You wouldn't walk up to an acquaintance or colleague and tell them " you're really fat" just in passing, to make friendly conversation. So, why is it considered completely acceptable to randomly, out of nowhere, tell people they are thin?
I know being thin is usually seen as a "good" thing whereas being fat is seen as a "bad" thing so perhaps you could see that as being a reason that it is more socially acceptable to walk up to someone and say "you're thin". But, even if people mean it as a compliment being told you are thin can be very uncomfortable.
I am a pretty normal weight- on the petite side, but not extremely so. When i was a college student people very rarely said anything about my weight, but recently, working at my first job, my weight has become quite the topic for conversation. My colleagues are constantly telling me I'm thin. As if it's breaking news. "You're really skinny, you know that?" .
I imagine these comments might feel uncomfortable for anyone. As a young professional, you wish to be recognized and known for your work, not your body size. But, as someone with a history of anorexia they are especially uncomfortable.
These comments on my perfectly healthy weight remind me of the comments i used to get when my weight was not healthy. Back then, i lived for those comments. And I think my colleagues think them telling me i am thin is making me feel happy and accomplished like it did then.
Was my response to being told I was thin (elation) back when i was in the throes of anorexia more "normal" than my response is today (annoyance)?
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Oh dear.
Do you honestly not realize? When you are going through an eating disorder your views of yourself are literally turned upside down. Therefore, when people told you "you look so skinny" you got happy and excited. I am the same way, when someone tells me "oh! You've lost weight!" I get so happy even though I don't need to lose weight at all.
Now, you realized how fucked up the notion of thinness is, especially since you have overcome your disorder (congrats, by the way... it is an awful thing to go through)
When I was going through it I would look in the mirror and see nothing but fat. Even though I was not overweight.
I'm in the same situation you are and have also asked myself that question many times over the last six years: Is it "normal" to feel happy when people tell me that I'm thin? Why don't I feel that anymore?
I personally don't believe that it was "normal" for me to feel elation when someone told me that I was thin. I think the reason is because my weight was such an obsession and I saw comments like that as a "reward" and even encouragement. Because I was so unhealthy at the time, I see this as an unhealthy reaction.
I don't know if there is a "normal" response or reaction to weight comments, I believe it depends on the person and the situation. However, now that I am no longer obsessed but instead comfortable with my weight, these comments make me uncomfortable and annoyed. Today I am healthier, physically and mentally, therefore I consider my reaction "normal".
Thanks for pointing this out! I am thin. Rather thin. I've been in recovery for about four or five years. My weight is always on my mind. I find it totally frustrating an inappropriate when people comment on my thinness. Because it is triggering to me, and uncomfortable. I know I have thin privilege, but I'm also living in the wake of a devastating illness.
My girlfriend knows not to make these comments. But people I know who don't know (even those who do!) my history, I don't know how to respond. Is calling out the inappropriateness a good idea? Saying something like what you said, You wouldn't go up to someone and tell them they're really fat, would you?
Your comment on privilege really hit home for me. Discussions of weight make me feel uncomfortable, because even though I'm happy with my body, the sense of undeserved privilege makes it a difficult subject for me.
It probably doesn't help that whenever I did get the 'Wow, you're thin' comment there was an undertone of jealousy. I think being insulted about my weight would've been an improvement.
Lunch at school kinda sucked for a while, because I'd either get "You're eating THAT?" or "Don't you ever eat?" depending on how much I got myself. From the same person. Just leave me alone, dammit.
I've never had an eating disorder but I can relate a little, as I got very thin once due to a workload whereby I literally didn't have time to eat. Indeed I was so stressed that what food I could grab just didn't seem to taste at all, it was like eating ash, because all I could taste was that metallic tang you get when you have too much adrenaline in the body (horrible sensation). I got compliments because I had to punch extra holes in my belt and my clothes started to hang on me, it was weird.
Interestingly these were all from women. In my 'natural' state, the size I am when I eat healthily and enjoy my food, I get about the same number from men and women. Certainly I feel that thin privilege only really works in all-female environments, whereas what you might call "hourglass privilege" is unisex. I wonder why women's idea of beauty is so much skinnier than men's?
