I don’t know. I’m fat and my husband is skinny- they both make us equally feel shitty.
It depends on the person though, for example, men would feel worse being called skinny than women would. Men aren’t really shamed for being overweight like they are skinny.
Ha! That is such an interesting observation. It’s true that it’s somehow a bigger insult for a man to be called skinny than overweight. Not being muscular is seen as being ‘weak’ somehow. Whatever that means.
Gotta hand it to patriarchy, beats down both women and men with arbitrary body ideals 🥲
Kamzor ho gye ho beta is what aunties say to men whereas having a potbelly is considered good. Neither of them is muscular, but somehow former is considered better for men.
Anecdotal: but I've been skinny shamed in school and it was nowhere near to what my friend who was slightly overweight used to go through
Personally I believe, skinny shaming and fat shaming are not exactly comparable but again it's my opinion. I think skinny shaming gets worse as an adult women as I've seen them being shamed for not having "curves" etc.
I was fat shamed as a kid by relatives etc but it got better as I grew up. On the other hand my close friend who was skinny shamed it's getting worse and worse for her with each passing year.
I think the issue is that people in bigger bodies aren't taken seriously. They're the butt of all jokes and the first thing people attack about a fat person is their well.. fatness. Being skinny, on the other hand, is like having a flat ass or a big nose (not saying these are bad things, just that they're not the standard). You can get picked on for those things but they don't become your whole identity.
it can definitely become your identity. it was mine, for a very long time, in several different circles. i’ve had people reference me as “that thin girl” on several occasions. it was/is 100% my identity
You know my friend (26M) broke up with this certifiably crazy woman (24F) who happened to be overweight l.
She was tracking his location, threatened to kill his friends and all of that. She really needs medical intervention
But but when my guy friends talk about her they just say - “don’t go back to that fatty” -.-
Came here to give this analogy😂 I've been skinny shamed all my life. I've gone upto lengths to put up weight, but I eventually gave up, because, who cares, im happy. I've had my girlfriends saying to me with the straight face that my future partner will not "have fun" with me. I'm an aspiring crazy cat lady, but that doesn't matter and doesn't give them any right to be that shallow and rude. And these are are adults with a possibly fully grown brain in their early twenties. So people just pass on comments and expect you to not feel anything. So a demeaning comment is a demeaning comment. Period. Getting hurt is not quantifiable.
exactly, this post feels like that. trauma olympics.
“I got skinny shamed by my relative”
“Oh but it’s nowhere near fat shaming that we people have to endure”
Like okay girl, what do you want me to say? You win. Okay?
that is such an immature take. the fact is that fat shaming is systemic while skinny shaming is not. nobody is comparing traumas but i think society needs a reminder that fat shaming exists on a whole different level than skinny shaming.
Fat shaming is not the same as skinny shaming for sure. Like even the way how the world runs - from those tiny plastic chairs in the waiting area to the tiny plane/ bus seats is a constant reminder that you are big as per societal standards. Avoiding walking into a store coz you know that they would not have your size. It’s not just verbal shaming but also constant non verbal reminders all around you.
But that being said, the pain inflicted is more or less the same on a person. Both are made to feel inadequate, both are made to feel shitty.
I think it is insensitive! Everyone has their own set of struggles. My close friend is very skinny and she has had so many people call her names. I used to be overweight and people called me so many names as well. It affected her mental well being and it affected mine as well. We used to make fun of each other and wished if could just swap some fat (again since we both had our struggles and we were close, we weren't being hurtful when we used this statement so don't come at me for this lol). She used to struggle so much to put even a little bit of weight on while I would struggle to lose weight. She was also extremely tall on top of that and she struggled finding clothes that fit her and clothes that made her look a little less skinny. On the other hand I struggled to find clothes that fit me perfectly. She would cry anytime someone called her bones cos of her arms being like sticks and I would cry anytime someone called me arms cos of my fat arms. We both suffered equally, just in a different way. Other than all this, there are health problems that lead to people being underweight and same applies to people being overweight. My friend was much more sensitive so it actually made her anti social and she would never come out. I on the other hand learnt to tell everyone to fuck off and still did what I wanted, not saying them shaming me did not hurt but it did not stop me from hanging out with people. You also don't know why someone is a certain way, so in general shaming is bad.
I don't think it has anything to do with privilege. You cannot compare struggles and sufferings. It is very hurtful, ignorant, and wrong. As long as someone is feeling healthy, thats all that matters but it is easy to say but not that easy to follow. Skinny shaming and fat shaming cannot and should not be compared.
edit - being underweight and overweight may lead to personal problems and also problems in your work environment based on where you are and what your field is. But being overweight leads to a lot more issues when it comes to medical stuff compared to when being underweight - pretty much anytime you go to a doctor, their first suggestion for treatment would be "weight loss", which in most cases is actually true and has worked a lot for me but not always! Being overweight also leads to pregnancy issues. Not saying being underweight doesn't, cos my sister is underweight and one of the side effects for that has been low bone density and deals with join dislocation. She has to avoid stairs when possible and it's not like she is old or anything. She also had a lot of issues with her pregnancy! The last trimester she was in a bed rest. Each has its own set of problems 🤷🏻♀️ Fertility is one big problem when being underweight or overweight. Maybe instances like on a flight, the seats are made considering an "average human" size and if you are bigger then you have to pay for an extra seat or pay for business class. Which I agree is unfair but that all that is cos the world has this set definition of "perfect" which is incorrect. But on the other hand, my sister has been in a situation where she was told to move her seat handle so that the person near her can occupy a bit more space cos she doesn't need the entire seat cos he is "skinny". You can't really compare both these situations and both are insensitive and wrong!
But at the end the struggles are not the same and cannot and should not be compared! I think we as humans just need to stop being insensitive and put ourselves in the others shoes before we start spewing shit.
edit - ignore my grammatical errors!
As a former skinny person that then gained weight, I fully understand where you’re coming from.. but, OP, just because someone is in a fully body cast doesn’t mean that a broken arm doesn’t hurt. When I was younger(even as young as 13) people felt it was okay to tell me that I look like I’m going to the bathroom and throwing all my food up, no doctor believed my PCOS issues because I didn’t fit into the “weight” they consider to be problematic and even blamed me for trying to lose weight and causing my own problems.. I was constantly considered weak and people thought it’s okay to call me things like “flat table”.. I understand where you’re coming from as well because as soon as I gained weight, my appetite that was “too little” when I was younger was now “too much”(THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF FOOD). I think the problem here is people and their audacities.. so much of my self worth was attached to my weight and it was never the “perfect” weight for anyone.
Reminds me of the men that give example of women in Arab countries to deny the sufferings of other women.
Edit : from someone who's skinny
The amount of times I overate till my body rejected it, wearing two shirts and two bottoms in Indian summer so as to not look like a "skeleton". Also we live in a country where curvy body is the ideal one.
I don't expect you to understand my pain but you have no right to demean it either.
me too girl. not me wearing butt pads on my first date with a man and searching how to grow breasts “naturally” for a whole decade. also i lost a lot of weight recently due to depression and i feel very insecure about my ribs kind of showing through my chest and so feel hesitant getting intimate with my boyfriend which is affecting my self esteem and our sex life :’)
I’d argue. Fat positivity is an entire movement which is aimed at uplifting the plus sized body types. Fat shaming someone is often looked down at, and is generally considered very rude.
Same can’t be said about skinny shaming. There’s no movement about “skinny positivity”, because being skinny is considered so desirable, that the plight of those who’re skinny shamed on the daily, is never taken into account. It’s way too easy to get away after skinny shaming someone, than it is after fat shaming someone.
As someone who was skinny shamed all her life, it’s definitely not a “privilege”. Just because society goes gaga over skinny bodies, doesn’t mean skinny people consider their bodies a blessing or a privilege.
There was skinny positivity in the 90s and early 2000s a la Kate Moss’ ‘heroin chic’. The ‘it’ accessory in high fashion was an ED. /s
I’m kidding of course. As someone who’s lived through the era of super skinny fashion goals. Let’s not bring that back again, unless you’re naturally a size 0 with no underlying health conditions. Gives me nightmares just thinking about it.
Also forgot to add that all these horrible horrible comments somehow subconsciously manifested into an eating disorder. That was the worst fucking phase of my life. I'm so much better now but honestly can't even think of those times without feeling a bit triggered almost.
Why play oppression Olympics?
Just because people are starving in Africa doesn't mean you are not hungry.
Your post in my opinion comes off as jealous and insensitive
Yup, also very curious how & why OP considers being skinny a privilege as though thin people get some kind of advantage in life?
Both are body shaming, what's with the competition?
I mean, there is is no systemic discrimination towards skinny women now is there? Yet there is a whole set of bigotry fat women face while searching for work, in health care, in the fashion industry etc. They're denied there basic rights just because they're fat, which is simply not the case for skinny women.
Both shaming are bad, but one of them is the beauty standard while the other has to fight to get even basic decency in most settings.
The easiest way to understand this is this: if a fat woman loses weight, everyone will congratulate her on the weight loss, and tell her how good she looks. When skinny women become fat (and no, I don't mean gaining a little amount of weight), no one tells them that.
Or ask any person if they could choose, would they be fat or would they be skinny? You know what the answer will be.
Yes this.
Like some sort of dick measuring contest on who has it worst.
There are so many variables to traumas and we’re out here acting like it’s all black and white and the side with most trauma should be given an award of some sort.
Fatphobia is institutional and way more louder than skinny shaming. It causes so many obstacles, relationships, family, food, social life.
On the other hand, skinny people also suffer from health issues and daily comments, relationship related judgement and more.
I see both as bad things and it's not comparable to me.
But it is so tone deaf to call one privileged. Skinny people who get skinny shamed are not privileged people whose privilege is causing them problem. They face problems too and though in many eyes they are not as big as fatphobia but it's rather cheap and disheartening to call it a privilege.
I mean.. this isn't really a competition but skinny people are shamed too and its pretty bad.. people make fun of them too.. How they don't have any boobs or butt or other weird comments. (Coming from someone who got fatshamed as a kid 🤷🏽♀️ )
i agree and this is not to demean what they go through but fat shamed people are literally seen as outcasts - fat people are more likely to be targetted and excluded for being fat. if they're not fun to be around the first thing people do is call them fat shaming names. society is far more exclusive of thin people compared to fat people.
As someone who was very underweight and is currently overweight, both were awful experiences for me.
I was called a skeleton and pole and other things even by my family and teachers. They gave me food more than I could eat saying I need to gain weight. Now that I'm overweight, people keep pestering me to lose weight. If I don't go to the gym even for one day, they tell me that this is the reason I'm still fat.
None of those experiences are good. I was doing what I could in both cases to have normal weight and both cases had people judging me for my appearance.
You're ignoring the fact that being skinny can be due to underlying health issues. So when someone is skinny shamed, it might be traumatic for them too.
I remember when everyone was making fun of Chadwick when he lost a ton of weight. Some gossip columns went as far as alleging drug problems. Only to find out AFTER HE DIED that dude was battling cancer. Lord knows how he managed to keep working all that while.
exactly!! no one wants to be underweight or overweight by choice and sometimes they are a certain way cos of underlying health issues (both physical and mental). People tend to ignore that completely and pass such insensitive comments!
lets tackle fat phobia and skinny shaming without comparing each other! Both are wrong and one may be worse than the other but let's not get into it and just focus on tackling both individually.
I don't know man. I know where you're coming from but I think it also sucks when people straight up comment that someone looks anorexic, someone is so "flat" etc. In either case, the message people give is that your body is not acceptable, so... Not the best idea to compare.
I am a skinny woman and have been skinny shamed multiple times. But I do believe fat shaming and skinny shaming are not the same. Let me preface by saying both are terrible and should not be done.
Why I believe they're not the same:
Being skinny is the current beauty standard and it will be a while until we see a change in that attitude. Even though beauty and fashion companies have diversified the models, there is still a very long way to go. Due to this, skinny women are automatically assumed to be pretty while fat women have to struggle to be seen as beautiful. It affects their self esteem directly. Not to mention that the media portrayal of a pretty women currently are always skinny women.
While I was skinny shamed a lot, I would also get lots of comments from different people saying they wish they had my body. It was extremely confusing to me (especially as a teenager) but it did boost me up a bit. Again, I had multiple skinny media portrayals to feel seen and feel beautiful while fat women just don't seem to have that. No one tells them that their body is ideal at all. They barely get any positive uplifting.
Oh oh, the fashion industry!! Need i even say anything? I mean, many brands had to introduce a whole new and different curve line for fat women to finally have an option to wear something nice!!
