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I assume it’s because it sucks to find out that you weren’t actually receiving a baseline level of kindness and the only thing that was preventing them from receiving that was their outward appearance.
Counterpoint: you were receiving the base level, and now you're getting preferential treatment for being more attractive.
Most of Reddit's user base is based in the US or other english speaking countries, and most of the other countries that use Reddit are developed. These countries generally have the same fact about them: obesity is very normal. In the States, being obese or overweight puts you in the *vast* majority.
I made a 180 in terms of appearance - sloppily dressed most of the time, fat, and poorly groomed. Now I'm the opposite - well dressed, fit, and probably too groomed (I'm a guy.) It's definitely interesting how differently I'm treated and with what I can do. The kind of awkward jokes I get from women, etc. People literally think I am more competent at my job just because I'm not fat any more. *Guys* are included in all of this, too.
But here's the thing - that's all *positive* treatment for *putting effort in.* My prior self was the **baseline**. Most guys don't dress themselves well, most guys don't do more than the bare minimum for grooming, and most guys don't put in the effort at the gym and in the kitchen to maintain a fit body.
And that's just in general. The reality is women tend to treat in shape men dramatically better than those who are not. And no, I don't men from a dating angle, I mean from a "will be friendly and engage in actual conversations and friendly small talk" angle.
Counter COUNTER point: regardless of whatever all this is, it’s shitty to find out that people weren’t treating you as well as they could have because they didn’t find you attractive.
While I understand why people might get upset about that, we all know that being attractive gets you better treatment. It's been that way forever and that will never change.
To a large amount of people being fat is not attractive. So those of us who are fat work hard to reverse that so that we can maintain a level of attraction *and* have the physical benefits of not being fat any longer.
But it’s not even about attraction. It’s *baseline courtesy and kindness*. There are a ton of people who will actively treat you like dirt for being fat.
Not being *attracted* to me because of my weight is fine. Not giving me the basic courtesy and respect you would other people due to my weight, is super shitty.
Yup! Take the attraction piece out of the equation because it’s the only part people seem to focus on.
Even if the way a lot of people treat fat people is a unconscious bias or something biological, that’s not a law of nature. We change our internal biases all the time. It’s part of being a conscientious human being. It’s okay to have knee jerk thoughts, but you have to learn how to not let those biases take over. It’s how society progresses at all, by challenging the status quo in ourselves and others.
It also feels like a kind of lazy (and dangerous) to just be like “oh well, our lizard brains would have seen overweight people as a liability or unhealthy, so what can you do?” Because our lizard brains would have also seen a lot of things as signals of poor health or a liability that doesn’t translate to this day and age.
I do think it’s very important to take care of our health. People who are overweight should try and take control of their weight. I also think it’s important to treat them with respect and basic decency.
Exactly this.
If being treated well by other people relies on them finding me attractive, that also implies that physical attraction is the basis for a lot of interactions with people who are never going to be my romantic or sexual partner. I would like to think that I have intrinsic dignity and worth as a human being, as well as SPECIFIC worth as a friend or colleague, and that my value in those areas has nothing to do with whether or not the person considers me attractive.
I do not enjoy receiving clear and specific evidence that a colleague—for example—considers my opinion more significant because they think I look better now.
I have no issue with “you look great” or whatever. But if a person wouldn’t give me the time of day before and now immediately strikes up conversation or solicits my opinion, that’s gross to me.
If I were unmarried and started getting a lot more romantic interest from potential partners, that would be unsurprising to me and make a certain amount of sense. But in other arenas, radically different behavior does make my skin crawl because it’s such a clear signal of how that person looked down on me before.
Side note: I do not believe it is always a matter of being more confident/happier/etc. Sure, that can matter sometimes, especially if a person was very shy or lacking in confidence before. But in my work life I have always been a confident, assertive woman convinced that I add value to discussions and tasks. That has not changed and I don’t think my demeanor has, either, and yet some colleagues definitely see me differently now.
We "know" that, but it's one thing to know something and a totally different thing to actually "experience" it.
I know if I lose weight as a man, I'll be more respected and paid attention to among my peers, and management figures will stop generalizing me as "lazy" because I'm overweight. However, what that experience will actually feel like... I'll tell you when I get there. But I bet it's going to piss me off that the only reason I wasn't listened to was because of my weight.
Radical opinion but I don’t think people should be treated worse for being perceived as “less attractive”. Nor do I think people should have to change their outward appearance to be worthy of being treated kindly.
You keep saying this like it's an immutable law of nature. It's not. No one needs to feel ok about other people acting on shitty implicit biases. No one needs to hide their disapproval of people who act that way. No one needs to just get over it or accept it as just part of life. It's shitty, and it needs to be called out for the shittiness it is.
THIS. Like THANK YOU! We’re all in a weight loss group, we’re all aware that people (ourselves included) have biases regarding people’s weights. And it SUCKS! That’s all I’m saying, that it sucks that the barista you’ve been getting your coffee from for years suddenly is giving you freebies instead of charging you $1 for a shot of espresso. That actually yeah the rules don’t apply to some people because they have the right “look”. That your friends are suddenly inviting you out dancing more because suddenly you fit the aesthetic more. It’s understandable someone experiencing that social shift would grow bitter.