It's the other side of the weight coin combined with considering female bodies fair game. While it's mildly taboo to comment on someone's weight when they're overweight it's considered complimentary to call someone thin, as if it's the positive reinforcement for fitting the beauty standard.
As a guy who was pretty lean until hitting a second growth spurt when I added some muscle I was rail thin without ever facing any real comments about it, which goes to show that this is an issue of people feeling they have the right to womens' bodies.
I disagree; I don't think it goes to show that it is an issue with women's bodies.
I think it has more to do with people thinking it is a compliment.
For example, I get complimented on the ties I wear by strangers all the time. I NEVER get insulted about the ties I wear. Compliments are considered an act of kindness; insults are just rude.
For them to tell you you were skinny would be deemed rude. But, if someone complimented you on how strong you are, that would be rude.
Similarly, women can be complimented on their hair, or clothes or jewelry (and I am not talking about from strangers, but from people like the ones the OP is talking about). However, it is rude to insult them for those things.
So, it is not just about having a right to their bodies. More accurately, I think, is that it is more socially acceptable to compliment women on things than to compliment men on things. Put another way, there is a value in being nice to women, but no particular value in being nice to men. (Not to say I do not appreciate any compliment I can get.)
-Jut
But WHY is that a socially acceptable compliment? It's because women's bodies are intensely policed by our society. There is a gender imbalance if men don't get (back-handed) compliments for being thin.
That's my point. The title of the OP is "Why is it OK to tell people they're thin?", and the answer is that it's not okay to tell PEOPLE they're thin, it's okay to tell WOMEN they're thin. That's the key thing here.
I was never anorexic, but I have always been uncomfortable being told I was thin. It's as though they are making an observation I was unaware of in an attempt to get me to eat more. Instead of being reminded that my body isn't good enough by looking at diet ads, I'm reminded my body isn't good enough by looking at tabloids that say "she's freakishly skinny, you can see her ribs!" Ever since I was 13 I've asked my friends "I don't look like that, do I?" Since I'm an ally of trying to end fatphobia, I often end up reading things that follow along the lines of "real women have curves, visible bones are absolutely freakish and disgusting, normal women don't have visible bones."
Perhaps it was being told that I was thin my whole life that kept me from being anorexic. Instead of not eating, I would eat all the fatty foods I could til I was full. I still try to eat foods with a lot of fat to gain weight. It's not as bad as anorexia, but it's certainly not the healthiest thing.
"Perhaps it was being told that I was thin my whole life that kept me from being anorexic. Instead of not eating, I would eat all the fatty foods I could til I was full. I still try to eat foods with a lot of fat to gain weight. It's not as bad as anorexia, but it's certainly not the healthiest thing."
Wow, way to trivilize what nearly killed me.
Anorexia (any eating disorder) is NOT about weight.
I don't want to make any statements on your experiences, but I do want to point out that most people who develop eating disorders are on the thinner side of average to begin with, at least according to the literature.
I wonder if that is because only people who are thin are considered eating disordered. My experiences with what, if I had weighed thirty pounds less, would have been called anorexia are very similar to those of "real" anorectics, but I or any person like me would never be considered in any study of eating disorders in general and anorexia in particular.
I wonder if that is because only people who are thin are considered eating disordered.
Yes, that is the reason. There are large people who practice extreme calorie restriction or expenditure with compulsive exercise, but because their BMI is not low enough, they don't fit the diagnostic criteria. People of size can fit all other the criteria, but if "Body weight is maintained at least 15% below that expected (either lost or never achieved), or Quetelet's body-mass index is 17.5 or less." is not present, the usual diagnosis is EDNOS, not anorexia nervosa.
