I think this topic is one that isn’t brought up that often, or at least not in this form. Because when people typically talk about weight shamming it is usually from the perspective of someone criticizing another for being overweight not for being underweight. In fact it is so rarely mentioned that it is almost completely disregarded as a real issue that hurts us skinny girls just the same. There’s memes all over the internet insisting skinny girls aren’t real women and that boys wants something to they can “grab onto” not bones. I find it really disrespectful and hurtful for someone to tell me I’m not really a woman because of my size. Though this form of shamming doesn’t only come from that perspective, it actually could go two different ways making things even more complicated. For example just the other day a friend of mine, who is hardly overweight, told me I didn’t understand what It felt like to get rejected because I was skinny, as if that solves all my problems and makes life so easy. So from one angle I’m not a woman and men wont want me and from another I don’t have any really issues and have no right to complain about anything. So were constantly being swung back and fourth and don’t actually know what to think about ourselves. Though I think the guiltiest here is my family, at any social event I’m constantly being told my family members and family friends that I look like I’m not eating enough. My favorite comment of them all though is that they insist my weight has something to do with stress. Like no strop trying to find an explanation for it. This is just my weight. I try to explain that I eat horribly- pizza, burgers, and candy all day, but I just don’t seem to gain a lot weight. There really is nothing I can do about it and really don’t see a problem. But other people do and they can’t resist the comments about how I look like I’m too thin and disappearing. So my question is why is it okay to make comments about my weight but it’s completely unacceptable to make comments to someone who is overweight?
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Manhattan chapter.