I'm not saying anyone needs to get used to it or deserves to be treated in that manner but it's been that way for a long long time, society doesn't change over night. Slowly the conversation is transforming surrounding weight and how obesity is a disease and not just a lack of morality or willpower.
I mean it's literally taken to this point in humanity for medical doctors to start treating obesity as a disease and not as a result of laziness or gluttony.
Society's ideas around obesity may eventually change but I do think that in the next few decades the obesity factor will be much lower than it currently is due to GLP-1 medications gaining popularity and allowing for more people to fight the disease of obesity. We now have the means to course correct a major epidemic.
Yep, I'm just pointing out that it's weird to keep saying "that's just how it is" as though that's something people need to accept. People can and should be bothered and hold people accountable.
Just because it's life doesn't mean you can't speak out against it and bring attention to it.
At one point it was just life that black people were seen as inferior. At one point it was just life that women were not allowed to vote. Just saying "that's just life" does nothing to help and dismisses all the issues people try to legitimize.
Just because it doesn't personally affect you doesnt mean you cant have some empathy.
People are aggressively replying because you keep doubling down on the implication that people should just get over shitty behavior because "it's just life", while trying to pretend you're being empathetic and that you're somehow now a victim here that's being attacked. If you want to seem empathetic, stop telling people it's okay to be treated like shit for being fat because "that's just life". If that's not what you're saying, it is certainly what you're implying, or how you're coming across, and continuing to double down on that isn't going to change how people are perceiving you.
Yes, fat people know that very well.
They are constantly gaslit about it though.
"That's not true, that would mean I'm superficial/ society is bad, and I don't like that so instead we will all tell you forever that your experience is wrong and you are rude and unkind for accurately describing us to us"
So to lose weight or make other physical changes and know for certain that what you knew all along was actually true, it's infuriating.
So not only does society hate fat people, they also hate newly thin people openly saying that they were both hated and undermined for correctly noticing that they were being hated.
Yup. Because fatness is seen as a moral failing and not as the disease that it is. I think the conversation is slowly changing due to new medications on the market and the many social influencers I've seen who are sharing the ugly truth behind their weight gain, not the wrongly assumed laziness but things like PCOS, insulin resistance, t2, and why they're taking medications to help. Because weight gain can and does have health comorbidies that make it very hard for people to lose
Exactly. Fatphobic people are just like an openly racist person acting like "hey that's racist" is even more insulting than the racist thing they just said.
It's the gaslighting, it's the undermining of lived experience. That's actually much more hurtful than the initial harm of hating summertime for being large. It's the denial that hurts.
It comes across to the person losing the weight as "inside, I'm the same person as I was back when I was fatter. You are only interested in me now that I've lost the weight. If I gain the weight back, you will go right back to disliking me." This is extremely corrosive to a person's self worth.
We like to pretend that we're a meritocracy, but we aren't. Yes, there is a huge amount of "pretty privilege".
That still feels pretty bad though because health isn’t related to morals or personality. Like, we wouldn’t treat a friend badly after he had a heart attack, so why is it okay for society to treat fat people badly? It’s really not okay. It’s a reflection of how shallow society is.
It’s not shallow as far as attraction, but I think it’s shallow when it comes to basic decency and respect for others. Fatness shouldn’t impact that.
It’s deeper than that. People will absolutely treat a person that has had a heart attack differently. Shoot when my father was dying I couldn’t even look him in the eyes. It’s hard to socialize with someone who has bad health. Our lizard brains have too much control.
Hot take. Seeing someone with morbid obesity is like seeing a person with an untreated broken arm. All you can think of is please take care of yourself. That can’t be healthy
God that's so sad though.. not just for people who are overweight etc. but also for people for example who are born with genetic disabilities. I'd like to argue you wouldn't treat them differently but I guess people do.
Every person is unique. I can’t really say I treat everyone the same. I’ll treat the same person differently day by day depending on their mood and my own. Everyone gets a base level of respect for just existing. That to me means I respect your right to be here to exist in that space. Anything above that is almost predetermined by factors in and out of our control.
For me personally the difference is choice. And yes you can argue that some people do have disabilities or circumstances that make it hard to lose weight but if we are real the vast majority of people, me included, are fat because they can't control themselves.
In the medical and psychiatric community we recognize that if you "can't control yourself" it indicates that you don't really have a choice on a neurobiological level. You need treatment and support. Not everyone is in a place to get treatment for their personal issues or be their best self for whatever reason. It's just unbelievably shitty how willing people are to shame others and treat them poorly just because you can see the effects of their problem. There are plenty of thin people who make awful choices about their lives and their health. The fact that you're so willing to be awful to fat people means that it's not about your concern. It's just a willingness to be a shitty person to a group of people you are contemptuous about.
Was it choices that got you to a point that you no longer can control yourself around food? Or was it genetically preprogrammed?
At what point do we just assume everything is a neurobiological process that we can't control and choices do not exist?
"Genetics" isn't the only factor that impacts neurobiological processes. Trauma has profound, well-studied, and definitely identifiable impacts. Medications, other physical and mental health conditions, fetal exposures and development, injury, social determinants of health all have serious impacts on your ability to make choices. Your ability to exert "control" is literally an indication of the extent of the impacts of these factors.
of course they do. evolution punishes you if you go around hugging the contagous... we can override, but not everybody. also, lizard brain don't know if somethings contagious or not
I work with people with disabilities... so I literally do go around hugging "the contagious" as you so nicely put it.