Yep, another one here chiming in with a similar experience. I have always been thin, it's just how I, at least until this point in my life, have been built and nothing I eat has been able to change it. I remember when I was younger I had several people I went to school with literally say, "Gawd, you're so skinny! Don't you ever eat?!" which always left me feeling utterly gobsmacked because it seemed so rude. I'd never say to someone, "Jeez, you're fat, don't you ever stop eating?" Yet it's ok to accost a skinny person in such a way and comment on their eating habits.
The slightly nicer (though still annoying) comment seems to be the asker wondering what my secret is, since I must be doing SOMETHING to stay like this, and all I can do is shrug and say that you might as well ask how I get my hair this shade of brown. It's just how I am, no trick.
There's also the "no shit!" reaction to being told something so obvious. Oh my God, I'm skinny? How the hell did this happen? Thanks for letting me know!
I realize that in society people who are fat get it MUCH worse than people who are thin, but there's also a creepy judgement that gets directed at thin people. There's the assumption that I have an eating disorder (I don't and never have) or that I've "done this" to myself on purpose, and I haven't.
In some ways I've developed a slight complex about it, as when I'm nude and look in the mirror I sometimes think, "Ew, who'd want to hug THIS?" because I so often hear people (men and women) comment on skinny women about how sickly and gross they look, or how they look like little boys, real women have curves, blah blah blah and I have to clear my throat and let them know I can hear them and it's kind of hurtful. My husband assures me that I'm beautiful and womanly and of course I believe him but still...
It kind of sucks that you really are damned if you do and damned if you don't. A few extra pounds on your frame? Ew gross, what a lard! A few less pounds? Ew, gah, eat a sammich, Skeletor! You're shamed either way. Why can't people deal with the fact that there's a continuum of healthy human variation in size? And why do some feel it's ok to quiz others about their size?
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Saying someone looks nice is unambiguously a compliment, but saying someone looks really thin is not. The far extreme of looking good is looking amazing; the extreme of being thin is starving to death. A lot of people feel really insecure about their thinness, just like a lot of people feel insecure about their fatness.
Plus, "you look good" is a very general compliment, whereas "you look thin" is making a comment about below-the-neck body parts. Most people wouldn't tell coworkers that they have nice buns, unless they work in a bakery.
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I remember when I used to have faith in humanity. That was a fun time.
I've been told, on multiple occasions, that I 'look anorexic', and it was always meant as a compliment. It made me v. uncomfortable as it is, and I can only imagine how awful I would've felt if I was actually thin (I'm not).
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Insecure might not be the right word. Self-conscious, however, hell yeah. I'm secure in how I feel about my own body, but it's how others respond to it that bugs me. Plus, even if it's a compliment, as I noted above, there can often be negative feelings like jealousy underlying the words, which negates much of the complimentary value. Kind of a "I hate you because you're thin" feeling is what I sometimes get when people say this to me.
Besides, I know I'm thin. Otherwise I'd never be able to shop for clothes.
That's gotta be hard.
Many people who've never had an eating disorder (or who are still actively in the middle of one) DO tend to regard "you look thin" as a harmless compliment. Many people simply have no context to understand just how LOADED that phrase can be. Because you never really know what's going on in the other person's head, and you never know what sort of relationship they have with their thinness.
Do they have an eating disorder, which you're feeding with your compliment?
Have they "recovered" from an eating disorder, and you're triggering them?
Are they naturally thin and insecure about it?
Plus, if the person has actually lost weight, saying "you're thin" could easily sound like "you were fat before, but you're not anymore, so I felt the need to comment on it."
Regardless of the person's relationship with food, the comment "you're thin" can be taken as a criticism. Because there are all sorts of underlying implications. "You're thin and I'm jealous." "You're thin and I think you have an eating disorder." Sometimes it's a combination of the two. "I'm going to say you're thin, thereby implying that I think you have an eating disorder, in order to guilt you into eating more. Then, when you gain weight, I won't be so jealous of you anymore."
What seems like a simple "compliment" is actually an extremely heavy, loaded comment. You're right. It should be no more socially acceptable to say someone looks thin than to say they look fat. At least not unless you know the person very well, and know they're not going to be triggered by it.