Another personal experience was that I ate lots of junk and I ate a lot. I love food and have never strictly followed any diet. I did hear a few "eat a burger" comments but that was about it. But sadly, the way fat women are shamed just trying to enjoy a meal is so disheartening. I have seen friends who feel guilty to eat something they want to because they don't to be judged. I've watched them go on crazy diets and have breakdown because those diets didn't work. They try and eat really healthy and are still told they're not based on their weight. And there's me, eating absolute shit food but not once being told that I am unhealthy (which I was). In the health industry, doctors almost always think that weight loss will miraculously solve whatever issue a fat woman is having. Doctors generally don't believe women, but fat women? Long, long way to go!
I can't even begin to speak about the systemic bigotry that fat women face in the professional world. The amount of women who are rejected from jobs for which they're qualified solely based on their weight is astounding. Fat women are regularly not given jobs due to their weight. I have been rejected from jobs before. The reasons can be varying, sometimes even racist. But will my weight ever be a factor to consider while hiring me? No, most probably not.
Oh and the misogyny? Terrible. Men treat fat women like they're the garbage on the road. It is so scary. Men generally are scary, but mix their bigotry with a weird hate for fat women? You can go to any fat positive womans profile on a social media platform and you will see men commenting the most vile, violent things because how dare the woman be happy about being fat? This hate by the way directly affects the hiring process as stated previously because we still have more men in the work force who don't look at fat women as human.
I'm sure I'm forgetting many things, but this is the jist and I do feel fat women have it worse because fat shaming affects in ways that I as a skinny women cannot comprehend. That doesn't mean skinny shaming doesn't have its negative effects. It took me years to love my body due to the skinny shaming. At the end of the day, we're all trying to get past our body dysmorphia, and hence need to be kind to each other. All weight shaming is bullying, and we should collectively do better. We should also strive to be healthy, which could mean anything depending on YOUR body.
I’m sorry but why are you trying to compare them. Fat shaming is not okay. Skinny shaming is not okay. That’s all there is to it.
P.S. Honestly claiming that being shamed for being skinny is a privilege, pretty much sounds like skinny shaming itself.
Fat shaming and skinny shaming are absolutely not the same.
While skinny shaming is without a doubt unkind, hurtful and very triggering for the person on hand, it's not the same as fat shaming which is part of fat phobia and anti fatness, a total systemic discrimination of fat people which includes amongst other things denial of healthcare, denial of jobs and opportunities and having everyday systems put into place to discriminate against you.
I can give examples of the space I work in - reproductive health. In many countries there are BMI limits - which are totally arbitrary - for things like access to IVF and adoption! The BMI itself is a hugely problematic measure. Similarly fat people's pain is minimised and everything in health is often attributed to their fatness without any investigation.
Imagine being denied surgery or being told your pain is not legitimate because you are fat.
I'm not even touching on how society treats fat people.
Skinny shaming doesn't systemically deny people healthcare, opportunity, jobs etc. It is very unkind, but it is not a class of oppression.
There are lots of fabulous educators on Instagram who talk about this issue. As a non fat person it is very very uncomfortable to read and accept, but once you see it, there is no turning back. Check out Aubrey Gordon, Virginia Sole Smith and in the food space Julia Turshen and Emiko Davies on this subject.
ETA- i'm not a fat person, and when I read and learnt, I was first super defensive and felt they were being too sensitive - and then I realised how deeply ingrained antifatness is in everyone of us and how hard we have to try to be allies. In this thread everyone who has shared their experiences with skinny shaming has spoken of hurtful comments, which is absolutely awful, but in my opinion, respectfully it's not anywhere close to the unkindness and marginalisation fat people face in every single aspect of their lives on all days - the assumptions people make about them, the denial of basic rights and opportunities, and unkindness in words from total strangers, family and friends - it's never ending.
Someone said downthread it's not the suffering Olympics, I agree, because if it was, the suffering fat people face as a collective is like a tidal tsunami compared to the ripples that are skinny shaming and we need to acknowledge that to do better !
You have articulated this very well.All bodies can be shamed regardless of size and shape and this can then contribute to poor mental health,eating disorders and low self esteem.
The difference is that fat people are also oppressed on a systemic level.
People who are skinny do not lose career opportunities, relationships (including friendships) or health options/access to public amenities because of their size, and that's the difference.
my ex broke up with me after we had sex for the first time. he said to a mutual later on that my body wasn’t “satisfying enough” for him since i’m “skinny as fuck and have no tits”
I'm really sorry about this OP, that's just awful. I'm in no way invalidating your individual trauma, but also this is the issue of men being utter trash !
Yes,I hear you.Noone is dismissing anyones struggles here.
That is why I started the conversation by saying all bodies are shamed,that is sadly how society has been.
System oppression is what I am talking about. I have read multiple accounts of people who are denied medical help across the world because they are fat.
Doctors are so biased that there is no diagonsis,treatment is usually ' reduce weight'.
Samy\_ret has explained it with example in the above comment.
um, i replied to you because you said skinny people can’t lose relationships over weight. so i told you they can. as for the doctor comment, being overweight is medically harmful hence the suggestion. there is nothing biased about the comment. i say this as someone from a medical background myself
Again,I am not talking about our personal issue only.
Fatphobia is very real. It is a systemic issue.
But is it okay to dismiss all issues as overweight and then later realise they were bigger problems which if they could have dealt early could be solved?
you’re missing the point. you had a hard time personally but skinny people are not systemically oppressed like fat people are. also, being overweight is not actually medically harmful to the extent people in society say it is - it’s just fat phobia.
i’m not missing any point. i replied to a very specific point in the comment to highlight that skinny people don’t have it all like a bed of roses. my general opinion on the topic is that while skinny shaming is atrocious and detrimental to well-being just like any other form of body shaming, yes, fat-shaming is worse because it is systemic. i have strong opinions on the post in general though — posting a question like this is A+ assholery. trauma should not be compared and grief should not be a competition. this post was unnecessary in general and i fully blame OP for being a dismissive jerk and starting a discourse over “who has it worse”
it’s unnecessary to start any discourse that focusses on comparing trauma and invalidating someone’s experience. oh your grandfather died? well my father died. oh your dog died? well my baby died. oh you’re deaf? well i’m blind. what good comes out of establishing that fat shaming is worse than skinny shaming? does it make fat people feel better? does it make the skinny people who’ve been body shamed feel better? no, right? what’s the point of going “hey guys let’s compare who has it worse in life!”
Thank you for posting this! The comment section was making my heart sink- what with hurt feelings being compared to systemic discrimination, typical of whataboutery. It's almost like listening to men's rights activists. But you've articulated this quite well. Lots of love
I agree but let's just not compare suffering here. What might feel like a ripple to you may not be a ripple to someone else. Same applies to tidal tsunami! I agree with everything you've said but by saying all that and ending with this you are indeed being insensitive 🤷🏻♀️ You could've just skipped that. It's fat phobia that is the problem in our society and it is very much an institutional problem like you've mentioned.
Respectfully, I'm not ! Multiple times I acknowledged how hurtful things may be to an individual, but we have to look at the big picture. While it may feel that way, objectively, being told you look like a skeleton is not comparable to doctors dismissing your pain, being denied surgery, and denied opportunities (like I said in my field, adoption, and jobs). But we can agree to disagree on this.
ETA: This is not hyperbole, ask the fat people in your life their experiences with healthcare and you will be absolutely appalled.
I've also mentioned all that in my other comment! Fatphobia and shaming are different and the former is a huge problem and I know what issues are linked with it as well. And like I said I have mentioned it in my other comment.
I even said I agreed with everything you said expect the last statement can be seen as invalidating underweight people and their issues. That's all.
Fat phobia is also more of an institutional problem, or societal issue to explain it better. It is much more complex than shaming.
There are multiple articles discussing this online and studies as well. You can read those.
I know the definition and what they are. I have read articles on it too. But how can anyone talk about fat shaming without talking about fat phobia which is directly the cause of fat shaming? And doesn't the existence of fat phobia answer exactly how skinny shaming and fat shaming aren't the same since skinny phobia does not exist? Since one is a systemic issue, doesn't that mean the shaming also happens at a systemic level?
This is very well articulated. The audacity of the commenter to say that it’s not oppression Olympics of whatever else they were saying. As someone who has always been mid size my whole life, even though my romantic partners always told me that my “curvy” figure was desirable, I can’t recall a day when I have not disliked my body. People around me have always told me that I’m overweight. I used to look at girls in sports classes being so flexible and I used to hate that I could never be that even if I tried. I’ve always been confident my whole life and I’ve come to now like the fact that I’ve nice tits and a nice butt. It’s so fucking ridiculous I once uploaded a picture in a bathing suit on Instagram and this girl actually commented that it was so “brave” of me to do that, while she meant well but how sad that something as rudimentary as that is considered to be “brave” are you trying to imply that I don’t deserve to feel good about myself and because I actually do feel good about myself it’s something out of the ordinary?! If this is something that a mid sized person has been subjected to their whole life I can’t even fathom what plus size people have to go through. It’s absolutely not the same. Fat people are systemically oppressed and sidelined and erased.
Edit : oh and also it doesn’t help that Eurocentric features including Eurocentric bodies (the likes of Victoria’s Secret) being worshipped doesn’t help either. If I were to get a dollar for every time I saw a VS model with a significant thigh gap and me feeling horrible about myself, I would have been a millionaire. Also fashion too caters mostly to skinny people. Most trends and clothes are designed to only look good certain body types. I can never imagine wearing a scarf as a top with my 36b boobs.
Great comment, and I agree with everything you said.
>In many countries there are BMI limits - which are totally arbitrary - for things like access to IVF and adoption!
There are lower limits for all this too- it’s just that it’s medically less likely for someone to be underweight and healthy, so people who are too skinny often have underlying health reasons which are put as the diagnosis.
>The BMI itself is a hugely problematic measure.
Agreed. Most health systems now are moving away from using BMI as a default measure of health. The guidelines for many treatment protocols are rapidly evolving to no longer include BMI and instead more accurate measures of weight and health.
>Similarly fat people's pain is minimised and everything in health is often attributed to their fatness without any investigation.
Agreed, but in developing countries like India where under nutrition is common, this absolutely happens to thin patients too. The automatic assumption in some government hospitals is that an overly thin patient with any health issues is just ‘weak’ due to poverty and under nutrition and doctors tend to just give free nutritional supplements for a few months and send them away without investigating further.
>There are lots of fabulous educators on Instagram who talk about this issue. As a non fat person it is very very uncomfortable to read and accept, but once you see it, there is no turning back. Check out Aubrey Gordon, Virginia Sole Smith and in the food space Julia Turshen and Emiko Davies on this subject.
Thanks for sharing this.
>Someone said downthread it's not the suffering Olympics, I agree, because if it was, the suffering fat people face is like a tidal tsunami compared to the ripples that are skinny shaming and we need to acknowledge that to do better !
Spot on. Great comment, and you have given everyone a lot of food for thought. Thanks for sharing your insight.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. I can in no way cover the nuance of the issue through a reddit comment, and there are many exceptions and alternate views and it's good for us all to read and understand more, but in the initial set of comments there was a lot of anecdotal sharing of the pain of skinny shaming, and I wanted to give examples of systemic policies.
The only thing I may disagree with is what you said about the assumption of 'weak' patients in government hospitals - I feel this is more a function the public healthcare system in India, and not a 'skinny shaming/dismissal' but I totally take your point that these issues can be skewed by the demographic of the country overall.
Seeing your comment with -1 upvotes legit makes me want to leave this sub. It's like men's rights and all lives matter all over again. Can't believe this space is plagued by it too.
I don’t wanna compare, but what I’ve come to realize is that Indian relatives will always body shame you. When I was chubbier, I was kinda fat shamed. Not that I’m very lean and somewhat muscular, I am skinny shamed. You can never satisfy them so I’ve stopped giving f*ucks. When I was losing weight, my parents were concerned but I explained to them that I lift heavy weights and am the strongest I’ve ever been, and they left me alone after that.
placing a person's values on their body is always going to be damaging. trauma, abuse and internalized shame affects us all differently and who's to say who had it worst. Sharing trauma can be healing but comparing it, none of us win. we are so much more than our bodies, body neutrality is how we fucking win.
skinny shaming is bad but definitely not as much as fat people. everything going wrong in a fat person's life is attributed to their weight by the people around them. i have heard so many stories of even doctors just asking them to lose weight instead of properly diagnosing them for their medical concerns which leads to serious complications later on in life. just my observation that skinny people are treated with pity whereas fat people are treated with disgust. ofc this is just a generalized observation, everybody's personal experience might differ
what is the point of this post? why are we comparing suffering? who cares if they’re equal or if one hurts more? as another commenter mentioned - stop playing oppression olympics! it doesn’t fucking matter! ridiculous post. edit - being skinny to the point of being shamed for it is NOT a privilege.
Exactly. Why do ppl have “this shaming is worse than that shaming?” mentality. Otherwarya started it and frankly she’s dumb and insensitive for starting this fight. Some sort of trauma comparison. Disgusting.