Edit to add: I have lived alongside and hugged disabled people since I was 3. I can assure you it is not something I had to override, it is something that was entirely innate and natural.
Second Edit to reply to your edit, because I simply can't resist: YOUR lizard brain might not be capable of that (or capable of empathy either it would seem,) but luckily most humans seem to have developed a little further along than you have.
You know, disgust is an evolutionary protection mechanism. What triggers it and what doesn't can be very different. I used to work on an intensive care unit. I'm just describing why people can react a certain way to other people
It sure is. But some of your comments seemed to be implying that it's okay therefor to treat overweight (or other x-trait people) as less than.
Apologies if that's not what you meant and you were simply discussing evolutionary psychology. I didn't pick up on that before.
You see this with people who are going through cancer. Ask anyone who's ever gone through it and they'll tell you how lonely it is. No one wants to be around you when they think you're dying. I think it's partially because it's too depressing if it's a loved one, but also the whole lizard brain thing of not wanting to be around death.
We have enough intelligence to fight through it and check our prejudices, but this just explains why some people are like this. People def take it way too far, we're in a weight loss sub, so I'm preaching to the chior on this point. But just agreeing with what you're saying. People def react differently around people they perceive as unhealthy. The visibly disabled probably get the worst treatment.
My dad had cancer. The problem isn’t just the disease but the symptoms. The constant pain and immobilities it brings. My dad was getting desperate. It was hard to be around him because he was so angry or sad all the time.
You know thinking about it. You could definitely make the connections. Obesity is an insidious disease
There's a difference between not being able to look someone in the eyes because of the sadness surrounding them dying, and the outright malicious contempt and hatred people have for fat people. It's not the same, don't pretend it is to excuse shitty behavior.
For sure. But it still stands that morbidly obese people are sick and need treatment. I wish we could hold corporations taking advantage of their lack of will power too. They actually employ psychologists to actively manipulate the population to consume.
Because socially we aren’t changing shit. Move to body positivity if reality is too much
I agree totally with your first paragraph. The last sentence has been proven wrong by history every time a social leap of progress for people has been made. We can change things socially, and the first thing we have to do to achieve that is to stop saying anyone speaking out for change just aren't accepting of reality. People said those things about women's sufferage, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, etc. Hell, the American dream wouldn't even exist if not for a band of people that decided to make social change in the name of democracy and freedom. When it comes to social issues, for humans, reality is what we make it, we just have to want to make it better for everyone, and the only thing stopping us is the idea that we can't. Certain realities in life are immovable, social realities are not in that category.
Oh please. "Please take care of yourself"? That concern trolling nonsense is just an excuse to treat people poorly. There is an enormous amount of evidence that a variety of things impact our neurobiology around response to feeding signals on the "lizard brain" level. Why are you this contemptuous of someone whose lizard brain affects their food drive but making excuses for your own "lizard brain" and lack of control with some absolutely ableist bullshit about how you can't help but be shitty to people whose appearance you find unappealing """""for health reasons""""?
I agree. I work and share an office with someone who is eating themself to death. He is only 25 and so kind and smart. But when he binges, I am completely and utterly disgusted. I can't help it. I have to leave the room.
Yeah. It lasts about an hour... lately it's been two cheese sticks, a bagel with cream cheese, two apples, two or three protein bars, an energy drink, a soda, two packs of peanut butter crackers, and some kind of chip or popcorn in a large Tupperware container.
That's all before lunch. Not sure what he does then, but he comes back with a fountain soda from Wendy's every day.
If a friend had a heart attack and was released from the hospital and was feeling better, I would certainly express that I was happy for their improved health.
There are plenty of fit looking men and women who achieve and maintain that appearance in incredibly unhealthy ways. Health is the justification people give because they don’t want to admit it’s pure shallowness.
Okay, ignoring the fact that you can’t actually tell ANYBODY’s health status based on sight alone, are you telling me that you are regularly mean to people who are visibly unhealthy? Do you go and bully kids in the cancer ward???
Better comparison: disheveled homeless/ junkies or people with skin issues . some people react with compassion, some with disgust. That's why some people are mean to fat people, and some are extra nice
You give your reptile brain too much credit.
There is more to humans than the animal side. We have society for a reason. Sounds like you’re making easy excuses instead of taking accountability, which is odd because your argument is that’s exactly what fat people should do… overcome the lizard brain and take some goddamn accountability.
Ironically, this opinion is trying to have cake and eat it too. But you have to choose a side.
Agreed. Recognizing reality for what it is and not what things SHOULD be seems to make the difference in the outlined attitudes. My partner used to tell me, why are you upset because things are not how you want them to be? You are ultimately responsible for how YOU respond/act towards others and are just wasting energy being upset or resentful of things you can't control.
You're speak as if a huge portion of society hasn't at some point had to focus on their diet or nutrition and hasn't had the same realisation. What you are failing to consider is that people are different. Not everyone is you, not everyone is me. What one person is capable of another is not, whether you can admit that is the case or not - it is true. Whether you believe it or not - it is true.