I lost weight several months ago because for some reason I kept getting sick. It was totally unintentional and I was feeling like crap. I went to work and a coworker who had an ED in the past and knows that I was anorexic when I was a teenager told me that I looked like I lost weight and that I looked good. WTF? However, since then I started lifting weights and lost a few more pounds and put on enough muscle that I can see it and now I like comments on the changes in my body because I feel like it is validation that the work I am putting in is paying off. It is an intended compliment about a healthy behavior instead of self destructive one (like when I was anorexic) or unintentional one (like when I was sick). However, the point is that nobody really knows how somebody else lost that weight or why and really, it plays into the hyper focus on how women look so none of it is great. Plus, a "you're skinny" comment doesn't feel nearly as good as a comment about how fit and strong I look.
I often tell my friends not, 'you look fat', but phrases like:
"You have such beautiful curves"
"Your body is so athletic and healthy, it's lovely"
"Your cleavage is really gorgeous in that outfit"
"Your butt is round, it's great"
"Your figure is very sexy"
All these are things that definitely DON'T say, you are skinny.
For the record I'm a white woman and most of my friends happen to be white (as I know the above might be stereotyped as being more the sort of phrases a woman of color might be expected to give and take as a compliment). Personally I have an hourglass figure with a small waist, and my friends are all shapes and sizes, so I am not just trying to validate my own figure (which I really like) as the norm. I make it a point to compliment my friends' bodies as often as possible as a counter to all the negative things they say to themselves or hear from others. I try and say something that they will believe (or at least accept that I think it's true!), and will find affirming.
I don't think being fat/obese/etc is a good thing because it's a negative way of describing a certain state. I think being curvy/Rubenesque/buxom/etc is a terrific thing. It's a positive way of describing the exact same physical state, it validates instead of deriding. That's the beauty of English, that a description can create an image that tells you whose eyes you're looking through AND what they are seeing.
That said I can see the value in trying to reclaim 'fat' in the same way as 'gay'. But I think there's already a positive vocabulary to describe the fuller-figured lady, so I prefer to use that. I think it is another way to achieve the same thing.
Just occurred to me that it sounds like I do not also compliment my friends for other things than their looks, which I do of course! This is a curious one. How do you affirm your friends in a way that counters all the negative stuff like beauty norms in the media or from their parents/selves/whoever, without validating the idea that it matters at all? Is "no you aren't fat, you are bootylicious and sexy as hell" more or less positive than, "you are attractive because you are funny/kind/smart"? Doesn't the latter, however true and kindly meant, risk dismissing someone's feelings as trivial?
This is an interesting post to me. I'm a black woman and in my community if someone says "you are so thin", you are so skinny" that means something bad. It's a negative thing to be thin. In my culture thick thighs and big butts are valued, and no ass, with no curves, are looked down upon. When I was younger I was very skinny, and had low self esteem because I was always getting told "put some meat on your bones", then when I got older I developed an into an athletic hourglass figure, complete with big ass, and boobs. All of the sudden my body had become "acceptable". Either way it's twisted. It's just interesting to see how "you're so skinny" means different things in different cultures.
My favorites are a long, slow, look followed by"I hate you", and recently "how do I look like you?" and "God, it's like hugging a skeleton".
It's trivializing. No matter what else you do, weight trumps everything. You're fat, you get insulted, you're thin, you get vitriol.
Sometimes being a woman just sucks.
As someone with an ED I am aware of how a simple comment (positive or negative) or even percieved comment about weight or food can be detrimental to someone.
When my closest friend developed an ED that eventually contributed to her passing away, I put in place a policy that meant NO comment, compliment or advice on her weight or food intake, or anyone else around her. If anyone else (including family) made a comment about her weight, they would be sharply reminded why it was an unnecessary and harmful thing to do.
Why should we consider the remark of someone's body shape a compliment? Why would we want to encourage the idea that being skinny is an achievement, something to be held at great admiration? It doesn't necessarily make them more healthy, happy or attractive.
Why can't we all just STFU about other people's weight. It's not anyone else's business!