Thin shaming is just as bad as fat shaming

Anonymous
Thin shaming is just as bad as fat shaming

I was born to a tall and lean father and a tall and lean mother, I’m 176 cm amd I’m really thin: even my bones are “small”, that’s genetics.

In high school, it happened quite frequently that other kids would ask me whether I ate or wether I wasn’t anorexic or something. I was not, I was just thin: I ate normally, did sport as any kid my age did, and up until that moment I had never thought much about the way I looked. I started being bothered by the fact I was thin, people’s comments made me feel like something was wrong with me. I started eating a lot of fatty stuff, drinking cream instead of milk, and guess what? Just like a genetically overweight person can do anything without results, I didn’t gain a single pound.

As I grew up, I started not caring about it anymore, even if every time I get naked in front of someone, I wonder what they’ll think of the fact you can see a bit of my chest bones.

But the comments didn't stop. Today i sat down at the cafeteria with a 50 years old colleague. I usually eat at the restaurant with some friend over lunch, it’s the first time I eat at the company’s cafeteria. As she saw me arrive, in front of all of it colleagues, she said “oh, so you eat! We thought you didn’t eat”.

Next to her was sitting my overweight secretary. No one would ever think to comment on her weight, because fat shaming is offensive and politically incorrect. But thin shaming is not. Aborexia is a psychological illness, and I don’t find it very fun that a colleague tells me she “thought I didn’t eat” just because I’m thin, just as an overweight person won’t like being mocked about having some illness that causes their fatness.

#bodyshaming

Thin shaming is just as bad as fat shaming
88 Opinion