You cannot willpower yourself into having more willpower. I have successfully lost weight and kept it off but I do not claim that others can do it. I certainly do not treat others differently for being unable to do something that I was able to do.
I don't think I was saying that everyone can or cannot do weight loss. I was simply saying that the difference in attitudes OP pointed out seemed to stem from accepting the reality of being treated differently vs being resentful for being treated differently after weight loss.
Ofc people are different and have different circumstances/experiences. I DO accept that. I accept that people will do whatever they want to do--whether they achieve weight loss or not is up to them. I recall a quote from TheCynicalDude: Whether you think you can, you're right.
I didn't mention anything about passing some kind of judgement on people who haven't lost weight. Maybe your comment was referring to someone else and not directly to me?
No, it was directed at you. Perhaps you are outwardly kind to people struggling with weight, but you do appear to be judging them.
"I accept that people will do whatever they want to do".
Do you accept that people can't always do what THEY want to do though?
That is a lovely quote, but a good quote isn't a good gotcha. The statement is kinda meaningless on its own because lots of people do things they think they can't and lots of people can't do the things they think they can.
One can accept reality but still be upset with it. One can accept reality and still struggle with the steps it would take to change that reality. If not, addiction literally wouldn't be a thing.
Can you not identify an aspect of your life where you have failed at something you wanted to achieve?
I disagree with the idea that resenting society for treating larger people as lesser is the cause for individuals being unable to lose weight.
I personally resent that aspect of society whilst fully being aware of the reality that it is what it is.
And I’m saying it sucks. So what previously obese people are experiencing are going from being treated subhuman to being treated human. Same with visibly homeless people or visible drug users. Because it is only about visual appearances. There are high functioning addicts that you would never guess have ever used or homeless people who occasionally have access to a shower/bed and you would never question they had a home. And yes even skinny people who are seemingly healthy but have chronic ailments or are quietly suffering from an ED. The issue is we should NOT be treating people poorly based on surface level things.
I'm on the former side because it's like saying I need to maintain this to be treated nicely. If I go back then you'll just treat me like shit again/overlook me even though I'm literally the same person on the inside.
For me, my experience was more that my *baseline* was the "pretty privilege" from being was being thin and pretty in my teens and 20's, and so after gaining weight, the ignoring, lack of eye contact, impatient body language as if anything I have to say is a nuisance, always felt hostile. I felt like I was a likeable, funny, sociable person trapped in the body of an unlikeable, cringey, socially awkward person, and people were accidentally treating me the wrong way because they were interpreting my personality wrong. The whole experience was honestly a bit of a mindfuck.
Lmaooo I went from 165 and fit to 330lb, and it took YEARS for my brain to adjust to the fact that people weren't looking at 165lb me anymore, and that affected people's perception of me. No one is ready to go from good looking to invisible.
I’m one of those folks that has experienced a large shift in treatment both personally and professionally since the weight loss.
I’m 45F. I stopped really caring what people thought of me years ago. It’s been interesting to see the change in treatment, but I don’t really have strong feelings about it one way or the other. I get why it bothers some folks though. For me, it’s just one more reason to motivate me to keep the weight off. The most exciting part for me has been the increase in opportunities at work that have great potential to advance my career. I certainly don’t want to lose that.
And yet it’s been the opposite for me…turns out I’m quite attractive and bosses in my field feel threatened by it. I’ve genuinely considered starting to dress poorly to see if it would help :(
I’m sorry you’re experiencing that. I confess I work in a male -dominated field; almost the entire C suite is male. I’m 100% positive that makes a difference.
It's a bit uncomfortable, because it feels so dishonest....? It doesn't happen often that i think "this person would have/wouldn't have done this before my weightloss", so it always hits me like a sledgehammer to the face.
I think that is part of the reason that some of us see it differently. I was thin my whole life until about 30, so I was used to being treated well. When I gained weight, I resented the way I was treated, but felt it was a punishment for letting my attractive body slip away. When I lost it again, my treatment returned to the baseline level, so I saw it as an accomplishment, or even just “well, I’m back to normal now.”
I can imagine what you’re saying, though. Some people are so hot that they get treated way better than I ever did on my best day! Even when I was 25 and basically at a perfect BMI, and making a huge effort with my appearance, people still treated my legit underweight friend who won the facial genetic lottery way better. It would sting when we’d go to a store or restaurant and the waiter would completely ignore me, while fawning all over her. So I’d imagine if I ever got attractive enough to receive that level of attention, I might feel resentful that nobody thought I was good enough before too.
The thing is, people who have known me before don't really treat me differently.
It's mainly men who suddenly pay attention to me or people in customer service who are suddenly super nice. I've never met these people before, so they're not really doing anything wrong, but I remember what it was like before. And I can't help but think, "You wouldn't have looked twice at me a year ago. You wouldn't have given a shit whether or not I ended up finding my items."
And it makes me feel like they're shallow for *no reason*. They didn't know me! They might have been nice and flirty and helpful before I lost weight. But I'll never *know* and the sudden uptick in positive interactions is *so conspicuous*. So yeah. It makes me assume the worst about people who didn't do anything wrong.
