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.

YANBU

Does anyone remember the hate that adele and rebel Wilson got when they lost weight because the fat fans felt betrayed 🤣
Seriously it was for their health and dmfsur play to them. Yes they're rich and with that comes more options but the drive to do it was still the same and set a great example imo

I'm sorry you think I'm being disingenuous, I have said multiple times that BOTH skinny shaming and fat shaming are awful. It's not a race to the bottom. Bullying for being either ends of the weight spectrum are abhorrent. I don't think fat shaming is worse than skinny shaming. I don't think skinny shaming is worse than fat shaming.

If that makes me disingenuous, so be it.

I think it's similar to height - people don't seem to have a filter when it comes to commenting on how tall you are. I don't ever hear people say 'Ooh, aren't you short'. I guess it's because they think being tall is more desirable than being short (similar to a perception that being slim is more desirable than being not slim).

Horrid remarks. Especially the surrogate comment, completely overlooking the fact that you created, grew and birthed a whole human. I'm sorry you went through that.

I think sometimes people make comments, like how disgusting it is that someone is so thin or that they must only eat leaves as a sort of joke which is really meant to compliment the thin person, especially if the person saying them is always talking about weight watching and trying to lose weight themself. They don’t really think it’s disgusting or mean it as a put down.

It’s meeting someone you have not seen for a while and being told, ‘gosh you look like a famine victim’.

How do you 'shame' someone for being the cultural ideal? What is there to be shamed about? Isn't that what we're all told to aspire to?

"Skeletal"

"Why would a guy find that attractive, you have no boobs"

"God do you ever eat? You must never eat! Tell me what you ate yesterday, I bet it was nothing. Why don't you want to tell me what you ate? I knew it, I knew it was nothing"

"Your face will look so bad when you're older. Like a dead person"

Scoffing if I ever picked something to eat that was unhealthy/big, eg a piece of cake "oh as if you ever really eat that. You'll probably go and throw it up after"

"I feel like there's often a smell of vomit around bulimics like you"
(I've never had bulimia, not that it matters)

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 rude. Maybe if people don't like being fat shamed they should just lose weight and then it wouldn't be a problem? Oh is it not that easy? Your reply was to OP talking about having cancer - maybe it's not that easy for her to put on weight. People can be under or overweight for many reasons, and it's not reasonable to say "well if you don't like comments about your weight, just change it".

And why complain about being fat shamed at all - people are probably just concerned about you. They're just being nice and expressing a genuine concern for your health. Or maybe unless you're a dr in an actual appointment, you shouldn't comment on someone's weight. "Concern" isn't a reason for a stranger to criticise someone's weight, whether that weight is high or low. Concern never comes out in comments about someone's attractiveness, or in weight related nicknames, or in comments designed to embarrass someone (or in calling people scrawny and gaunt, as you have in your post).

But you can still walk into any shop and buy clothes in your size.

I'm a size 4. It's actually not that easy to find a wide range of clothes. There's a narrow selection in certain shops. Most shops don't make my band size for a bra.

I don't blame them because I'm aware this is because there isn't much demand for it. If there was, they'd sell it. But it's not true to say it's easy for skinny people to just walk into any shop and find clothes that fit.

It’s not ok to comment on another person’s appearance in a negative way. I cannot fathom why people think it’s totally fine to comment on people being slim. I had very similar comments to you throughout my teenage years.

Being called Anna (rexic) - my name isn’t Anna
Asked if I ever eat, with people regularly commenting during meals about portion size (I ate very normally)
”stick legs”. I’d come home in tears wishing I was fat, because they didn’t get picked on as much.

The list is endless. History is now repeating itself with my child. “Your legs are thinner than a hockey stick”, “I’m surprised you don’t snap” etc. Thankfully they manage to ignore most of it. In the past I’ve had a teacher tell me that it’s ok to laugh at people being thin because being thin is seen as good, but that it’s definitely not ok to comment on anyone being fat.

You only have to look at social media. Any advert from a clothing brand using larger than average models are met with a chorus of “it’s great to see normal women”, as if naturally slim women aren’t “normal”.

This is like white people complaining that they suffer racism.
It's just not the same as what a black person faces.

You really think 40% of our population CHOOSES to be fat?

I’m not fat so I asked the question. I also asked because when I worked in a large office of almost all women, I heard comments about others being overweight but never to their face. Obviously, it was still nasty to talk about them like that, but the women who were doing so clearly knew it was wrong to say it directly to her so used to wait till she left the room to make personal comments.

That was in contrast to comments to me and a younger skinny girl, where the nasty gossipers would happily walk up to us and say something nasty about our figures.

Again, both are wrong.

Yes, social media is famously very kind and very accepting of fat women. They get a totally easy ride online as we all know.