While people think that fat people don't exercise, they think that skinny people purposely maintain their weight by not eating, and 'how' one can do that if they respect their own bodies. They think that I'm skinny because I choose to be, not because of my genes and eating issues.
Please don't make yourself try to feel better by pointing out that your issue is worse than someone else's hence that issue doesn't matter. In reality, if you haven't lived in the other person's shoes, you won't really know what it feels like. This post comes across as extremely insensitive.
Privileged…emmm… like fat people skinny ppl also suffer from eating disorders, genetics, some disease/disorder that made them lose weight and would be difficult for them to gain. They also feel lower on self esteem and being constantly targeted. I was skinny shamed by my relatives, and i used to feel so anxious when I would visit them, even my cousin sister who i love so much! Whenever i was with family/extended family they used to discuss other things, when all the topics are discussed they came back to me and my weight! 😐 from being commented on how much I eat to forcibly making me eat till i puke or get bloated! Saying who would marry me if i look like that.. etc. everything is similar as fat shaming! In general people are insensitive towards others that’s it!
When you’re skinny shamed, you just feel like you’re not enough you know! I don’t think there’s any difference between the two. Commenting on anyone’s body should not be acceptable.
I don't want to compare it with fat shaming, but I can share my experience . I have been skinny shamed all my life. I happen to know 2 'fat' women who skinny shame me in this day and age but I can't say anything to them because even I slight thing I say will be blown out of proportion.
And I have seen very similar cases in different scenarios.
My point is, people think twice or are careful with their words when they are talking to an overweight person but don't give two shits while doing skinny shaming.
>this sounds like privileged people claiming how their privilege is causing them problems.
Naah. My cousin is extremely skinny and once opened up about the skinny shaming to me. Dude was traumatized.
People around my circle are more sensitive towards fat shaming. They know that it's a bad thing to do, so they don't do that. Not the case with skinny shaming. It's the normal small talk.
Atleast you can rant about fat shaming. When they rant about skinny shaming, it becomes "privileged people claiming how their privilege is causing them problems". Imo, it's a problematic opinion op.
I have been skinny shamed my entire life god, I don't know what's worse honestly and like some other commenter said why play oppression olympics?
Every family event I go to people have said the worst kind of things to me. It was kinda sad. I have gained a bit of weight now and people say "ab acchi dikhti ho tum". Like what does that mean? Pehele nahi acchi dikhti thi kya?
One really annoying uncle sat in front of me and kept his commentary on THE ENTIRE DURATION I was eating, ki you should eat more, you should eat this, you should take more.
I think it's wrong to comment on people's bodies in general. Be it skinny shaming or fat shaming. Both are incredibly wrong and insensitive.
I have been on every inch of that rope. Shamed equally.
Then, after it became difficult to loose weight for medical reasons, and I refused to starve myself to please other, plus almost developed stomach ulcer last time I did starve, I have put up my hands. _Not listening no more_ if you don’t care enough for me to let me be.
You dont get to say one’s suffering is worse or better because it comes down to how a girl feels at an individual level.
I was skinny girl in high school and first two years of college, and people would make all kinda of derogatory remarks like “matchstick” or “why do you need a bra”, “somebody hold her down, there’s a slight breeze and might get blown away” and ended up being butt of the joke and mockery in many social settings.
Some would assume I have depression or eating disorder and some would even bully me because of how frail i looked.
It made me feel really insecure and shitty about my body, would ruin my entire day. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody else
Body shaming is body shaming. Period. So let’s not try to make light of any shaming or call it a privilege because it’s vile.
I got skinny shamed ever since i was a teenager till around the age of 22 when covid hit and people physically didn't see me. People told boys won't like me ofc im so "flat" (small boobs)
Told i had boy like frame coz i have broad shoulders and i was athletic.
Also made fun of my biceps - i was an active child.
Accused me of not eating properly and even went as far to shame my mom for not feeding me well
I remember being very insecure and over eating all the time to put on some weight. At times would end throwing up.
Now at 26, people tell me how ive put on weight 🙂 some say it as a compliment. Im nowhere as fit as i was and would have been if i hadn't over fed myself and stopped working out in hopes of putting on weight.
So yeah. Maybe other people had it worse but that doesn't mean shaming i faced was a walk in the park.
I guess it depends on what kinda skinny you are, some women are skinny in an "unflattering" way (as per beauty standards, not me) I suppose, like they might have a very flat butt or flat chest and oh God, the nosy aunties make sure these girls know about it. It's not worse than fat shaming any day. But for fat people there's just no way out. You are even a little chubby and there's always someone who's gonna poke you for taking that extra piece of dessert.
No dear, it is equally painful to be skinny(even after being perfectly in figure). Just switch the shoes and you will know. There shouldn't be any kind of body shaming. It may ruin a person's morale forever. Also people's perceptions and standards of fat/skinny and beauty are different everywhere, so we should really ignore these things to live a happy life.
It's not comparable but just because people want to be skinny doesn't mean the person being shamed and bullied isn't being mentally tortured. People have different psychological capacities, things and behaviours affect people differently. People are sensitive and insecure about themselves regardless of what they're insecure about. It causes them to form a negative image of themselves, again, regardless of the reason. It is painful for everyone.
As a fat person I'd also like to note that going from fat to not fat is easier and more doable than going from skinny to fat because of incredibly fast metabolism and force feeding too much calories is more difficult than reducing a bit and moving a bit more. Although neither should be shamed but to say that one is worse than another just doesn't sit right with me because it's not about what YOU think is worse or what affects YOU. It's about what effect it has on the person being shamed. A fat person thinks they're more oppressed and they'd rather be skinny and skinny shamed because they don't want to be fat and skinny people being upset about it seems absurd to a fat person, they fail to understand that mental pain and bulling is pain and suffering no matter who it is happening to and for what reason.
What is even the point of comparing this! Skinny shaming is just as bad as fat shaming and you won't know it until you've been in the others person' s shoes. I have been skinny shamed on a daily basis since I was 7-8. You don't know how much self worth I lost because of it and how much strength it took for me to praise myself. There's no sense in comparing these things.
Controversial, but I kind of agree. I've been skinny at certain points in my life - been egged on about it, that I don't eat enough, I'm unhealthy, skin and bones.
And I've had close family members who are on the obese side. And yes, while we do have the entire body positivity movement and uplifting those who are considered fat, people who are overweight do have a harder time both individually and institutionally.
I had a cousin of mine who was having health issues, when 2 doctors dismissed her off as "overweight", and misdiagnosed her problem. (She started gaining weight like crazy after losing a parent.) Most shops in the regular market don't have sizes that accomodate after a certain length/width standard. A lot of morbidly obese people have difficulties in accessing public transport or even airline seats.
It's pretty easy to say, oh just lose weight, but that doesn't take into account a variety of factors like resources, support, and finances.
So yeah summing up on my experience - skinny shaming can be more individual, but fat shaming is both individual and institutional. Both suck.
As someone who's been on both ends, let me just say that while skinny shaming is valid, being skinny comes with a tonne of privileges and it's okay to acknowledge that. It's not a competition. Fat people are systematically punished for being who they are. Skinny people aren't.
I mean you have to be on the either end personally to understand i guess. I've been skinny my whole life and i can guarantee there hasn't been a single day where someone hasn't said something about my health. People naturally assume I'm sick, i don't eat properly, i need a doctor, I'm not normal, start giving me tips on what to eat l, how to eat, when to eat and the list goes on and on. I mean i cannot tell you how embarassing and traumatizing it is as a young girl when distant relatives corner you in family functions and literally demand to know "omg what's wrong with you". For example: my mother's aunt, who she hadn't met in decades came to a family function and like every Indian family i was asked to touch her feet and as soon as I stated doing that she literally stopped me by saying "oh God look at your condition". She meant i was so skinny i shouldn't really strain myself. I will not ever understand what fat people go through but being skinny hasn't ever been easy.
The worst part of being skinny shamed is that it is sooooo normalised that your own parents think it’s okay to bully you into eating more. At least fat shaming has some stigma associated with it.
Fat people look towards being slim; slim people look towards being fat. So both of them think that the grass is greener on the other side but it's not. There's no grass on either sides. Just unwanted and unsolicited advices and passive-aggressive suggestions, comments etc.
I have had to live in different towns and cities all my life and, in a way, nobody knows what i used to look like. I have been fat, i have been slim, i have been healthy, i have also been in "good shape" but ailing due to other issues lol.
I can’t honestly compare both experiences- but both are quite shitty. Skinny shaming is pretty awful too💀- we get asked to eat, told that our body is guy like cuz often flat and the fact that nobody would like us(ones value shouldn’t even be derived from others liking you- yknow we’re more than that) and never really reaching societal beauty curvy standard- and sometimes just shown pity by some people ovo. Oh ya- also being a tomboy on top of this leads me to getting weird social reaction. Fun✨
But at the same time- I’m not undermining the stuff fat people have to go through, societal bias and stuff. And also could be maybe socially seen as a lil more relaxed compared to north here in Kerala? Ig even the media and actors in Molly-wood is usually inclusive to vivid body types, so are people. Not saying it’s nil, but slightly relaxed prolly. I’ve seen cases of people stigmatising others from their body type too- it’s just ew that people tend to reduce others and their characteristics just from the body types even tho genetic factors, metabolism rates and other things toll in, and I understand your struggles sister
In the end- ig we all just have our struggles and both suck:/ it’s not a competition and both suck, I used to made fun off too- especially my hand which is just bones. We should all just support each other and uplift each other, trying to avoid further internal conflicts💕. Women supporting women✨💖:>
Everyone's experience is personal and there is no comparison in trauma. You are entitled to feel the way you feel and there is no relative scale that we can use to see which trauma is worse. It is like saying murder is worse than suicide whereas the reality is in both cases you are as dead as a natural death. I do agree as a society the connotation with being fat and the beauty standards all work against women who are plus size but your self esteem takes the same blow of bullying and the hate you feel towards your body is just the same. I have grown up with a skinny sister and she has been called vile names. Things like malnourished, "gharwale khana ni dete", guys don't like girls with no boobs, haddi hi dikh rahi hai - is something she hears on a daily basis. She got into overeating just to gain some weight. So yea it is not better or worse, it is trauma period.
I’m a skinny person, and I agree. There’s no systemic discrimination against skinny people. A comment is not the same as real actual discrimination. And I really do experience the thin privilege, especially as a woman. I mean, ozempic is sold out because people are willing to sacrifice their health just to be thin. Especially in western society, thinness is a way of displaying status imo.
But obviously my experiences are of a woman living in the west, I know that it would be very different in India. When I went for holidays, many relatives told me I look “disgusting” and that they’re very concerned and it’s not attractive or nice to look at me lol. Which is hilarious to me because I’m complimented(sometimes also teased) for it in the west, it’s not like my body changed, just the beauty standards of the people around me 😂
So true. "Oppression olympics" is being severely misused here IMO. Fatphobia has very socioeconomic and healthcare access implications that skinny shaming doesn't.
The comparison isn't meant to make skinny people feel bad. It's meant to understand the greater implication of fatphobia and give it the extra attention required to fix it.
That said, arguing with your skinny friend that your fatphobia problem is worse that her problem isn't helpful either.
I agree with you OP. All types of body shaming is bad..and shouldn't be compared. But if someone says skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming, they are simply being ignorant. The experiences and consequences that obese people have to face on a day to day life is far more bitter than what skinny people go through. Look around you, our society in general prefers skinny people over fat people, and that's a fact (you'd be lying to yourself if you don't agree).
Some auto rickshaws charge you extra because of your weight. There's a fat tax charged by many clothing brands.If you are skinny, you can be a "model", but if you are overweight, you will be labelled as a "plus size" model. Look at our entertainment industry. How many "fat" people have made a big name? When Vidya Balan and Aishwarya gained weight, they were trolled left right and centre. But Kareena Kapoor's "zero" figure started a trend. Even Kareena was called names then, but it definitely started a trend and women aspired to be skinny like her.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. One is fatphobia, the other is shaming. The former is an systemic problem (there's ample research on discrimination in hiring policies, medical system, flying). The latter is insensitive and horrible, however, not tied to systemic discrimination.
If you're a skinny person reading this, don't get defensive please. This is not minimizing your problems or trauma. It's just the way our society is. Body shaming can happen at all sizes, however, fatphobia is not just that. It's a combination of body shaming plus discriminatory practises in everyday life. Hence, it's systemic.
source:
https://www.youngfoundation.org/our-work/publications/fatphobia-kickstart-report/
edit : please read the research report before downvoting
I've been both thin and fat. And anyone in my position will agree that the reason why this is triggering so many skinny people is that they don't understand the systemic discrimination that fat people have to face- as opposed to the nonsensical hurtful things that people say to you when you're skinny. True, it is like comparing apples to oranges. But facts are facts and I wish skinny people would stop appropriating the movement. They're not discriminated against, they're bullied. Ofcourse it is horrible- but it's entirely different.