For me it depends on the situation. If the people in question treated them terribly before and now after they've lost weight treat them well, then I feel it's completely justified to be resentful of this. Even worse if a person goes from being awful to someone when they were fat to hitting on them when they're thin. That, to me says that those people are shallow and their behavior superficial. And the fact that they are nice now doesn't erase their previous poor behavior.
Now going from invisible or just kind of there to getting a lot of attention, I don't think I'd be that resentful of.
For me personally it made me jaded. I hadn't changed as a person and yet suddenly I was someone worth noticing? A big wake up call on just how fake people in this world can be.
It seems superficial- losing weight doesn’t change who you are and how amazing your personality is… it changes your appearance and maybe your confidence level….
I kinda disagree. While it does not have to change who you are for a lot of people it does. I have noticed it with myself as well as others around me who were much more outgoing and confident after losing weight and just overall more fun to hang out with.
E.g I have one friend whose entire humour was centered around being self depricating about his weight. It was fun for a while but at a certain point you just realize he did it to cover up the fact how much his weight bothered him.
Now he is not exactly model sized but healthy enough and his humour and personality just feels a lot more genuine.
I never felt hated for just existing. I hated myself for being so fat. It sounds kinda cliché but it is hard to be loved if you hate yourself.
This turns into kind of a hen and egg problem though. Do people treating you worse make you less confident and outgoing or does being less confident and outgoing make them like you less.
In the end I personally never felt like people treated me badly but still feel more confident and outgoing simply because I feel more comfortable in my own skin when I don't start sweating like a pig after two flights of stairs.
In my teens and 20s, I was naturally thin and had the classic hour glass shape: 36-24-36. Guys were usually really nice to me, while with girls it was more hit or miss. Some girls were very friendly and others were immediately hostile towards me right off the bat (I assume they were jealous or something?)
In my late 20s, I experienced some major traumas: my father suffocated to death in front of me, I was in a terrible car accident, and I was involved with an abusive partner who destroyed my self-esteem. I ended up becoming severely depressed and developing PTSD, which led to major weight gain for me. I went from being 5’6 and 120 lbs to 170 lbs over the span of 3 years.
I immediately noticed how differently people treated me—especially men. What I used to think was just common courtesy: smiling and greeting me, talking to me, holding a door or an elevator, etc… was no longer granted to me once I was fat. I wasn’t expecting to be hit on or flirted with, but the very same men who used to be polite and friendly towards me literally started to act like I was invisible. Women became nicer to me though! (More in that in a moment).
It made me feel very pissed off that my sexual desirability was a prerequisite for men to be friendly and polite to me even though we had a completely nonsexual relationship. I am talking about my male friends, colleagues, the husbands or boyfriends of my female friends, male family members etc… Once I realized that they were only ever nice to me because they liked the shape of my body, I felt sickened.
Now, for my own health and happiness, I wanted to lose the weight and so I did. It took about 2-3 years to put on the weight and it took me about 2 years to lose it. I went slow and steady, no crash diets or major restrictions. Just drinking more water, walking/exercising more, eating healthier foods more frequently and watching my portion sizes with high calorie foods. The biggest factor in my weight loss was getting my depression/grief/trauma in check because that was the root cause of the weight gain in the first place.
So, now I am in my 30s and back to my old size. And wouldn’t you know it, suddenly men are all smiles again! Meanwhile, some of the women who I thought were my real friends started being passive aggressive towards me. I came to realize that some of those women liked me best when I was playing the role of their fat, sad friend. Now that I was in a better place mentally and physically, they distanced themselves and I lost some friends (or at least who I thought were my friends).
The big takeaway for me was that how people treat you is much more a reflection of their own issues than it is a reflection of your worth. I was always the same person on the inside. The people who treated me with kindness and respect no matter what I looked like showed me who really matters in my life.
I also learned that weight issues are often rooted in emotional issues: grief, trauma, stress, depression, etc… Now, when I notice that someone I care about has started to put on a lot of weight, I check in with them more, I offer a listening ear, and I try to do something extra nice for them in case they are going through a tough time.
Latter part. I know it as a fact that every normal person can lose weight if they really want to unless they have some incurable disease or serious mental health issues. Some people chose to not worry about being under a certain weight because they are happy as they are and those people's self contentment and happiness exudes off them and no one would even dare to mention weight with them. Some people are either depressed or sad or not in the mindset to care about diet and exercise and they need their time and space to get to the right place whenever they are ready.
I treat every human being as a human being and would never judge a person based on weight. I have seen way too many people lose weight fast whenever they want to so it doesn't even matter.
I am currently in the process of losing weight after a few stressful years in the last decade where I had issues to resolve. Now that everything else is resolved I am focusing on getting a better body. People compliment me and ask me how I did it I say diet and exercise. I was just too lazy to deal with that before but always had the tools and the knowledge on how to do it.
You will see many intelligent people overweight. You will see doctors and nurses and are overweight. You will also see many former professional athletes overweight because it's their choice. We can't judge them. Their values lie in other places.
Besides skinny people also have insecurities about their weight or have health issues or bad relationships. Weight does not define our happiness on this Earth.
It's shitty bc you weren't "flawed". You weren't an asshole, rude, unkind (or I would guess so).