You're right @TheGreatIndoors It is like watching white people try to insist that 'reverse racism' is a thing. It's just posters focusing on individual anecdotes and totally ignoring the structures and systems that create inequality and prejudice.

Every single comment related on here that details an insult made to a slim woman has an opposite version that has been made countless times to fat women. Every single one can be countered with an example of what is routinely said to fat women. And on top of that is the wider discrimination and stigma that fat people face in all other aspects of their lives as well.

I'm sorry you've had such a hard time.

I was a skinny (underweight although not unhealthy) teenager in the 90s at a time of skinny supermodels. Despite their success, I remember there being a real public feeling that they were too skinny, unattractive, couldn't possibly be naturally like that etc and it massively impacted my confidence because although no one said these things directly to/about me, they were saying it openly about people with a very similar body shape. Skinny was never the ideal for me...slim was...more the models in the men's mags of the 90s with curves, which again made me feel inferior despite no one really commenting to me directly.

Mid 40s now and I would describe myself as slim, rather than skinny. I don't get comments other than the odd compliment about it. Sadly I know my facial looks are fading but I definitely feel it's an advantage to still be the shape I am and I'm a bit ashamed to say this but it does give me confidence, given that on the school run etc I'm mostly surrounded by overweight people. We all have issues to deal with. I'm just grateful that being overweight isn't one of them for me...purely because it's just one less thing to worry about.

I think some fat people are soooo desperate to be thin, that they are blind as to how it can ever be an issue for anyone to be thin and receive negative comments. They think skinny is the ultimate compliment. I have seen this irl as well as here.

No it’s not. It’s women complaining about being bullied for their looks. We are all female. We are different sizes. People make comments to us regardless of our size. It’s not ok. It’s not fat vs thin or comparable to racism you cannot change the colour of your skin but you can adapt your body shape (with great effort I am fully aware). You can’t not be black. The point is that it’s not worse or better it’s happening to women from all spectrums. I do choose not to be fat for health reasons. I have been fat and I wasn’t always treated well but I am still not always treated well

Body shaming of any type is disgusting and shouldn’t happen. I hate it when I see comments of praise on things like FB posts using larger bodied models, saying “yay, you’re using ‘real’ women” - like slim/skinny people aren’t real FFS. I know that it’s not usually done with malice and that person is probably genuinely pleased to see someone similar to them but it just shouldn’t happen and just widens the divide even more. (I’m fat for reference)

That said, fat shaming is generally more detrimental as fat people tend to have poorer outcomes all round. They’re often not treated by medical professionals, they’re passed over for jobs, they’re blamed for the downfall of the NHS, they’re assumed to be greedy and lazy. Someone who is really thin with an eating disorder will be treated much more empathetically (and professionally - again medical professionals) than someone who is fat with an eating disorder. You just have to read the numerous threads on here for a start!

Yes, it’s a thing. A so-called friend of mine once spread it all around our social circle that I was anorexic. At the time I was always an 8-10, with a naturally small appetite.
It was months before I found out, and was so shocked I could barely utter at first.

She had apparently based it on the fact that I’d turned down biscuits at her house! They were probably custard creams, which I’ve never liked at all.

She wasn’t obese, but was probably a 14 -16 then. And permanently on a diet she never stuck to.

IMO some ‘larger’ women just can’t handle the fact that other people may be slim because they don’t eat very much! There has to be something else going on….

I think it’s just universal, if you’re a women there will always be something ‘wrong’ with you. Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, feet too big, wrinkly skin, too many freckles, grey hair, hair too short, hair too curly, small tits, saggy tits, flabby skin, small lips…it never ends!

Exactly, someone thought I had big feet at school, now someone would say my feet are too small for my height. lips were weird because I didn’t have a cupids bow & they are similar fullness, now people get filler for that effect. Fashions change & nobody is perfect.

No one should be body shamed but this is the equivalent of ‘men experience sexism too’ and ‘white people experience racism too’ – sorry but in my opinion it’s just not part of the conversation.

IMO some ‘larger’ women just can’t handle the fact that other people may be slim because they don’t eat very much! There has to be something else going on….

when I worked in fashion all the comments about my big appetite came from women who were not overweight or large in any way. They really didn’t eat…

Well I was bullied by thin people - being an underweight bmi is aspirational in Indian circles with anyone a normal bmi and above a size 8 considered plump / fat / obese. I think more overweight people get bullied by slim people so this thread in itself is ridiculous and tbh I don’t believe you.

And certainly back in the late 90s/early 00s someone saying you look skinny was a big compliment!

@Ozanj one of my good friends is Hindu & she’s battled an eating disorder for yrs because of the pressure to be small.