So today's post is going to be a little bit of a rant and more personal than usual, spawned from something that happened to me at work yesterday. If you are personal friends with me on Facebook, you may have already seen this. For those of you that aren't my personal friends, here is the post:
Initially I wasn't offended by this man, but as the day progressed, it did wear on me and I did have a little cry about it later. There was more to the cry than just that but that is what pushed it over the edge.
I am not sharing all of this looking for sympathy and I'm not feeling down on myself or looking for people to build me up. This situation just brought the subject of personal weight/body image being open for discussion to my attention. I read articles all the time about these things, hear them from my friends, have experienced them my whole life, etc. It is part of being a woman. I don't know if that is the case worldwide but it is definitely the case in America.
My question is why? Why is it appropriate to make comments like this? And more importantly, why does it matter?
I am currently just about the heaviest I have ever been in my life, and while that is the case, I am not obese.... well I don't think so. According to the BMI, I am .09% over weight, putting me at 25.09% which would indicate that I am slightly obese, but honestly, I'm not fat. I am a size 5/6 pant and I am fine with that. In fact, I actually generally am glad to be the size/weight that I am normally. I am about 15 lbs heavier than what has become my normal size in the last 4 years, due to a change in my prescriptions and I gained that weight in a week, unluckily, as most of us know, it is much harder to lose that weight than it was to put it on. I honestly have been a little sensitive about that because of how quickly it came on and where my weight naturally sits. I carry my fat in my face, stomach, and in my thighs/hips. So I can see why this man thought I was pregnant and have thought to myself on occasion in the last few weeks that I've been this weight, that I do look that way, but I'm not, and even if I do look that way or were actually pregnant, it's nobody else's business. I could be 30 months pregnant and as huge as a house, and it wouldn't be anyone else's business even though I'd be in the Guinness Book of World Records and a tabloid queen for my unusually long gestation and immense size.
This is not the first time I've had unsolicited comments made about my body and my weight. While I've been at my heaviest, I've had other people make the same assumption and have been asked by children, and women as well.
Manners people! I don't think I have ever asked a woman if she was pregnant based on her appearance. If I have asked, it's been because of context and conversation.
I have also been on the other side of the spectrum as well. All through my teens and early 20s, I was under weight. On the BMI I was 15.96%. I am 5'8" and wore a 00 pant. I was healthy, ate well, my doctor said I was perfectly healthy, everything was good, I was just skinny. I cannot tell you how many times people made comments and assumptions about me because of my size.
Once when working, I had a larger woman in a Rascal say, "How much do you weigh? I just have to know!" I may have been skinny but that didn't make the question OK. I wanted to ask her the question back to show her how inappropriate that was but I was a good retail employee and kept my manners and I think I said something along the lines of "I don't know." I would have people insist to me that I had an eating disorder and tell me that I needed to get treatment for it. At a different job, one of my boss's wives called a family member of mine to make sure that I did eat. It didn't matter what I did, I couldn't gain weight. I was self conscious because of what people would say to me and how they would treat me.
When I did finally gain weight when I was around 25 years old, I was happy about it. I thought the comments would stop. I was happy with having softness and looking as healthy as I was and felt. I normally sit at around 20.52% on the chart and that is where I feel great and what I am hoping to get back to. This is where I feel great! When I am there, it doesn't matter if people comment on my double chin or belly fluff. I feel comfortable in my clothes and in my skin. If you weigh 400lbs and feel that way, that is fantastic! It should be about how you feel. That's what is important. Not what some stranger thinks or says.
I guess all I really wanted to say from this post and didn't do a great job of expressing is that it shouldn't matter what other people say about us and our bodies, but it does get to us. How can it not eventually? We can say it doesn't, and maybe mostly it doesn't, but there might be one comment, or one person that says it that gets under our skin, even if just for a minute. This isn't the way it should be. As long as we are happy with ourselves and our bodies, none of the rest should matter. We are all beautiful in our own ways. I want to tell everyone to love yourselves and try to not let the world bring you down. If it does, do what you need to do to pick yourself back up, and do it. If we all do that, maybe the comments will eventually stop and people will learn to have manners and to keep their opinions to themselves.