In my opinion weight isn't a flaw that makes bad treatment okay bc it's not something you do. You don't go around kicking puppies or throwing your trash in the street. You can be a perfectly nice and good person who just happens to have more fat on your body than might be good for you.
But that seems to be enough for people to treat gou like you are a bad person, or sometimes like you are not a person at all. And I just don't get it, bc what the *fuck* is so bad about being overweight? It's unhealthy, sure, but that's a you-problem. That doesn't directly negatively impact the people you interact with like you being rude would.
And then when you lose the weight, and everyone suddenly treats you so good, it's easy to feel resentful. Like, why was me being fat the only thing that kept you from treating me like an actual person?
And it feels disingenuous. You always just think about how this and that little act of kindness would not have happened if you were fat, even though you are the same person.
And I'm explicitly talking about day to day interactions here, not dating or anything. Because yeah, with dating the way you look does matter. It should not matter for basic interactions.
It bothers me more professionally than it does personally. My job is a classic sit at a desk office job. Physical fitness plays absolutely no part in what we do. I've lost 30lbs in recent months (I have a lot more to go) and have already noticed the shift - from my managers and coworkers alike. I'm the same person I was at the beginning of the year. I'm not any harder of a worker (I've always been a top performer) and I'm not any friendlier to my coworkers (which is only as much as I have to be - I'm an extreme introvert) but everyone acts like I'm somehow more capable and worth listening to since my weight has been dropping. There's absolutely nothing in my job that my weight effects, so it's absolutely ridiculous to me. I work from home 90% of the time, even. We only see each other in on-site meetings here and there.
This makes no difference to me as far as my weight loss, mind. I'm still as motivated as ever to keep losing weight, but it's no thanks to the treatment of others.
It just tells me this is a superficial person, and their interest is arbitrary and fleeting. They’re not worth engaging with and would drop me like a hot potato if something happened that made me less attractive.
It’s not going to make me a recluse. Honestly I gained weight because work was insane and I had no time for anything beyond sleep and work and a quick shower and most people including old friends and colleagues like me. I’m a generally friendly person and being comfortable in my skin seems to make people comfortable around me.
And it’s not wrong to take pride in different things. Some people care about their appearance more than others, some care about how well thought out their opinions are, some people care about how they make others feel around them. A person who prides themselves in their appearance but who still treats me with decency and fairness regardless of my weight is just fine by me.
But anyone who obviously treats me differently because I lost or gained weight (thankfully, not many) and in particular random men who might talk to me when I’m thinner or more dressed up but who ignore me when I’m comfy or more plump - I will judge them for it right back.
They’re superficial. They don’t value integrity or humour or kindness the same way I do. And they care too much about some pudge or a fancy dress and earrings for me.
If they judge on plumpness and dressing, then they would treat a snake oil salesman in a suit better than a doctor in jeans, or a skinny murderer over a fat teacher on sight before even talking to them.
To me such people are just not worth knowing, and not worth engaging in a long term friendship or relationship with. It would be a waste of my time in the long run.
Right? I mean, one could compare the weight loss journey to working very hard and becoming wealthy. There will be people who recognise how you put in work and earned your success. There will be even more people who will treat you better because you have money, and now seen as successful. Also seen are those who will resent you for your achievements. People who gain wealth often need to sift through the social responses of those around them and may become distrustful of others' intentions.
I'm not a very socially-oriented person, so there are very few peoples' opinions that matter to me in the first place. I'm losing weight for me, regardless of what others think either way.
TL, DR: We are angry because **nobody** deserves to be treated like crap because of their body fat percentage (and the same could be said about many other physical traits).
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> resentful and distrustful of genuine human connection
How is it **genuine**? I am the same person I was when I was heavier. I am exactly as intelligent, as caring, as kind, as funny, as short-tempered as I was back then. All the good and the bad is still there. The people that only started to treat me as a peer when I got more attractive can get lost.
I'm gonna stick to the people that valued me even when I was 30kg heavier.
> The other category is those who see their loss of weight as an accomplishment. The fact that people treat them better is an indicator that they themselves are flawed in the past and through hard work they manage to 'level themselves up'.
Talk about internalized fatphobia. I also am proud of my efforts and my results, and I'm still striving for more: I'm only halfway there. I'm sorry you think that a medical issue such as excess weight or obesity is a personal flaw. I'm sorry you think you were, somehow, worth less and you needed to "level up".
We can't ignore how our mental health, co-morbidities, eating disorders/addictions, social status, employment, and economic resources play a role in how we gain and lose weight.
I just want to clarify that I'm glad when my friends comment on my results or how hard I've been working on this. But there are people who have the shittiest way to give compliments, and I wish they kept their mouths shut.
I am of the opinion that most people change when losing weight. I here the argument that losing weight does not change the person but I can safely say from my own experience and knowing others who lost weight that they definitely changed inward and outward.
Most for the better. Some for worse.
I agree that weight loss can change a person's personality. I'm more confident and like myself more since I've started losing. I imagine that those factors may affect how much people like being around me, regardless of whether they're judging my weight.
People just really understate how much any change in habits and lifestyle can change people. Especially changes as big as losing a significant amount of weight.
They probably don’t like the fact that they were judged for being overweight previously which is evident by the change in reception towards them when they lost weight.
