Skinny Shaming?

[NoSourDough]

In a shop today with DD (almost 13) when she told me the bag she was carrying was giving her a paper cut. Out of nowhere an older lady appeared and declared “well maybe if you ate some food your bag wouldn’t be so heavy!” and walked off in the queue with her husband.

At first me and DD were a bit shocked, it was a card shop and I was looking through the cards and as I did so was registering what she just said.

My daughter is tall yet small framed, a bit like me and my DH were when we were her age. If she was a bigger girl and that woman had fat shamed her it would have been completely unacceptable.

We queued up and she was about 3 in front of me and I decided I wanted to pull her up on it as my daughter is very size and weight sensitive and I knew this comment had stung.

Unfortunately she left the shop and after I couldn’t find her in the market square as I wanted to say to her that I felt that comment was unacceptable.

am I being unreasonable to feel this way or over sensitive here?

I used to get comments all the time when I was younger about how skinny I was

i will say though, they’d be happy to comment on overweight girls too.

lots of people seem to think no they have the right to comment on young girls bodies. It’s disgraceful

Thank you for your accounts of similar stories to those of you that know what it’s like to have such dreadful and personal comments made at them regarding weight and body appearance.

For the others that say it’s just nonsense, my daughter cried this afternoon - so what seems like a trivial thing to you, it isn’t. There is always more to the picture.

What will the comments do? OP can take the advice or leave it but the advice is move on!

I dont know where you get the idea Im affronted?

And like another poster has said better than me, the unhelpful and stuck narrative which turns everyone into a victim is what needs to be moved on from, how can OP support her daughter to manage idiots in life if everything has to be inspected deeply or taken offence about.

The woman said a mad thing, its over, move on.

Tbh I’m surprised you didn’t do this. I would’ve gone apeshit if someone spoke to my daughters like this in front of me

The denial of skinny shaming is bizarre. When people make these comments about another person's body type, they're not alluding to the opinion of "oh aren't you slim, your body is svelte, your body is smaller than average", it is almost always (from my actual lived experience) in the tone of "yuck, your body is disgusting, you're unattractive, I am so shocked by your appearance that I've had to make a comment". On top of this, it is always met with silencing of any of my protestations that its genuinely 'just the way I am'. I started on high-calorie shakes, used to eat high fat oils by the spoonful, loaded up on fatty foods just to try and make the comments stop. That's where the shaming comes in- my skinny body is repulsive to others. Shame about my 'unacceptable' levels of skinniness is absolutely how those comments made me feel. A certain level of skinniness is considered shameful by others and they like to remind you of this without reserve.

I'm also just remembering an occasion when a work colleague gasped and said my name incredulously when she spotted that my coat had a size 8 label in it. WTF.

To be fair Soupy I've read your subsequent posts and agree with much of what then say. Your first post I felt was harsh when OP just wanted to support her daughter. Skinny shaming is a thing and it's what that woman did.

Questioning why it's filling OPS head after the event is a bit daft as you could say that about most threads on MN so just scroll on.

But yea - your later comments had more context so I apologise for being snippy. As an ex skinny teen I'm pleased OP is reflecting on his this.

how can OP support her daughter to manage idiots in life if everything has to be inspected deeply or taken offence about.

//

This is kind of the process tho ... something is said which makes us feel embarrassed, we inspect/reflect on it, consider a response when emotions have died down a bit and hopefully are more ready to deal with the next idiot who says something similar in future

Teenagers cry about lots of things and can make a colossal drama about anything. It is up to the adults in the room not to get caught up in their dramas, to stay calm and be the voice of reason, not fan the flames. Easier said than done, I appreciate.

I haven’t fanned the flames. She came into my room and told me she had a cry about that woman in the shop but she’s ok now and moved on.

She's probably immune to normal weights these days as everyone seems to be overweight and people now convince themselves that is the norm, ignore her , I'd have personally commented back at her, but just explain to your daughter what a silly comment.
What a horrible person to say that to a child , clearly deranged.

Good for her. Are you going to move on too?

Yes fair enough, I just think in the modern era, we pay too much mind to people who in the old days we would have avoided eye contact with and viewed them as the village idiot or oddbod that we stayed away from

Nowadays everyones opinion seems to be taken seriously or as having some sort of validity as needing to be examined or dealt with or navigated through with the end result that the person on receiving end of the madness is some sort of victim. OPs daughter is not a victim.

It would take a lot for me to not insult her straight back. People should not be so comfortable talking about people's bodies. Particularly children's bodies. What a creep that woman is.

Yes it is annoying isn't it? You can't say ANYthing about overweight people, fat shaming is frowned upon, and you're not allowed to judge anyone for eating a bit much. But it seems to be acceptable to mock and deride slim people who don't eat a lot, with nasty little put downs and snarky comments like 'teeny tiny,' and 'having a bowl of dust for dinner are you?' And some people mock and laugh at people who 'only' eat a couple of biscuits at a time, and 'only' one or two packs of crisps a week.

There's a thread running right now where the OP claims she regularly eats a full pack of biscuits to herself, (in one sitting) and a number of people have dashed onto the thread to brag about how much they eat. One poster claims she ate 48 packs of crisps in 3 days, and is being celebrated by some posters. The people who are on there saying some people sound like they eat a bit much, and appear to binge eat, are being mocked for not being big eaters.

The OTT eaters who struggle to control their weight are clearly projecting with their silly digs and snide remarks at people who aren't big eaters. I have struggled with my weight all my life, and have been watching what I eat (quite closely) for about 9 months now, and have lost 2 stone since last summer. I don't eat big portions, and said on a thread a few months back that DH and I share cod and chips and mushy peas, with one slice of bread and butter each, and I got laughed at, with snarky and mocking #teenytiny type comments. It's so rude and obnoxious to mock people who aren't big eaters, and who watch what they eat. These same people go off on one if anyone 'fat shames' anyone, but it's seemingly OK to 'skinny shame!'

It’s your kids time to just learn people are sometimes weird. Resilience I think we used to call it.

No I'm going to wait until I see her again in the market square one day and call her out for being the crazy judgemental crazy old bat she is…….🤣🤣🤣 of course I am

To me it's utterly weird a random stranger would think it appropriate to make such a personal comment about a person they saw in a shop. Totally with you on that @NoSourDough - it doesn't really matter if that's saying they are too fat, too thin, or whatever. Just totally overstepping usual behaviour.

Yes today my kid learnt that “some” of the older generation are weird and rude. We still call it resilience.

Take it as a lesson for your daughter.

Some people are just weirdos, and the only opinions that matter are those of the people you love. All other opinions can be ignored.

I hate the double standards of skinny shaming... I've always been thinner (eat like a horse) and had comments about it my whole life. Usually from those complaining they can't lose weight. A girl walked in to work once and the first thing she said to me was "you look like an Ethiopian".... later that day she was saying how she wished she could lose weight. It's so rude and annoys me so much. If I walked in and said "you look like a whale" it would be another story. I would have told the woman to go f* herself 🙃

To be fair skinny privilege is a thing and you can’t compare the two.

i have had a lot of upsetting comments for being skinny but also an insane amount of compliments and I’ve always known there were people admiring it. Overweight people dont get that

Next time someone calls a fat person a tank, I'll use this mentality. Thanks!

Er, yeah they do. Go and check the body positivity comments on Facebook..

Fat is not the same as skinny. People attach morals to fat people in a way they don’t to skinny people. TV, film, fashion and music are jam-packed with skinny people.
Yes, its not nice when people comment negatively on appearance in any way, but “skinny-shaming” is a nonsense.