Skinny shaming: it's a thing

Today I'd like to talk about something a little bit different to my usual posts. It's something that's really been playing on my mind recently, and after searching around on Google for a while I've actually found that I'm not alone in my way of thinking.

Everyone's heard of fat shaming; it's been a thing for as long as I can remember. You can't tell a fat person that they're fat: it's unkind. You can't use the word 'fat' as an adjective when describing somebody, despite the fact that they might be: it's rude. You can't tell a fat person to stop eating: it's ignorant of the matter at hand.

So why is it acceptable for people to do it the other way around?

I am one of those people that can eat like a pig and never put on any weight. I go to the gym maybe twice a week and try to have my five a day, but can never resist chocolate when it's offered to me. And still I've remained at a 'skinny' UK size eight-to-ten figure since I was around 13 years old. 

For the longest time I have had people come up to me and go, 'God, I hate you. You're so skinny' and I've had to laugh it off despite being totally embarrassed. It's one of those comments that makes everyone around you turn and look; scrutinising you as if you're there to be judged solely upon your weight.

It took me a long time to realise that these skinny shaming comments are just as bad as the fat shaming ones. On a basic level, there is a vulgar value consensus in today's society that 'nothing tastes as good as skinny feels' and therefore how can anyone get offended by being branded 'skinny'? But on a deeper level, there has been such a backlash against certain blogs and websites promoting all sorts of unhealthy advice in order to lose weight, that people are now starting to see all 'skinny' people as followers of this advice and, in turn, using this against them.

A prime example of this has happened to me too often to count: a supposed 'fat' girl telling me to 'get some meat on my bones' or 'get some food down me', and people have just looked on as if it's perfectly acceptable for a girl to basically judge me for how much weight I carry around with me. Yet if I were to walk up to a girl who was deemed to be overweight and tell her to 'stop eating so much rubbish' or to 'get to the gym and work some of that fat off' there'd be looks of utter shock and cries of outrage from just about everybody within earshot.

Yes, 'Thinspirational' websites promoting losing weight in unhealthy ways need to be stamped out. Yes, people need to start feeling comfortable in their own skin. And yes, things like anorexia are becoming alarmingly apparent in teenagers. But that doesn't make being overweight healthy. It's just as unhealthy as it always was, and it always will be. Neither fat nor thin should be promoted by anybody; an individual's relationship with food is complicated enough without an increasing number of other influencing factors. 

The way I think of body image is a spectrum, with underweight people who have genuine eating disorders at one end and overweight people with genuine eating disorders at the other. To be on either side of the spectrum is no good. As human beings who have the potential to create amazing lives for ourselves we should always aim to be somewhere in the middle; maybe not completely but for the most part healthy. 

A person aiming to hit somewhere in the middle of the spectrum should be encouraged to do it in the healthiest way possible, never should a person be told to lose or gain weight via over/under-eating, not eating at all, vomiting or stupid diet crazes that are advertised in just about every celebrity magazine published.

As human beings we should strive to help people start or remain living healthily, and never use their weight (or lack of it) as a reason to shame them.