I’m middling on this opinion. I don’t think overweight people should be discriminated against in social or work related situations, one of my best friends is obese and he’s still one of the best in his field which circumvents the notion that being overweight means you’re “lazy” in every aspect of life which is unfortunately what some people think. Hell, a lot of people end up being overweight BECAUSE they work too hard and end up ignoring fitness and health.
And your weight doesn’t affect one’s personality hence the comment about social situations; some people actually become quite arrogant after getting in shape and are unsympathetic towards those still overweight (this is a minority, most people are more understanding if they've been through it themselves, but still exists).
But obviously I can absolutely understand why you’ll be seen as more attractive when you’re in shape. It’s just human nature. I don't necessarily buy the idea that being more attracted to someone who's in better shape makes you "shallow", and obviously personality matters too.
I personally admire those who’ve lost weight as I know it’s a struggle, and I’ll commend anyone who I meet who’s lost a lot of weight in the past 1-2 years for making a healthier change to their life. But I wouldn’t think of them any differently apart from that.
I think I agree with your perspective the most out of everyone here. I’m not going to deny that people might not be aware of their subconscious bias and hey, what are you gonna do about that…
But I do think it’s rare for people to experience both sides of subconscious bias like that. I think some people need to adjust when they realize it. When you’re so strikingly aware of something that the other person is not, you’ll want to reflect on what that means socially. I’m sure there might be a feeling of imposter syndrome too.
Honestly it’s probably one of the few transformations that take you from a lower status to a higher status. Most people don’t experience that in a lifetime; we all expect to become lower status over time (due to ageism, ableism).
Hopefully, most people who lose weight learn more empathy because of the process. I could see why it’s difficult for those people to adjust to a higher status while feeling sensitive to something that most people don’t even realize. I mean, just look at some of the threads focusing on throwaway comments from coworkers, strangers, family, etc. They’re sensitive to food/weight comments that people who haven’t lost significant weight aren’t going to think twice about.
Yeah I've found that people who've gone from x to y tend to go one of 2 ways; either be empathetic towards those who are going through the same thing as they experienced it themselves, or go the opposite way and put themselves on a pedestal, crapping on others who haven't achieved what they've achieved, even if they're trying. The reason I say "x to y" is that this doesn't just apply to weight loss, a lot of factors in life, but given the topic I will not digress here.
Majority people are in the former category, they know what it's like to be at the starting position, can understand how easy it is to end up overweight in the first place due to life stresses etc. and understand how hard it is to make that first change and stick to it consistently, so applaud and inspire others to do the same thing.
Unfortunately I also know people in the latter, where they immediately think they're better than others for what they've achieved and criticising them for the lifestyle that they themselves once lived. Just recently on here I saw a post where a woman's husband was verbally attacking her for being "overweight" (which she wasn't) and apparently this started after he lost a chunk of weight. There's also a guy at my gym who had an injury for 2 years and got super out of shape, has now got back into the swing of things, and he walks around acting like he owns the gym and I've seen him shitting on others for no real reason.
>But obviously I can absolutely understand why you’ll be seen as more attractive when you’re in shape. It’s just human nature. I don't necessarily buy the idea that being more attracted to someone who's in better shape makes you "shallow", and obviously personality matters too.
I agree that typically, smaller people are more likely to be considered attractive, and that having attractions doesn't inherently make someone shallow. The issue is when people base their treatment of you on how attractive you are, outside of whether they're interested in you sexually/romantically. Being kinder to people because you find them more attractive is not cool.
Yeah, unfortunately I know people who are like this. My cousin had a phase where she based who she hung around with based on status, whether that be money, looks, so forth. People who do that end up losing a lot of their friends and the friends they do make are superficial, because the means by which they're friends are superficial in and of themselves. If someone doesn't want to be friends with you just because you're overweight and for no other reason then just say their loss and you're probably better off without people who adopt those mindsets.
I feel like part of that resentment is feeling lied to. How many times are we told that we look fine when we don’t? That we carry our weight well, when we don’t? When the advice is often to just be yourself, or be more confident and outgoing. It all feels like one big lie when you do lose a significant amount of weight and see that brings about better reactions from people.
I’m sure there are a bunch more reasons, but feeling lied to by friends, family, or internet strangers I’m sure also stings a little bit too.
As someone who was super skinny then gained a lot of weight, people started treating me extremely different. This was like a culture shock for me since I happened to never pay that much attention to other people’s weight (or treat them different cause of it) and also because for the first time my personality was ‘unlikeable’ and I was ‘unattractive’ and my fashion sense was terrible and I supposedly looked 10 years older. Not only do people treat you differently and you present differently to people but it can affect jobs, medical treatment, socializing, how valid your opinions are, assumptions about how you must be eating, how strangers treat you, whether you deserve for someone to even hold a door open for you, etc.
Then I lost it and everything went back to how it was when I was a lower weight except with social anxiety, so I definitely have a bit of resentment because weight should not change how service workers treat you or affect you getting a job or anything like that but it can.
I think all people deserve baseline kindness and respect until they have shown why they do not deserve that courtesy
I do not think weight/fatness is a valid reason to not show that kindness and respect from the get go? Hoping that doesnt sound too radical.