You can call it anecdotal but I've seen plenty of people boast about how thin they are, how much they can eat without putting on, brag about having to shop in the kids section- but it's definitely common. Would anyone ever brag about being fat? About how easily they put on weight? Would anyone ever brag about shopping from the plus size options? I don't know- do you people never wonder about these things?
Right ! I can’t believe the amount of butthurt skinny snowflakes in the comment section trying to appropriate a movement with their so called aLl lIvEs mAtTeR trauma. Discrimination and bullying are not the same.
Ya man this sub can be weird sometimes. Selectively woke I guess. As i expected, my comment seems to be heavily downvoted. Guess skinny people dominate here too lol
I’ve been skinny shamed almost all my life , but tell you what it’s not as cruel as fat shaming. It’s not . OP is right, my friend is overweight and I’ve seen her suffer , blatant use of derogatory terms , saying they won’t get love if they don’t lose weight, blaming their looks for abuse they face and what not.
Skinny shaming is equally bad. Especially for men. But even for women, if they don't have fat in the required areas, they can feel equally horrible about themselves. I don't think this is an argument worth having. Everyone has it rough, be sympathetic towards everyone. Just be kind!
I've been skinny shamed as a skinny person, but the insane thing is that I've also been fat shamed as a skinny person, which says a lot about society and how they are different. I doubt a fat person would ever get skinny shamed
I know someone who I am close to who is quite skinny and I am not kidding how much people keep shaming them. Every single family gathering is them being shamed for it. Random family friends, salon people, neighbours etc all shame them. They stopped wearing clothes that had half sleeves because of it and hate looking at themselves.
I understand fat shaming too but both are very real and very bad. It's not one or the other, you don't choose between two evils.
They both equally suck. Skinny shaming can be just as damaging as fat shaming. I was skinny for most part of my life until recently when I put on a couple of kilos. For most part of my life, I was subject to teasing and snarky remarks. It ranged from being made fun of for not having any tits or ass to being told I look like a 12 year old boy.
It created a whole lot of body issues for me. Every relationship I was in, I was insecure about not having ample assets. I put on a few kilos after a medical incident last year. And while most of my friends ans family were happy and said I looked healthier, I also got a few unpleasant comments. And accepting my current body has been a struggle too.
I’ve come to realise no matter what you look like, you’ll most probably always be judged and shamed. Instead of trying to shame others for their experiences, we are better off loving the body we are in and not shitting on others just because you can’t relate to their struggle.
It saddens me that this is even a topic of discussion.
Fat shaming is definitely more systemic than skinny shaming. People in public transport will discrimiate against you if you are fat. It is assumed that a fat person does not take care of their health and is lazy. Specially in places of work. Being fat is not desirable. No one wakes up wanting to be fat. People do desire to be skinny. Medical health professionals do not dismiss skinny ppl’s health issues to ‘lose weight, that’s your problem!’ It is hard to find plus size clothing, often times more expensive. Fat people are marginalised to a great extent.
First let me make it clear that no one deserves to disrespected just because of their weight. It's your body,your choice so I don't see why someone's size is anybody else's business.
That being said...
>It is assumed that a fat person does not take care of their health
Do they actually? I understand that some people have thyroid issues,pcos, depression but for the most part every fat person I know has absolutely 0 concerns about their health. Their cholesterol levels are high,they are almost on the brink of pre-diabetes etc.
Tbh all my friends with PCOS have also lost weight after they started working out and controlling their their diet.
>No one wakes up wanting to be fat.
It does come with a plethora of issues,so, I do understand why no one would want that.
>Medical health professionals do not dismiss skinny ppl’s health issues to ‘lose weight, that’s your problem!’
Again it does come with a lot of issues but so maybe sometimes that actually true. Some people hate when reality are shoved in their faces.
>It is hard to find plus size clothing, often times more expensive.
Everybody deserves to look good and to find great clothes for their size but I read somewhere that the high prices of the outfits are because of more fabric required and higher manufacturing costs. Manufacturers don't care about the our feelings,do they? Profit is what they want.
>Fat people are marginalised to a great extent.
This the truth. People are blatantly disrespectful towards fat people and there's so much discrimination everywhere. I have seen teachers ask fat students to lose weight out loud in the classroom and I really don't understand how someone else's body and what they choose do with it is anybody else's business.
As someone who has been both fat and skinny. I've actually been shamed more after losing weight. My lunch gets laughed at every day. My workout schedule gets made fun of. I get lots of sarcastic comments about my body. No one at all commented on my body or my eating when I was fat.
I have been 'fat' and/or overweight my whole life and it was not my fault (I have thyroid). The amount of mental trauma and taunts I have gone through are a proof that being skinny is not only desirable but also a privilege. I did manage to lose my excess weight at a point in time and people behaved as if I had been saved from a huge disaster or that my life was now worth living. People have always made me feel that I am not pretty or beautiful. I am sure skinny people also suffer with their bodies but let us not pretend that it is anywhere near fat shaming. So OP I AGREE WITH EVERY SINGLE WORD OF YOURS.
How is being skinny a privilege? By skinny I guess you mean normal BMI. That's healthy and what people should strive for.
If being skinny is a privilege then being fat(excluding medical conditions) is a consequence. Eating clean and working out is the only way to stay fit.
Believe me, each one is bad in its own way. I’ve always been skinny and my sister on the other end. And people have let neither of us live in peace or my mother.
It’s always whyyyyyy are you so thin… and the whyyyyy is so whiny, eat something, doesn’t your mother feed you… just thoughtlessly hurtful remarks. And I don’t really understand what the other person is trying to achieve by asking this. Surely it’s not because they care about me.
And reverse this for my sister. Sure, as you said fat shaming means people think you’re lazy etc, but when you’re skinny, people just assume that you are vain and too concerned about your looks and god forbid if you’re skinny and like to exercise!!!
It somewhat depends on the words I guess. Skinny shaming can go as far as calling a teenager not a complete woman, calling vulgar names because lack of boobs etc. are quite problematic.
As someone who has never weighed even 40 kgs, this is absurdly disrespectful. I am a wonderful orator, always have been, but I am allowed nowhere near the stage because ‘I won’t be visible’. I can’t swim because there is no swimwear available in my size. You want to talk about shaming? My extended family harassed me into not getting out of my house for three years. Absolutely every single day of my life I am asked why I look the way I do, do I not eat enough, am I self harming. In the metro, at a cafe, walking on the street. People think it’s okay to walk up to me and say the nastiest things because I am skinny and it’s all in jest. My job interviews begin with them asking me if I have always been ‘this way’. My teachers, instead of protecting me from the bullying, contributed to it on the daily. Heck nobody even asks me if I am alright, happy, better, worse. The first comment made to me, the minute a known/unknown person opens their mouth is always to do with my appearance. From the tailor, to my colleagues, strangers, security at the airports, cab drivers, absolutely everyone demands a justification from me. I grew up thinking I needed to be fixed. I grew up thinking I needed to be resourceful in order for people to want me in their lives. I grew up thinking I had to learn to laugh at myself because everybody else did. My skills, my abilities, my hard work never mattered until it translated into money.
There is no privilege that comes with this, OP. What is systemic is Shaming. In all shapes and sizes. Just because it is more noticeable, fat shaming tends to make people think its the only kind to exist. Human beings are wretched when they want fun. It doesn’t matter at what or whose expense it comes from. So yes, what fat people go through is vile and disgusting and costs them opportunities. But what skinny people go through is the same. We are at least talking about representation and inclusion of fat people in fashion, on screen and absolutely everywhere they have been barred to enter just by the virtue of what they look like. This made me hopeful that tomorrow, people like me will also be accorded the same opportunities because the root cause of our problems is the same. But statements such as ‘skinny shaming is a privilege’ just makes me think representation and inclusion is only for a certain problem.
It doesn’t matter who’s getting it worse…the fact is both are getting mistreated. Someone talking about being shamed for being skinny doesn’t invalidate fat shaming problem and same for the other way around.
I am skinny. Have always been. Even after having 2 kids. And I have been skinny shamed my entire life. As a child, in school and with friends mostly everyone said something or the other. As I grew up I have got so much unsolicited advice on how to gain weight. In hostel, other girls used to make fun of me by saying I will never be able to satisfy my partner. I have heard it all.
I don’t like my body because of this reason. I am always in jeans and tees because I feel nothing looks good on me. So yes I feel skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming. It leaves you with scars all the same.
i think the difference is how systemically fat people are either made invisible in the society or have negative connotations attached to them - there are plastic chairs, bus seats they can’t walk sit on. their representation in the media has portrayed them either as lazy or villainous. and fatness ultimately is seen as something “one should never be”, like it’s one of the worst things a person can be, but that’s not the attitude towards skinny people. at the end of the day, women have been forced to internalize that if they’d rather be either of the two, they would be skinny than fat.
that’s my view, i obviously don’t mean the bullying skinny girls are subjected to is less damaging in anyway, my thought is based on prevalent beauty standards and i’m always happy to hear a counter argument.
Fat shaming is systematic. Skinny shaming is personal. I don't exactly know any skinny person who was not diagnosed properly due to their weight. Doctors straight up REFUSE to treat fat people because they are fat and even a stomach pain is prescribed with losing weight. I know so many people who were overweight and had to wait YEARS before a diagnosis because everything was attributed to their weight. Not only that fat people face discrimination against being hired (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161130-fat-people-earn-less-and-have-a-harder-time-finding-work) just because they're fat and therefore must be lazy. If people tell they're the same then they're ignorant and idiots.
Its not oppression olympics, yall are completely missing the point. You ask a skinny person if they’d want to remain skinny or be fat instead and guess what they’d say? Exactly. Nobody wants to be overweight, whereas a good number of people want to be skinny. They are simply not comparable. Studies show that negative traits are attached to fat people vs skinny people because of the halo effect that supermodels give out. Clothes are designed for the skinny body. Fat people are simply dehumanized, I don’t think skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming and people who say otherwise have no idea what it is like to occupy a fat body. This is not to say that skinny shaming is non existent, womens bodies are a political issue no matter what and not having the genetically perfect fat distribution is what women are shamed for when they’re skinny. But, hear me out, the thinner body is the default body in most Asian societies. I get where skinny people are coming from, but cmon guys do you not hear even skinny people saying “omg I look so fat” sometimes, do you ever wonder how fatphobic society is? You would never know. Its incredibly difficult. If you ever gain weight some day to the point where people point it out 🙏 you shall only realized it at that point
I don't want to compare the two, but I think saying being skinny is a privilege is a shitty thing to say.
I used to be underweight most of my life. I've been called a skeleton, asked why I don't eat anything, people asked my mother why she's not feeding me anything, asked to grab a pole when it's windy so that I won't fly away, but imo these are all pretty harmless.
The hurtful comments were those insinuating that I'm not enough of a woman because I don't have curves. I've been asked to cover up because "let other people at least think you have boobs". I've been told that people won't find me desirable because I don't have boobs or butt. I used to envy overweight people for their curves.
Don't compare trauma. You'll always feel like grass is greener on the other side.
Why can't we just agree that any form of body shaming is bad? Trying to create a competition of which us worse causes more division amongst women when really we should be uplifting each other.
It depends on where it's being used. If skinny Shaming is brought up to dismiss or lower the impact of fat shaming then it's just being misused.
Same goes for bringing up fat shaming if someone is opening up about being shamed for being skinny.
It's not an either or thing. And like all comparisons, the goal is often to diminish the impact of each one individually.
Neither is better or worse. And neither has to be.
Problem is people not having manners to firstly not speak about someone else's body. Especially when it's about things that are not in their control.
It's basically just bullying. We can talk about and compare real life impact of being overweight vs skinny.
But doesn't change that it's just people bullying someone who doesn't fit their description of "normal".
I think the bigger conversation that needs to be had is always just abundance of people having the tendency to bully and getting away with it.
I don’t know. I’m fat and my husband is skinny- they both make us equally feel shitty. It depends on the person though, for example, men would feel worse being called skinny than women would. Men aren’t really shamed for being overweight like they are skinny.
Ha! That is such an interesting observation. It’s true that it’s somehow a bigger insult for a man to be called skinny than overweight. Not being muscular is seen as being ‘weak’ somehow. Whatever that means. Gotta hand it to patriarchy, beats down both women and men with arbitrary body ideals 🥲
Kamzor ho gye ho beta is what aunties say to men whereas having a potbelly is considered good. Neither of them is muscular, but somehow former is considered better for men.
Anecdotal: but I've been skinny shamed in school and it was nowhere near to what my friend who was slightly overweight used to go through Personally I believe, skinny shaming and fat shaming are not exactly comparable but again it's my opinion. I think skinny shaming gets worse as an adult women as I've seen them being shamed for not having "curves" etc.
