then you'll see otherwise.

@Goody2ShoesAndTheFilthyBeast you have hit the nail on the head. If you are slim people tell you that you have no right to complain but that’s not right I agree. I don’t consent to comments either way about my looks but just because I am slimmer than I was doesn’t mean I am fair game for the comments which seem to be so much more common to my face now. When I was fat no one ever said anything to my face it was more a general feeling of ‘fat people cost the NHS money’ as one group rather than targeting ME personally. Now it is personal and it’s horrible

I was in the throes of an ED & recuperating at my aunties after being sectioned & my cousin who is & has been all her life overweight, made a remark saying I looked "drawn & slight"

Had I made a similar comment it wouldn't be cool

Sorry you went through that OP. No one should be made to feel bad about themselves like that. Some people just like to make excuses for being mean-spirited so that they feel like it’s somehow justified.

Totally agree

It's fine to skinny shame but watch the reaction if you fat shame!

When I was very slim I got nothing but compliments about my appearance. Unhelpful as I was quite underweight at one point and borderline for an eating disorder. When I was a very tiny bit overweight at school I was called fat every day.

Neither is helpful- probably best not to comment on weight at all.

Judging by a few posts on here, you can see why it's socially acceptable to skinny shame. In this day and age, it's shocking to see people saying it's incomparable / non issue. Wtf 😑

Well after having been called Annie-rexic (at the risk of outing my first name) all the way through school, being told a look like a boy and “how will you ever get a boyfriend, you’ve got no boobs”, I’d say there are certainly ways you can be shamed for being skinny.

Now it looks like family saying “oh you’ve lost more weight, you’re all bones, you need to eat more” after not seeing me for a while, or colleagues commenting on how tiny I am. Or doctors asking about my mental health and eating habits, and assuming illnesses must be a related to a deficiency because I can’t possibly be eating right. Or Megan Traynor singing about how boys don’t like skinny girls.

All of that is deeply unpleasant, and is bullying.

I do think though, having been a similar size to you, that in school people are bullied for anything, so I was bullied for my skinny legs, and glasses and hair, so that was not unusual, even if it was very wrong.

Remarks about your bump, again, people are often tactless if you are slim and pregnant, I agree.

I also wonder though if you are very sensitive to these comments, because my general experience is that most women get comments on their bodies because we live in a lookist society and often men and women make competitive and mean comments- in other words, there's probably no woman who hasn't had comments on her boobs, butt, size of body, height, glasses and so on.

I don't say that to dismiss your experience, but you obviously still feel disturbed by it. I have had the odd negative comment when I was very slim, but I also did have a lot of positive comments, and found it easy to buy clothes and fit into a norm of sizing which obese people do not have.

I don't think you are wrong that we should reject skinny shaming, but I don't think it's quite the same experience as being obese as more or less no-one comments positively on fatter bodies, whereas being skinny is something both desired and something people comment on.

The fat shaming that goes on - which is extremely prevalent across this forum - makes a host of assumptions about fat people. Fat people, when shamed, are considered to be completely stupid. Too stupid to understand nutrition, too stupid to comprehend simple advice, too stupid to be able to 'just' eat less and move more.

Fat people are considered disgusting and unrestrained in their habits. They are assumed to be eating takeaways constantly, and the imagined food they consume when shamers are talking about them is always greasy, fried, excessive and repulsive. The overall image created of fat people is that they are grotesque and ugly.

Fat people are also considered lazy, always sitting on their arses and stuffing their faces. They're also accused of whining and faking any problems that lead to weight gain or trouble managing their weight.

Fat people are despised for being a drain on society, and accused of ruining the NHS - it's all placed at the habits and behaviour of individual fat people rather than being a political or governmental issue in any way.

When fat people are seen to be trying to address their weight, they also come in for an enormous amount of censure. They're stealing diabetic drugs, taking the easy option (of course they are, they're lazy gluttons right?) when in fact they should be made to suffer and do as much painful penance as possible.

People fret about the possibility that they will have to sit next to a fat person on public transport or a flight. People suggest that fat healthcare professionals shouldn't be allowed to do their job. Fat people experience discrimination and pay inequality in the workplace. Fat people often struggle to be heard by doctors and get treatment for their symptoms, only being told to lose weight as the answer to everything.

I don't deny for one second that women's bodies across the size spectrum are policed and criticised. But I am interested to hear how slim women are shamed in equivalent ways to fat women, when society prizes thinness and despises fatness to such an extent as it does.