I was fat shamed as a kid by relatives etc but it got better as I grew up. On the other hand my close friend who was skinny shamed it's getting worse and worse for her with each passing year.
Yes this. The "curves" part.
I think the issue is that people in bigger bodies aren't taken seriously. They're the butt of all jokes and the first thing people attack about a fat person is their well.. fatness. Being skinny, on the other hand, is like having a flat ass or a big nose (not saying these are bad things, just that they're not the standard). You can get picked on for those things but they don't become your whole identity.
it can definitely become your identity. it was mine, for a very long time, in several different circles. i’ve had people reference me as “that thin girl” on several occasions. it was/is 100% my identity
You know my friend (26M) broke up with this certifiably crazy woman (24F) who happened to be overweight l. She was tracking his location, threatened to kill his friends and all of that. She really needs medical intervention But but when my guy friends talk about her they just say - “don’t go back to that fatty” -.-
okay girls, lets compare traumas today /s
i drowned in 4 feet of water but you drowned in 9 feet of water, so you’re obviously more dead than me. /s
Came here to give this analogy😂 I've been skinny shamed all my life. I've gone upto lengths to put up weight, but I eventually gave up, because, who cares, im happy. I've had my girlfriends saying to me with the straight face that my future partner will not "have fun" with me. I'm an aspiring crazy cat lady, but that doesn't matter and doesn't give them any right to be that shallow and rude. And these are are adults with a possibly fully grown brain in their early twenties. So people just pass on comments and expect you to not feel anything. So a demeaning comment is a demeaning comment. Period. Getting hurt is not quantifiable.
exactly my thoughts 😞
exactly, this post feels like that. trauma olympics. “I got skinny shamed by my relative” “Oh but it’s nowhere near fat shaming that we people have to endure” Like okay girl, what do you want me to say? You win. Okay?
Couldn't have worded it better myself..thank u.
that is such an immature take. the fact is that fat shaming is systemic while skinny shaming is not. nobody is comparing traumas but i think society needs a reminder that fat shaming exists on a whole different level than skinny shaming.
Fat shaming is not the same as skinny shaming for sure. Like even the way how the world runs - from those tiny plastic chairs in the waiting area to the tiny plane/ bus seats is a constant reminder that you are big as per societal standards. Avoiding walking into a store coz you know that they would not have your size. It’s not just verbal shaming but also constant non verbal reminders all around you. But that being said, the pain inflicted is more or less the same on a person. Both are made to feel inadequate, both are made to feel shitty.
I think it is insensitive! Everyone has their own set of struggles. My close friend is very skinny and she has had so many people call her names. I used to be overweight and people called me so many names as well. It affected her mental well being and it affected mine as well. We used to make fun of each other and wished if could just swap some fat (again since we both had our struggles and we were close, we weren't being hurtful when we used this statement so don't come at me for this lol). She used to struggle so much to put even a little bit of weight on while I would struggle to lose weight. She was also extremely tall on top of that and she struggled finding clothes that fit her and clothes that made her look a little less skinny. On the other hand I struggled to find clothes that fit me perfectly. She would cry anytime someone called her bones cos of her arms being like sticks and I would cry anytime someone called me arms cos of my fat arms. We both suffered equally, just in a different way. Other than all this, there are health problems that lead to people being underweight and same applies to people being overweight. My friend was much more sensitive so it actually made her anti social and she would never come out. I on the other hand learnt to tell everyone to fuck off and still did what I wanted, not saying them shaming me did not hurt but it did not stop me from hanging out with people. You also don't know why someone is a certain way, so in general shaming is bad. I don't think it has anything to do with privilege. You cannot compare struggles and sufferings. It is very hurtful, ignorant, and wrong. As long as someone is feeling healthy, thats all that matters but it is easy to say but not that easy to follow. Skinny shaming and fat shaming cannot and should not be compared.
edit - being underweight and overweight may lead to personal problems and also problems in your work environment based on where you are and what your field is. But being overweight leads to a lot more issues when it comes to medical stuff compared to when being underweight - pretty much anytime you go to a doctor, their first suggestion for treatment would be "weight loss", which in most cases is actually true and has worked a lot for me but not always! Being overweight also leads to pregnancy issues. Not saying being underweight doesn't, cos my sister is underweight and one of the side effects for that has been low bone density and deals with join dislocation. She has to avoid stairs when possible and it's not like she is old or anything. She also had a lot of issues with her pregnancy! The last trimester she was in a bed rest. Each has its own set of problems 🤷🏻♀️ Fertility is one big problem when being underweight or overweight. Maybe instances like on a flight, the seats are made considering an "average human" size and if you are bigger then you have to pay for an extra seat or pay for business class. Which I agree is unfair but that all that is cos the world has this set definition of "perfect" which is incorrect. But on the other hand, my sister has been in a situation where she was told to move her seat handle so that the person near her can occupy a bit more space cos she doesn't need the entire seat cos he is "skinny". You can't really compare both these situations and both are insensitive and wrong! But at the end the struggles are not the same and cannot and should not be compared! I think we as humans just need to stop being insensitive and put ourselves in the others shoes before we start spewing shit. edit - ignore my grammatical errors!
As a former skinny person that then gained weight, I fully understand where you’re coming from.. but, OP, just because someone is in a fully body cast doesn’t mean that a broken arm doesn’t hurt. When I was younger(even as young as 13) people felt it was okay to tell me that I look like I’m going to the bathroom and throwing all my food up, no doctor believed my PCOS issues because I didn’t fit into the “weight” they consider to be problematic and even blamed me for trying to lose weight and causing my own problems.. I was constantly considered weak and people thought it’s okay to call me things like “flat table”.. I understand where you’re coming from as well because as soon as I gained weight, my appetite that was “too little” when I was younger was now “too much”(THE EXACT SAME AMOUNT OF FOOD). I think the problem here is people and their audacities.. so much of my self worth was attached to my weight and it was never the “perfect” weight for anyone.
Reminds me of the men that give example of women in Arab countries to deny the sufferings of other women. Edit : from someone who's skinny The amount of times I overate till my body rejected it, wearing two shirts and two bottoms in Indian summer so as to not look like a "skeleton". Also we live in a country where curvy body is the ideal one. I don't expect you to understand my pain but you have no right to demean it either.
me too girl. not me wearing butt pads on my first date with a man and searching how to grow breasts “naturally” for a whole decade. also i lost a lot of weight recently due to depression and i feel very insecure about my ribs kind of showing through my chest and so feel hesitant getting intimate with my boyfriend which is affecting my self esteem and our sex life :’)
I’d argue. Fat positivity is an entire movement which is aimed at uplifting the plus sized body types. Fat shaming someone is often looked down at, and is generally considered very rude. Same can’t be said about skinny shaming. There’s no movement about “skinny positivity”, because being skinny is considered so desirable, that the plight of those who’re skinny shamed on the daily, is never taken into account. It’s way too easy to get away after skinny shaming someone, than it is after fat shaming someone. As someone who was skinny shamed all her life, it’s definitely not a “privilege”. Just because society goes gaga over skinny bodies, doesn’t mean skinny people consider their bodies a blessing or a privilege.
This! You expressed it better than me, Thanks🤝
There was skinny positivity in the 90s and early 2000s a la Kate Moss’ ‘heroin chic’. The ‘it’ accessory in high fashion was an ED. /s I’m kidding of course. As someone who’s lived through the era of super skinny fashion goals. Let’s not bring that back again, unless you’re naturally a size 0 with no underlying health conditions. Gives me nightmares just thinking about it.
Also forgot to add that all these horrible horrible comments somehow subconsciously manifested into an eating disorder. That was the worst fucking phase of my life. I'm so much better now but honestly can't even think of those times without feeling a bit triggered almost.
Why play oppression Olympics? Just because people are starving in Africa doesn't mean you are not hungry. Your post in my opinion comes off as jealous and insensitive
> Just because people are starving in Africa doesn't mean you are not hungry. > > I am gonna steal this analogy
Yup, also very curious how & why OP considers being skinny a privilege as though thin people get some kind of advantage in life? Both are body shaming, what's with the competition?
+1111
I mean, there is is no systemic discrimination towards skinny women now is there? Yet there is a whole set of bigotry fat women face while searching for work, in health care, in the fashion industry etc. They're denied there basic rights just because they're fat, which is simply not the case for skinny women. Both shaming are bad, but one of them is the beauty standard while the other has to fight to get even basic decency in most settings. The easiest way to understand this is this: if a fat woman loses weight, everyone will congratulate her on the weight loss, and tell her how good she looks. When skinny women become fat (and no, I don't mean gaining a little amount of weight), no one tells them that. Or ask any person if they could choose, would they be fat or would they be skinny? You know what the answer will be.
Seriously, this. What's even the point of this post. If OP discusses this with her friends, frankly, she needs better friends.
Yes this. Like some sort of dick measuring contest on who has it worst. There are so many variables to traumas and we’re out here acting like it’s all black and white and the side with most trauma should be given an award of some sort.
Fatphobia is institutional and way more louder than skinny shaming. It causes so many obstacles, relationships, family, food, social life. On the other hand, skinny people also suffer from health issues and daily comments, relationship related judgement and more. I see both as bad things and it's not comparable to me. But it is so tone deaf to call one privileged. Skinny people who get skinny shamed are not privileged people whose privilege is causing them problem. They face problems too and though in many eyes they are not as big as fatphobia but it's rather cheap and disheartening to call it a privilege.
I've been skinny shamed all my life & I hate it. Any family event & it's like - here we go again. It's not a privilege at all.
I so feel this. An its so hard to gain any wt, and you are so quick to lose it as soon as you fall even a lil sick.
I've been on both ends of the spectrum and I was shamed either way. Now I have an abusive relationship with food.
I mean.. this isn't really a competition but skinny people are shamed too and its pretty bad.. people make fun of them too.. How they don't have any boobs or butt or other weird comments. (Coming from someone who got fatshamed as a kid 🤷🏽♀️ )
i agree and this is not to demean what they go through but fat shamed people are literally seen as outcasts - fat people are more likely to be targetted and excluded for being fat. if they're not fun to be around the first thing people do is call them fat shaming names. society is far more exclusive of thin people compared to fat people.
As someone who was very underweight and is currently overweight, both were awful experiences for me. I was called a skeleton and pole and other things even by my family and teachers. They gave me food more than I could eat saying I need to gain weight. Now that I'm overweight, people keep pestering me to lose weight. If I don't go to the gym even for one day, they tell me that this is the reason I'm still fat. None of those experiences are good. I was doing what I could in both cases to have normal weight and both cases had people judging me for my appearance.
It's not a competition! Both are hurtful. Stop shaming altogether! Why is this even a topic of discussion! Get a job, dude!
You're ignoring the fact that being skinny can be due to underlying health issues. So when someone is skinny shamed, it might be traumatic for them too.
I remember when everyone was making fun of Chadwick when he lost a ton of weight. Some gossip columns went as far as alleging drug problems. Only to find out AFTER HE DIED that dude was battling cancer. Lord knows how he managed to keep working all that while.
Exactly! You never know what's going on with a person.
exactly!! no one wants to be underweight or overweight by choice and sometimes they are a certain way cos of underlying health issues (both physical and mental). People tend to ignore that completely and pass such insensitive comments!
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lets tackle fat phobia and skinny shaming without comparing each other! Both are wrong and one may be worse than the other but let's not get into it and just focus on tackling both individually.
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"eat a burger"
Same energy as ‘homeless people should just get a house’
I don't know man. I know where you're coming from but I think it also sucks when people straight up comment that someone looks anorexic, someone is so "flat" etc. In either case, the message people give is that your body is not acceptable, so... Not the best idea to compare.
I am a skinny woman and have been skinny shamed multiple times. But I do believe fat shaming and skinny shaming are not the same. Let me preface by saying both are terrible and should not be done. Why I believe they're not the same: Being skinny is the current beauty standard and it will be a while until we see a change in that attitude. Even though beauty and fashion companies have diversified the models, there is still a very long way to go. Due to this, skinny women are automatically assumed to be pretty while fat women have to struggle to be seen as beautiful. It affects their self esteem directly. Not to mention that the media portrayal of a pretty women currently are always skinny women. While I was skinny shamed a lot, I would also get lots of comments from different people saying they wish they had my body. It was extremely confusing to me (especially as a teenager) but it did boost me up a bit. Again, I had multiple skinny media portrayals to feel seen and feel beautiful while fat women just don't seem to have that. No one tells them that their body is ideal at all. They barely get any positive uplifting. Oh oh, the fashion industry!! Need i even say anything? I mean, many brands had to introduce a whole new and different curve line for fat women to finally have an option to wear something nice!! Another personal experience was that I ate lots of junk and I ate a lot. I love food and have never strictly followed any diet. I did hear a few "eat a burger" comments but that was about it. But sadly, the way fat women are shamed just trying to enjoy a meal is so disheartening. I have seen friends who feel guilty to eat something they want to because they don't to be judged. I've watched them go on crazy diets and have breakdown because those diets didn't work. They try and eat really healthy and are still told they're not based on their weight. And there's me, eating absolute shit food but not once being told that I am unhealthy (which I was). In the health industry, doctors almost always think that weight loss will miraculously solve whatever issue a fat woman is having. Doctors generally don't believe women, but fat women? Long, long way to go! I can't even begin to speak about the systemic bigotry that fat women face in the professional world. The amount of women who are rejected from jobs for which they're qualified solely based on their weight is astounding. Fat women are regularly not given jobs due to their weight. I have been rejected from jobs before. The reasons can be varying, sometimes even racist. But will my weight ever be a factor to consider while hiring me? No, most probably not. Oh and the misogyny? Terrible. Men treat fat women like they're the garbage on the road. It is so scary. Men generally are scary, but mix their bigotry with a weird hate for fat women? You can go to any fat positive womans profile on a social media platform and you will see men commenting the most vile, violent things because how dare the woman be happy about being fat? This hate by the way directly affects the hiring process as stated previously because we still have more men in the work force who don't look at fat women as human. I'm sure I'm forgetting many things, but this is the jist and I do feel fat women have it worse because fat shaming affects in ways that I as a skinny women cannot comprehend. That doesn't mean skinny shaming doesn't have its negative effects. It took me years to love my body due to the skinny shaming. At the end of the day, we're all trying to get past our body dysmorphia, and hence need to be kind to each other. All weight shaming is bullying, and we should collectively do better. We should also strive to be healthy, which could mean anything depending on YOUR body.
I’m sorry but why are you trying to compare them. Fat shaming is not okay. Skinny shaming is not okay. That’s all there is to it. P.S. Honestly claiming that being shamed for being skinny is a privilege, pretty much sounds like skinny shaming itself.
Fat shaming and skinny shaming are absolutely not the same. While skinny shaming is without a doubt unkind, hurtful and very triggering for the person on hand, it's not the same as fat shaming which is part of fat phobia and anti fatness, a total systemic discrimination of fat people which includes amongst other things denial of healthcare, denial of jobs and opportunities and having everyday systems put into place to discriminate against you. I can give examples of the space I work in - reproductive health. In many countries there are BMI limits - which are totally arbitrary - for things like access to IVF and adoption! The BMI itself is a hugely problematic measure. Similarly fat people's pain is minimised and everything in health is often attributed to their fatness without any investigation. Imagine being denied surgery or being told your pain is not legitimate because you are fat. I'm not even touching on how society treats fat people. Skinny shaming doesn't systemically deny people healthcare, opportunity, jobs etc. It is very unkind, but it is not a class of oppression. There are lots of fabulous educators on Instagram who talk about this issue. As a non fat person it is very very uncomfortable to read and accept, but once you see it, there is no turning back. Check out Aubrey Gordon, Virginia Sole Smith and in the food space Julia Turshen and Emiko Davies on this subject. ETA- i'm not a fat person, and when I read and learnt, I was first super defensive and felt they were being too sensitive - and then I realised how deeply ingrained antifatness is in everyone of us and how hard we have to try to be allies. In this thread everyone who has shared their experiences with skinny shaming has spoken of hurtful comments, which is absolutely awful, but in my opinion, respectfully it's not anywhere close to the unkindness and marginalisation fat people face in every single aspect of their lives on all days - the assumptions people make about them, the denial of basic rights and opportunities, and unkindness in words from total strangers, family and friends - it's never ending. Someone said downthread it's not the suffering Olympics, I agree, because if it was, the suffering fat people face as a collective is like a tidal tsunami compared to the ripples that are skinny shaming and we need to acknowledge that to do better !
You have articulated this very well.All bodies can be shamed regardless of size and shape and this can then contribute to poor mental health,eating disorders and low self esteem. The difference is that fat people are also oppressed on a systemic level. People who are skinny do not lose career opportunities, relationships (including friendships) or health options/access to public amenities because of their size, and that's the difference.
my ex broke up with me after we had sex for the first time. he said to a mutual later on that my body wasn’t “satisfying enough” for him since i’m “skinny as fuck and have no tits”
I'm really sorry about this OP, that's just awful. I'm in no way invalidating your individual trauma, but also this is the issue of men being utter trash !
Yes,I hear you.Noone is dismissing anyones struggles here. That is why I started the conversation by saying all bodies are shamed,that is sadly how society has been. System oppression is what I am talking about. I have read multiple accounts of people who are denied medical help across the world because they are fat. Doctors are so biased that there is no diagonsis,treatment is usually ' reduce weight'. Samy\_ret has explained it with example in the above comment.
um, i replied to you because you said skinny people can’t lose relationships over weight. so i told you they can. as for the doctor comment, being overweight is medically harmful hence the suggestion. there is nothing biased about the comment. i say this as someone from a medical background myself
Again,I am not talking about our personal issue only. Fatphobia is very real. It is a systemic issue. But is it okay to dismiss all issues as overweight and then later realise they were bigger problems which if they could have dealt early could be solved?
you’re missing the point. you had a hard time personally but skinny people are not systemically oppressed like fat people are. also, being overweight is not actually medically harmful to the extent people in society say it is - it’s just fat phobia.
i’m not missing any point. i replied to a very specific point in the comment to highlight that skinny people don’t have it all like a bed of roses. my general opinion on the topic is that while skinny shaming is atrocious and detrimental to well-being just like any other form of body shaming, yes, fat-shaming is worse because it is systemic. i have strong opinions on the post in general though — posting a question like this is A+ assholery. trauma should not be compared and grief should not be a competition. this post was unnecessary in general and i fully blame OP for being a dismissive jerk and starting a discourse over “who has it worse”
why do you think the post is unnecessary? i think this is a topic that needs to be talked more about.
it’s unnecessary to start any discourse that focusses on comparing trauma and invalidating someone’s experience. oh your grandfather died? well my father died. oh your dog died? well my baby died. oh you’re deaf? well i’m blind. what good comes out of establishing that fat shaming is worse than skinny shaming? does it make fat people feel better? does it make the skinny people who’ve been body shamed feel better? no, right? what’s the point of going “hey guys let’s compare who has it worse in life!”
Thank you for posting this! The comment section was making my heart sink- what with hurt feelings being compared to systemic discrimination, typical of whataboutery. It's almost like listening to men's rights activists. But you've articulated this quite well. Lots of love
I agree but let's just not compare suffering here. What might feel like a ripple to you may not be a ripple to someone else. Same applies to tidal tsunami! I agree with everything you've said but by saying all that and ending with this you are indeed being insensitive 🤷🏻♀️ You could've just skipped that. It's fat phobia that is the problem in our society and it is very much an institutional problem like you've mentioned.
Respectfully, I'm not ! Multiple times I acknowledged how hurtful things may be to an individual, but we have to look at the big picture. While it may feel that way, objectively, being told you look like a skeleton is not comparable to doctors dismissing your pain, being denied surgery, and denied opportunities (like I said in my field, adoption, and jobs). But we can agree to disagree on this. ETA: This is not hyperbole, ask the fat people in your life their experiences with healthcare and you will be absolutely appalled.
I've also mentioned all that in my other comment! Fatphobia and shaming are different and the former is a huge problem and I know what issues are linked with it as well. And like I said I have mentioned it in my other comment. I even said I agreed with everything you said expect the last statement can be seen as invalidating underweight people and their issues. That's all.
How is it different when fat phobia is the direct cause of fat shaming?
Fat phobia is also more of an institutional problem, or societal issue to explain it better. It is much more complex than shaming. There are multiple articles discussing this online and studies as well. You can read those.
I know the definition and what they are. I have read articles on it too. But how can anyone talk about fat shaming without talking about fat phobia which is directly the cause of fat shaming? And doesn't the existence of fat phobia answer exactly how skinny shaming and fat shaming aren't the same since skinny phobia does not exist? Since one is a systemic issue, doesn't that mean the shaming also happens at a systemic level?
This is very well articulated. The audacity of the commenter to say that it’s not oppression Olympics of whatever else they were saying. As someone who has always been mid size my whole life, even though my romantic partners always told me that my “curvy” figure was desirable, I can’t recall a day when I have not disliked my body. People around me have always told me that I’m overweight. I used to look at girls in sports classes being so flexible and I used to hate that I could never be that even if I tried. I’ve always been confident my whole life and I’ve come to now like the fact that I’ve nice tits and a nice butt. It’s so fucking ridiculous I once uploaded a picture in a bathing suit on Instagram and this girl actually commented that it was so “brave” of me to do that, while she meant well but how sad that something as rudimentary as that is considered to be “brave” are you trying to imply that I don’t deserve to feel good about myself and because I actually do feel good about myself it’s something out of the ordinary?! If this is something that a mid sized person has been subjected to their whole life I can’t even fathom what plus size people have to go through. It’s absolutely not the same. Fat people are systemically oppressed and sidelined and erased. Edit : oh and also it doesn’t help that Eurocentric features including Eurocentric bodies (the likes of Victoria’s Secret) being worshipped doesn’t help either. If I were to get a dollar for every time I saw a VS model with a significant thigh gap and me feeling horrible about myself, I would have been a millionaire. Also fashion too caters mostly to skinny people. Most trends and clothes are designed to only look good certain body types. I can never imagine wearing a scarf as a top with my 36b boobs.
Great comment, and I agree with everything you said. >In many countries there are BMI limits - which are totally arbitrary - for things like access to IVF and adoption! There are lower limits for all this too- it’s just that it’s medically less likely for someone to be underweight and healthy, so people who are too skinny often have underlying health reasons which are put as the diagnosis. >The BMI itself is a hugely problematic measure. Agreed. Most health systems now are moving away from using BMI as a default measure of health. The guidelines for many treatment protocols are rapidly evolving to no longer include BMI and instead more accurate measures of weight and health. >Similarly fat people's pain is minimised and everything in health is often attributed to their fatness without any investigation. Agreed, but in developing countries like India where under nutrition is common, this absolutely happens to thin patients too. The automatic assumption in some government hospitals is that an overly thin patient with any health issues is just ‘weak’ due to poverty and under nutrition and doctors tend to just give free nutritional supplements for a few months and send them away without investigating further. >There are lots of fabulous educators on Instagram who talk about this issue. As a non fat person it is very very uncomfortable to read and accept, but once you see it, there is no turning back. Check out Aubrey Gordon, Virginia Sole Smith and in the food space Julia Turshen and Emiko Davies on this subject. Thanks for sharing this. >Someone said downthread it's not the suffering Olympics, I agree, because if it was, the suffering fat people face is like a tidal tsunami compared to the ripples that are skinny shaming and we need to acknowledge that to do better ! Spot on. Great comment, and you have given everyone a lot of food for thought. Thanks for sharing your insight.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment. I can in no way cover the nuance of the issue through a reddit comment, and there are many exceptions and alternate views and it's good for us all to read and understand more, but in the initial set of comments there was a lot of anecdotal sharing of the pain of skinny shaming, and I wanted to give examples of systemic policies. The only thing I may disagree with is what you said about the assumption of 'weak' patients in government hospitals - I feel this is more a function the public healthcare system in India, and not a 'skinny shaming/dismissal' but I totally take your point that these issues can be skewed by the demographic of the country overall.
Seeing your comment with -1 upvotes legit makes me want to leave this sub. It's like men's rights and all lives matter all over again. Can't believe this space is plagued by it too.
I don’t wanna compare, but what I’ve come to realize is that Indian relatives will always body shame you. When I was chubbier, I was kinda fat shamed. Not that I’m very lean and somewhat muscular, I am skinny shamed. You can never satisfy them so I’ve stopped giving f*ucks. When I was losing weight, my parents were concerned but I explained to them that I lift heavy weights and am the strongest I’ve ever been, and they left me alone after that.
placing a person's values on their body is always going to be damaging. trauma, abuse and internalized shame affects us all differently and who's to say who had it worst. Sharing trauma can be healing but comparing it, none of us win. we are so much more than our bodies, body neutrality is how we fucking win.
skinny shaming is bad but definitely not as much as fat people. everything going wrong in a fat person's life is attributed to their weight by the people around them. i have heard so many stories of even doctors just asking them to lose weight instead of properly diagnosing them for their medical concerns which leads to serious complications later on in life. just my observation that skinny people are treated with pity whereas fat people are treated with disgust. ofc this is just a generalized observation, everybody's personal experience might differ
what is the point of this post? why are we comparing suffering? who cares if they’re equal or if one hurts more? as another commenter mentioned - stop playing oppression olympics! it doesn’t fucking matter! ridiculous post. edit - being skinny to the point of being shamed for it is NOT a privilege.
Exactly. Why do ppl have “this shaming is worse than that shaming?” mentality. Otherwarya started it and frankly she’s dumb and insensitive for starting this fight. Some sort of trauma comparison. Disgusting.