You have to be underweight. I'm smaller heightwise than this and you can see my ribs. Everyone tells me I'm tiny. I'm a size 8/10. If I were a size 6 I would be gaunt. Grown women who have been through puperty are skinny at that height and size. My 11 year old (super slim) is a size 6. The comments from others suggest that you are more than slim. Only eating a 'salad' is not normal - where's the protein to build muscle? There's slim and there's skinny. If you're skinny it's easy to add healthy weight and be simply slim. This is an easy fix for you if you're that bothered by the comments.

I do find tremendously skinny women don't seem to see how scrawny they are though and continue to just eat salad and run 10 miles a week. If multiple people are telling you to put weight on they're not jealous of how slim you are - they're concerned that you're ill and putting your health at risk.

How fucking rude are you?

Thanks, I'm sorry you've had to go through this bullying especially as you were going through chemo.
I certainly don't think people should be 'shamed' when they are slim, surely there is nothing to be ashamed of? but the example a PP gave of a doctor asking about her eating habits and MH indicates professional concern more than 'shaming'.

Well I had a McDonald’s for lunch, couldn’t run a mile if my life depended on it and not been to a gym for 2 years at least. I hover around underweight/low end of normal BMI. You wouldn’t know that though if you were just commenting on my appearance.

By your suggestion, maybe I should start telling overweight people I see that they could do with cutting down on calories as I’m concerned they’re putting their health at risk?

This! I even used to get people shouting anorexic at me at school and I would just shrug it off and think well I look better than you. Skinny is the ideal surely?! Do you not like being skinny?

It is comparable. Don’t minimise someone else’s body shaming. Skinny people do not always get sympathy at all- I’m not sure why you’ve assumed that is a fact:

my sister is tall and skinny, always has been. Due to a fast growth spurt when she was 13 she was very thin and relentlessly bullied in school for looking anorexic and skeletal. Older family members would always tell her to eat. She always ate. She just didn’t put weight on no matter how much she tried. She was so self conscious, always trying to hide her body.

my friend was also skinny as a child/teen and young adult. On a work lunch she ate all her food as she always did and then went to the loo for a wee. On her return they staged an intervention for her bulimia that she didn’t have. She was mortified.

skinny shaming is most definitely a thing. It’s unacceptable as it fat shaming. Shaming anyone for their weight is not acceptable and it’s not a competition as to which is worse. The comments on this thread to go to show though, that people are more likely to think skinny shaming is totally fine but fat shaming isn’t.

I'm with you. I'm size 6 and 5'6. Get called skinny and anorexic a lot, always being told to eat a biscuit

If you haven't read the replies and still don't understand how slim women are equally criticised then its a you problem.

I've lived in both an obese and underweight body.

I attracted more negative comments as the latter. If anything obese people enjoy a certain privilege.

I've had "there's not a pick on her!" said in my hearing/right beside me by a friend's husband.

Another man, when offering help to pull a sailing dinghy on a heavy metal trailer up soft sand onto concrete, (because I was struggling).decided shouting 'eat something!" at me was appropriate.

At my lightest I'm a size 10, but I'm generally a size 12.

(Their wives look 14/16/18).

That's how, I guess.

Please see my above post of how I have been shamed. And a few other posters, particularly the one being called 'annie-rexic.'

It is true.

You said skinny shaming is so accepted - it's not. Nothing that happened to you is acceptable.

But you can still walk into any shop and buy clothes in your size. You are still - overall - more highly regarded in this, slim loving society than a fat person.

So regardless of how horrible your experiences were/are - and they are absolutely horrible and unacceptable - I still absolutely believe your place in society is higher than a fat person because of your thin privilege. Scroll through a Vogue magazine or watch a runway show and you will see women even thinner than yourself being held aloft as icons of fashion.

I think I’d question the language you’ve used. I’d accept that insecure people wrongly bully very slim women. However, I think the concept of shame is trickier. Fat women often feel shame about their weight because of assumptions about things like diet, health, fitness, longevity, personal hygiene, sex, laziness…the list goes on.

if you are being bullied for being thin - I’d argue it’s much less loaded. Added to that is the fact that fat people are actively discriminated against in things like employment etc, I don’t think you can really compare the two.

You are right @chickenbhunalambbhunaprawnbhunamuchroomrice I'm skinny and always have been this build, although I eat a lot. Sunday dinners for every meal if I could! But at school I was teased, thankfully not bullied, for being skinny. Not to the extent of your PE changing room experience, OP, but a similar thing. Embarrassed to wear anything other than trousers because of my twig legs. And even now at 48 I still get people commenting, "oh, you're so skinny, you need to eat something" say if there's a conversation in the office about food or diets, when I would never dream of replying with a comment on their size or food intake. Why is it acceptable to do it to me because I'm thin?!