While people think that fat people don't exercise, they think that skinny people purposely maintain their weight by not eating, and 'how' one can do that if they respect their own bodies. They think that I'm skinny because I choose to be, not because of my genes and eating issues. Please don't make yourself try to feel better by pointing out that your issue is worse than someone else's hence that issue doesn't matter. In reality, if you haven't lived in the other person's shoes, you won't really know what it feels like. This post comes across as extremely insensitive.
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Thankyou!
This.
Privileged…emmm… like fat people skinny ppl also suffer from eating disorders, genetics, some disease/disorder that made them lose weight and would be difficult for them to gain. They also feel lower on self esteem and being constantly targeted. I was skinny shamed by my relatives, and i used to feel so anxious when I would visit them, even my cousin sister who i love so much! Whenever i was with family/extended family they used to discuss other things, when all the topics are discussed they came back to me and my weight! 😐 from being commented on how much I eat to forcibly making me eat till i puke or get bloated! Saying who would marry me if i look like that.. etc. everything is similar as fat shaming! In general people are insensitive towards others that’s it!
When you’re skinny shamed, you just feel like you’re not enough you know! I don’t think there’s any difference between the two. Commenting on anyone’s body should not be acceptable.
skinny shaming sometimes comes from a place of jealousy
In India, skinny people are shamed a lot - a little pudgy is the normal.
Wait.... Are we in a competition who's shamed more? And who wins this competition? the one who's shamed less or the one who's shamed more ?
I don't want to compare it with fat shaming, but I can share my experience . I have been skinny shamed all my life. I happen to know 2 'fat' women who skinny shame me in this day and age but I can't say anything to them because even I slight thing I say will be blown out of proportion. And I have seen very similar cases in different scenarios. My point is, people think twice or are careful with their words when they are talking to an overweight person but don't give two shits while doing skinny shaming.
>this sounds like privileged people claiming how their privilege is causing them problems. Naah. My cousin is extremely skinny and once opened up about the skinny shaming to me. Dude was traumatized. People around my circle are more sensitive towards fat shaming. They know that it's a bad thing to do, so they don't do that. Not the case with skinny shaming. It's the normal small talk. Atleast you can rant about fat shaming. When they rant about skinny shaming, it becomes "privileged people claiming how their privilege is causing them problems". Imo, it's a problematic opinion op.
I have been skinny shamed my entire life god, I don't know what's worse honestly and like some other commenter said why play oppression olympics? Every family event I go to people have said the worst kind of things to me. It was kinda sad. I have gained a bit of weight now and people say "ab acchi dikhti ho tum". Like what does that mean? Pehele nahi acchi dikhti thi kya? One really annoying uncle sat in front of me and kept his commentary on THE ENTIRE DURATION I was eating, ki you should eat more, you should eat this, you should take more. I think it's wrong to comment on people's bodies in general. Be it skinny shaming or fat shaming. Both are incredibly wrong and insensitive.
all who fat-shamed me now have over-weight kids whom they can't even pick up without a back-ache karma keeps receipts indeed!
I disagree. Girl, I was skinny shamed so much as a kid that it still makes me angry. Body shaming is body shaming.
I have been on every inch of that rope. Shamed equally. Then, after it became difficult to loose weight for medical reasons, and I refused to starve myself to please other, plus almost developed stomach ulcer last time I did starve, I have put up my hands. _Not listening no more_ if you don’t care enough for me to let me be.
You dont get to say one’s suffering is worse or better because it comes down to how a girl feels at an individual level. I was skinny girl in high school and first two years of college, and people would make all kinda of derogatory remarks like “matchstick” or “why do you need a bra”, “somebody hold her down, there’s a slight breeze and might get blown away” and ended up being butt of the joke and mockery in many social settings. Some would assume I have depression or eating disorder and some would even bully me because of how frail i looked. It made me feel really insecure and shitty about my body, would ruin my entire day. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody else Body shaming is body shaming. Period. So let’s not try to make light of any shaming or call it a privilege because it’s vile.
So freakin insensitive. Barf.
I got skinny shamed ever since i was a teenager till around the age of 22 when covid hit and people physically didn't see me. People told boys won't like me ofc im so "flat" (small boobs) Told i had boy like frame coz i have broad shoulders and i was athletic. Also made fun of my biceps - i was an active child. Accused me of not eating properly and even went as far to shame my mom for not feeding me well I remember being very insecure and over eating all the time to put on some weight. At times would end throwing up. Now at 26, people tell me how ive put on weight 🙂 some say it as a compliment. Im nowhere as fit as i was and would have been if i hadn't over fed myself and stopped working out in hopes of putting on weight. So yeah. Maybe other people had it worse but that doesn't mean shaming i faced was a walk in the park.
I guess it depends on what kinda skinny you are, some women are skinny in an "unflattering" way (as per beauty standards, not me) I suppose, like they might have a very flat butt or flat chest and oh God, the nosy aunties make sure these girls know about it. It's not worse than fat shaming any day. But for fat people there's just no way out. You are even a little chubby and there's always someone who's gonna poke you for taking that extra piece of dessert.
No dear, it is equally painful to be skinny(even after being perfectly in figure). Just switch the shoes and you will know. There shouldn't be any kind of body shaming. It may ruin a person's morale forever. Also people's perceptions and standards of fat/skinny and beauty are different everywhere, so we should really ignore these things to live a happy life.
Shaming is shaming. Don’t do it if it hurts the other person (which most likely any kind of shaming will do). Simple as that.
It's not comparable but just because people want to be skinny doesn't mean the person being shamed and bullied isn't being mentally tortured. People have different psychological capacities, things and behaviours affect people differently. People are sensitive and insecure about themselves regardless of what they're insecure about. It causes them to form a negative image of themselves, again, regardless of the reason. It is painful for everyone. As a fat person I'd also like to note that going from fat to not fat is easier and more doable than going from skinny to fat because of incredibly fast metabolism and force feeding too much calories is more difficult than reducing a bit and moving a bit more. Although neither should be shamed but to say that one is worse than another just doesn't sit right with me because it's not about what YOU think is worse or what affects YOU. It's about what effect it has on the person being shamed. A fat person thinks they're more oppressed and they'd rather be skinny and skinny shamed because they don't want to be fat and skinny people being upset about it seems absurd to a fat person, they fail to understand that mental pain and bulling is pain and suffering no matter who it is happening to and for what reason.
What is even the point of comparing this! Skinny shaming is just as bad as fat shaming and you won't know it until you've been in the others person' s shoes. I have been skinny shamed on a daily basis since I was 7-8. You don't know how much self worth I lost because of it and how much strength it took for me to praise myself. There's no sense in comparing these things.
Same sis, same. I don't understand why is OP comparing these two.
Controversial, but I kind of agree. I've been skinny at certain points in my life - been egged on about it, that I don't eat enough, I'm unhealthy, skin and bones. And I've had close family members who are on the obese side. And yes, while we do have the entire body positivity movement and uplifting those who are considered fat, people who are overweight do have a harder time both individually and institutionally. I had a cousin of mine who was having health issues, when 2 doctors dismissed her off as "overweight", and misdiagnosed her problem. (She started gaining weight like crazy after losing a parent.) Most shops in the regular market don't have sizes that accomodate after a certain length/width standard. A lot of morbidly obese people have difficulties in accessing public transport or even airline seats. It's pretty easy to say, oh just lose weight, but that doesn't take into account a variety of factors like resources, support, and finances. So yeah summing up on my experience - skinny shaming can be more individual, but fat shaming is both individual and institutional. Both suck.
As someone who's been on both ends, let me just say that while skinny shaming is valid, being skinny comes with a tonne of privileges and it's okay to acknowledge that. It's not a competition. Fat people are systematically punished for being who they are. Skinny people aren't.
I mean you have to be on the either end personally to understand i guess. I've been skinny my whole life and i can guarantee there hasn't been a single day where someone hasn't said something about my health. People naturally assume I'm sick, i don't eat properly, i need a doctor, I'm not normal, start giving me tips on what to eat l, how to eat, when to eat and the list goes on and on. I mean i cannot tell you how embarassing and traumatizing it is as a young girl when distant relatives corner you in family functions and literally demand to know "omg what's wrong with you". For example: my mother's aunt, who she hadn't met in decades came to a family function and like every Indian family i was asked to touch her feet and as soon as I stated doing that she literally stopped me by saying "oh God look at your condition". She meant i was so skinny i shouldn't really strain myself. I will not ever understand what fat people go through but being skinny hasn't ever been easy.
The worst part of being skinny shamed is that it is sooooo normalised that your own parents think it’s okay to bully you into eating more. At least fat shaming has some stigma associated with it.
Fat people look towards being slim; slim people look towards being fat. So both of them think that the grass is greener on the other side but it's not. There's no grass on either sides. Just unwanted and unsolicited advices and passive-aggressive suggestions, comments etc. I have had to live in different towns and cities all my life and, in a way, nobody knows what i used to look like. I have been fat, i have been slim, i have been healthy, i have also been in "good shape" but ailing due to other issues lol.
I can’t honestly compare both experiences- but both are quite shitty. Skinny shaming is pretty awful too💀- we get asked to eat, told that our body is guy like cuz often flat and the fact that nobody would like us(ones value shouldn’t even be derived from others liking you- yknow we’re more than that) and never really reaching societal beauty curvy standard- and sometimes just shown pity by some people ovo. Oh ya- also being a tomboy on top of this leads me to getting weird social reaction. Fun✨ But at the same time- I’m not undermining the stuff fat people have to go through, societal bias and stuff. And also could be maybe socially seen as a lil more relaxed compared to north here in Kerala? Ig even the media and actors in Molly-wood is usually inclusive to vivid body types, so are people. Not saying it’s nil, but slightly relaxed prolly. I’ve seen cases of people stigmatising others from their body type too- it’s just ew that people tend to reduce others and their characteristics just from the body types even tho genetic factors, metabolism rates and other things toll in, and I understand your struggles sister In the end- ig we all just have our struggles and both suck:/ it’s not a competition and both suck, I used to made fun off too- especially my hand which is just bones. We should all just support each other and uplift each other, trying to avoid further internal conflicts💕. Women supporting women✨💖:>
Everyone's experience is personal and there is no comparison in trauma. You are entitled to feel the way you feel and there is no relative scale that we can use to see which trauma is worse. It is like saying murder is worse than suicide whereas the reality is in both cases you are as dead as a natural death. I do agree as a society the connotation with being fat and the beauty standards all work against women who are plus size but your self esteem takes the same blow of bullying and the hate you feel towards your body is just the same. I have grown up with a skinny sister and she has been called vile names. Things like malnourished, "gharwale khana ni dete", guys don't like girls with no boobs, haddi hi dikh rahi hai - is something she hears on a daily basis. She got into overeating just to gain some weight. So yea it is not better or worse, it is trauma period.
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I have.
I’m a skinny person, and I agree. There’s no systemic discrimination against skinny people. A comment is not the same as real actual discrimination. And I really do experience the thin privilege, especially as a woman. I mean, ozempic is sold out because people are willing to sacrifice their health just to be thin. Especially in western society, thinness is a way of displaying status imo. But obviously my experiences are of a woman living in the west, I know that it would be very different in India. When I went for holidays, many relatives told me I look “disgusting” and that they’re very concerned and it’s not attractive or nice to look at me lol. Which is hilarious to me because I’m complimented(sometimes also teased) for it in the west, it’s not like my body changed, just the beauty standards of the people around me 😂
So true. "Oppression olympics" is being severely misused here IMO. Fatphobia has very socioeconomic and healthcare access implications that skinny shaming doesn't. The comparison isn't meant to make skinny people feel bad. It's meant to understand the greater implication of fatphobia and give it the extra attention required to fix it. That said, arguing with your skinny friend that your fatphobia problem is worse that her problem isn't helpful either.
I agree with you OP. All types of body shaming is bad..and shouldn't be compared. But if someone says skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming, they are simply being ignorant. The experiences and consequences that obese people have to face on a day to day life is far more bitter than what skinny people go through. Look around you, our society in general prefers skinny people over fat people, and that's a fact (you'd be lying to yourself if you don't agree). Some auto rickshaws charge you extra because of your weight. There's a fat tax charged by many clothing brands.If you are skinny, you can be a "model", but if you are overweight, you will be labelled as a "plus size" model. Look at our entertainment industry. How many "fat" people have made a big name? When Vidya Balan and Aishwarya gained weight, they were trolled left right and centre. But Kareena Kapoor's "zero" figure started a trend. Even Kareena was called names then, but it definitely started a trend and women aspired to be skinny like her.
It's like comparing apples to oranges. One is fatphobia, the other is shaming. The former is an systemic problem (there's ample research on discrimination in hiring policies, medical system, flying). The latter is insensitive and horrible, however, not tied to systemic discrimination. If you're a skinny person reading this, don't get defensive please. This is not minimizing your problems or trauma. It's just the way our society is. Body shaming can happen at all sizes, however, fatphobia is not just that. It's a combination of body shaming plus discriminatory practises in everyday life. Hence, it's systemic. source: https://www.youngfoundation.org/our-work/publications/fatphobia-kickstart-report/ edit : please read the research report before downvoting
I've been both thin and fat. And anyone in my position will agree that the reason why this is triggering so many skinny people is that they don't understand the systemic discrimination that fat people have to face- as opposed to the nonsensical hurtful things that people say to you when you're skinny. True, it is like comparing apples to oranges. But facts are facts and I wish skinny people would stop appropriating the movement. They're not discriminated against, they're bullied. Ofcourse it is horrible- but it's entirely different. You can call it anecdotal but I've seen plenty of people boast about how thin they are, how much they can eat without putting on, brag about having to shop in the kids section- but it's definitely common. Would anyone ever brag about being fat? About how easily they put on weight? Would anyone ever brag about shopping from the plus size options? I don't know- do you people never wonder about these things?
Right ! I can’t believe the amount of butthurt skinny snowflakes in the comment section trying to appropriate a movement with their so called aLl lIvEs mAtTeR trauma. Discrimination and bullying are not the same.
Ya man this sub can be weird sometimes. Selectively woke I guess. As i expected, my comment seems to be heavily downvoted. Guess skinny people dominate here too lol
I’ve been skinny shamed almost all my life , but tell you what it’s not as cruel as fat shaming. It’s not . OP is right, my friend is overweight and I’ve seen her suffer , blatant use of derogatory terms , saying they won’t get love if they don’t lose weight, blaming their looks for abuse they face and what not.
Skinny shaming is equally bad. Especially for men. But even for women, if they don't have fat in the required areas, they can feel equally horrible about themselves. I don't think this is an argument worth having. Everyone has it rough, be sympathetic towards everyone. Just be kind!
I've been skinny shamed as a skinny person, but the insane thing is that I've also been fat shamed as a skinny person, which says a lot about society and how they are different. I doubt a fat person would ever get skinny shamed
I know someone who I am close to who is quite skinny and I am not kidding how much people keep shaming them. Every single family gathering is them being shamed for it. Random family friends, salon people, neighbours etc all shame them. They stopped wearing clothes that had half sleeves because of it and hate looking at themselves. I understand fat shaming too but both are very real and very bad. It's not one or the other, you don't choose between two evils.
They both equally suck. Skinny shaming can be just as damaging as fat shaming. I was skinny for most part of my life until recently when I put on a couple of kilos. For most part of my life, I was subject to teasing and snarky remarks. It ranged from being made fun of for not having any tits or ass to being told I look like a 12 year old boy. It created a whole lot of body issues for me. Every relationship I was in, I was insecure about not having ample assets. I put on a few kilos after a medical incident last year. And while most of my friends ans family were happy and said I looked healthier, I also got a few unpleasant comments. And accepting my current body has been a struggle too. I’ve come to realise no matter what you look like, you’ll most probably always be judged and shamed. Instead of trying to shame others for their experiences, we are better off loving the body we are in and not shitting on others just because you can’t relate to their struggle. It saddens me that this is even a topic of discussion.
Wtf is this Post even ? OP is comparing two different things.
Fat shaming is definitely more systemic than skinny shaming. People in public transport will discrimiate against you if you are fat. It is assumed that a fat person does not take care of their health and is lazy. Specially in places of work. Being fat is not desirable. No one wakes up wanting to be fat. People do desire to be skinny. Medical health professionals do not dismiss skinny ppl’s health issues to ‘lose weight, that’s your problem!’ It is hard to find plus size clothing, often times more expensive. Fat people are marginalised to a great extent.
First let me make it clear that no one deserves to disrespected just because of their weight. It's your body,your choice so I don't see why someone's size is anybody else's business. That being said... >It is assumed that a fat person does not take care of their health Do they actually? I understand that some people have thyroid issues,pcos, depression but for the most part every fat person I know has absolutely 0 concerns about their health. Their cholesterol levels are high,they are almost on the brink of pre-diabetes etc. Tbh all my friends with PCOS have also lost weight after they started working out and controlling their their diet. >No one wakes up wanting to be fat. It does come with a plethora of issues,so, I do understand why no one would want that. >Medical health professionals do not dismiss skinny ppl’s health issues to ‘lose weight, that’s your problem!’ Again it does come with a lot of issues but so maybe sometimes that actually true. Some people hate when reality are shoved in their faces. >It is hard to find plus size clothing, often times more expensive. Everybody deserves to look good and to find great clothes for their size but I read somewhere that the high prices of the outfits are because of more fabric required and higher manufacturing costs. Manufacturers don't care about the our feelings,do they? Profit is what they want. >Fat people are marginalised to a great extent. This the truth. People are blatantly disrespectful towards fat people and there's so much discrimination everywhere. I have seen teachers ask fat students to lose weight out loud in the classroom and I really don't understand how someone else's body and what they choose do with it is anybody else's business.
As someone who has been both fat and skinny. I've actually been shamed more after losing weight. My lunch gets laughed at every day. My workout schedule gets made fun of. I get lots of sarcastic comments about my body. No one at all commented on my body or my eating when I was fat.
I have been 'fat' and/or overweight my whole life and it was not my fault (I have thyroid). The amount of mental trauma and taunts I have gone through are a proof that being skinny is not only desirable but also a privilege. I did manage to lose my excess weight at a point in time and people behaved as if I had been saved from a huge disaster or that my life was now worth living. People have always made me feel that I am not pretty or beautiful. I am sure skinny people also suffer with their bodies but let us not pretend that it is anywhere near fat shaming. So OP I AGREE WITH EVERY SINGLE WORD OF YOURS.
How is being skinny a privilege? By skinny I guess you mean normal BMI. That's healthy and what people should strive for. If being skinny is a privilege then being fat(excluding medical conditions) is a consequence. Eating clean and working out is the only way to stay fit.
Believe me, each one is bad in its own way. I’ve always been skinny and my sister on the other end. And people have let neither of us live in peace or my mother. It’s always whyyyyyy are you so thin… and the whyyyyy is so whiny, eat something, doesn’t your mother feed you… just thoughtlessly hurtful remarks. And I don’t really understand what the other person is trying to achieve by asking this. Surely it’s not because they care about me. And reverse this for my sister. Sure, as you said fat shaming means people think you’re lazy etc, but when you’re skinny, people just assume that you are vain and too concerned about your looks and god forbid if you’re skinny and like to exercise!!!
It somewhat depends on the words I guess. Skinny shaming can go as far as calling a teenager not a complete woman, calling vulgar names because lack of boobs etc. are quite problematic.
As someone who has never weighed even 40 kgs, this is absurdly disrespectful. I am a wonderful orator, always have been, but I am allowed nowhere near the stage because ‘I won’t be visible’. I can’t swim because there is no swimwear available in my size. You want to talk about shaming? My extended family harassed me into not getting out of my house for three years. Absolutely every single day of my life I am asked why I look the way I do, do I not eat enough, am I self harming. In the metro, at a cafe, walking on the street. People think it’s okay to walk up to me and say the nastiest things because I am skinny and it’s all in jest. My job interviews begin with them asking me if I have always been ‘this way’. My teachers, instead of protecting me from the bullying, contributed to it on the daily. Heck nobody even asks me if I am alright, happy, better, worse. The first comment made to me, the minute a known/unknown person opens their mouth is always to do with my appearance. From the tailor, to my colleagues, strangers, security at the airports, cab drivers, absolutely everyone demands a justification from me. I grew up thinking I needed to be fixed. I grew up thinking I needed to be resourceful in order for people to want me in their lives. I grew up thinking I had to learn to laugh at myself because everybody else did. My skills, my abilities, my hard work never mattered until it translated into money. There is no privilege that comes with this, OP. What is systemic is Shaming. In all shapes and sizes. Just because it is more noticeable, fat shaming tends to make people think its the only kind to exist. Human beings are wretched when they want fun. It doesn’t matter at what or whose expense it comes from. So yes, what fat people go through is vile and disgusting and costs them opportunities. But what skinny people go through is the same. We are at least talking about representation and inclusion of fat people in fashion, on screen and absolutely everywhere they have been barred to enter just by the virtue of what they look like. This made me hopeful that tomorrow, people like me will also be accorded the same opportunities because the root cause of our problems is the same. But statements such as ‘skinny shaming is a privilege’ just makes me think representation and inclusion is only for a certain problem.
i relate with everything you’ve said here. i’m so sorry for all you’ve faced. you’re very strong <3
It doesn’t matter who’s getting it worse…the fact is both are getting mistreated. Someone talking about being shamed for being skinny doesn’t invalidate fat shaming problem and same for the other way around.
I am skinny. Have always been. Even after having 2 kids. And I have been skinny shamed my entire life. As a child, in school and with friends mostly everyone said something or the other. As I grew up I have got so much unsolicited advice on how to gain weight. In hostel, other girls used to make fun of me by saying I will never be able to satisfy my partner. I have heard it all. I don’t like my body because of this reason. I am always in jeans and tees because I feel nothing looks good on me. So yes I feel skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming. It leaves you with scars all the same.
i think the difference is how systemically fat people are either made invisible in the society or have negative connotations attached to them - there are plastic chairs, bus seats they can’t walk sit on. their representation in the media has portrayed them either as lazy or villainous. and fatness ultimately is seen as something “one should never be”, like it’s one of the worst things a person can be, but that’s not the attitude towards skinny people. at the end of the day, women have been forced to internalize that if they’d rather be either of the two, they would be skinny than fat. that’s my view, i obviously don’t mean the bullying skinny girls are subjected to is less damaging in anyway, my thought is based on prevalent beauty standards and i’m always happy to hear a counter argument.
Fat shaming is systematic. Skinny shaming is personal. I don't exactly know any skinny person who was not diagnosed properly due to their weight. Doctors straight up REFUSE to treat fat people because they are fat and even a stomach pain is prescribed with losing weight. I know so many people who were overweight and had to wait YEARS before a diagnosis because everything was attributed to their weight. Not only that fat people face discrimination against being hired (https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20161130-fat-people-earn-less-and-have-a-harder-time-finding-work) just because they're fat and therefore must be lazy. If people tell they're the same then they're ignorant and idiots.
Its not oppression olympics, yall are completely missing the point. You ask a skinny person if they’d want to remain skinny or be fat instead and guess what they’d say? Exactly. Nobody wants to be overweight, whereas a good number of people want to be skinny. They are simply not comparable. Studies show that negative traits are attached to fat people vs skinny people because of the halo effect that supermodels give out. Clothes are designed for the skinny body. Fat people are simply dehumanized, I don’t think skinny shaming is as bad as fat shaming and people who say otherwise have no idea what it is like to occupy a fat body. This is not to say that skinny shaming is non existent, womens bodies are a political issue no matter what and not having the genetically perfect fat distribution is what women are shamed for when they’re skinny. But, hear me out, the thinner body is the default body in most Asian societies. I get where skinny people are coming from, but cmon guys do you not hear even skinny people saying “omg I look so fat” sometimes, do you ever wonder how fatphobic society is? You would never know. Its incredibly difficult. If you ever gain weight some day to the point where people point it out 🙏 you shall only realized it at that point
Duh
faxxxx
I don't want to compare the two, but I think saying being skinny is a privilege is a shitty thing to say. I used to be underweight most of my life. I've been called a skeleton, asked why I don't eat anything, people asked my mother why she's not feeding me anything, asked to grab a pole when it's windy so that I won't fly away, but imo these are all pretty harmless. The hurtful comments were those insinuating that I'm not enough of a woman because I don't have curves. I've been asked to cover up because "let other people at least think you have boobs". I've been told that people won't find me desirable because I don't have boobs or butt. I used to envy overweight people for their curves. Don't compare trauma. You'll always feel like grass is greener on the other side.
Why can't we just agree that any form of body shaming is bad? Trying to create a competition of which us worse causes more division amongst women when really we should be uplifting each other.
Fat shaming is bad but that doesn't make my trauma less traumatic
It depends on where it's being used. If skinny Shaming is brought up to dismiss or lower the impact of fat shaming then it's just being misused. Same goes for bringing up fat shaming if someone is opening up about being shamed for being skinny. It's not an either or thing. And like all comparisons, the goal is often to diminish the impact of each one individually. Neither is better or worse. And neither has to be. Problem is people not having manners to firstly not speak about someone else's body. Especially when it's about things that are not in their control. It's basically just bullying. We can talk about and compare real life impact of being overweight vs skinny. But doesn't change that it's just people bullying someone who doesn't fit their description of "normal". I think the bigger conversation that needs to be had is always just abundance of people having the tendency to bully and getting away with it.