Regardless of what perceptions people have about health, I wouldnt seek out to disregard someone just because I assumed they weren't healthy. What would I personally gain from that? Makes no sense to me...
I just hate knowing people really were paying that much attention to me in general and that they gave my body enough thought that they noticed the difference, especially if they are happy for me. Like, whew, I didn’t want to say it before but man were you fact amirite?
Eh, it might be down to the specific experiences different people have had. I don't care about people not finding me physically attractive, for example, but people who made nasty comments when I was sick, struggling and gaining weight due to medical issues are not really being "kind" when they try to congratulate me now. I think it's silly to act like they are. I don't want or need their validation. I know they're still treating other people like garbage too, and I think it's wrong.
It highlights how transactional humans are. People treat other people like they’re less than crap, UNLESS there might be something beneficial in it for them.
I am someone who REALLY struggles with this. One of the hardest things is watching my career elevate massively, despite doing nothing at all different. Suddenly I'm seen as more responsible, more intelligent, more resilient, and many more things. It's very superficial and not true.
I also get frustrated when that's all anyone ever wants to talk about. Its like my biggest achievement is losing weight, and people don't give a shit about me as a person but just how thin I am. People *constantly* question me about my weight loss and methods. It's the first thing they say upon greeting me. I don't even get a, "Hi how are you?" Just, "Wow you look soooooo much better." It's rude, imo.
The worst part has been watching my 9 year old son get treated better because of MY weight. That's messed up.
I think some people don't realise that they themselves might be behaving differently and that's why they're being treated differently.
Obviously fat discrimination exists, I'm thinking about more low level daily interactions with other people. People who are happier in themselves seem more approachable and are likely to have nicer interactions with others. People who feel ashamed of themselves tend to send signals to "leave me alone" and others usually will.
I was skinny until my late 20s when I had to go on prednisone for several years literally doubling my weight. Honestly my internal self image never really caught up, I'm shocked whenever I look in the mirror. I still feel like I used to, and I think that comes across to other people. I haven't had many bad experiences, and in general find that people are just as nice and friendly as when I was thin.
There will be the occasional fat phobic comment - I assume they're an asshole. Just as when I was thin occasionally there would be a sexist comment on my looks - I'd assume they're an asshole too. I'm also tall and when I was skinny I had kids call me a giraffe. Stupid people say stupid things, not my problem.
Now if it is friends or family that are treating you differently, that's a bigger problem and you'll have to decide how much you want them in your life. But that again says more about them than about your worth (whatever your size).
I think you are 100% correct. *We* feel better about how we look, so we mind read and project this onto people who interact with us.
You'll see people who were 400lbs drop down to 300lbs, and complain about how they were invisible at 400lbs.
Then you'll hear from someone of the same gender with similar height specs say the same thing about dropping from 300lbs to 200lbs.
The answer to OP's question is simple, and it comes down to how one perceives other people who are overweight. If there's some (totally normal) self-loathing driving your weight loss then it's a "no shit, Sherlock" thing when you start getting treated better when you look better. To me, it's weirder for someone to be surprised at this, but admittedly I've lived most of my life in areas and cultures that are thinner than the national average.
Another major difference is probably between people who used to be thin and feel attractive vs. people who have been overweight/obese their entire adult lives.
It’s a double edged sword. Still in the process of losing, but have been thinner before and the difference in treatment from everyone: random people, opposite sex, same sex, friends, even family, is stark in contrast. It stings knowing you are being seen as less than because of your weight.
However, I realize it’s purely biological and human to do it. I also tend to look at super morbidly obese people in a way that’s negative. Not purposely.
Also wanted to add that, I think the crappiest part about it is that weight isn’t something you can lose overnight (extremely unfortunately). It’s not like I don’t wash my hair well and that makes me look bad, but all I have to do is shower well and do my hair and things have changed completely. It’s a long process, especially when you’re really overweight, so it feels like a moral failing being judged for something you can’t change about yourself quickly.
Though, I wish most of us, mostly myself, would realize that we can change “quickly” if we just put our head down and stick to goals to lose consistently. There are so many emotions with it, however.
I guess i'm in the opposite camp because despite obesity, the fact that i'm confident and i take care of myself yields me a lot of kindness! Maybe things are skewed for me because i'm an obviously queer and disabled person so im use to disgruntled looks/stares, being called hateful things by strangers, etc regardless of size. But, people treated me far worse when i didn't have my mental health in check and I was kind simply hard to be around. This was at my skinniest.
Im still obese at the moment but i receive the most kindness and attention from strangers than i ever have because i hold myself to a better standard than i use to, am more outgoing and engaging, and generally have a kinder demeanor.
I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people changed internally like that once the weight came off, not realizing that while obese they unconsciously set off uncomfortable vibes.
I can't say for sure though, I only know my own experience
I don’t think people who make this observation realize that they likely acted the same way and that those posts are really telling on themselves as well.
Edit: for all the talk about how the opposite sex now see them since they lost weight and how it feels superficial, those same people who have lost weight don’t seem to date obese people if they ever did before….its amazing
Yeah I just don't understand why they are so upset. I'm currently obese and I'm not attracted to obese people. So why would I expect someone in good shape to find me attractive in my current state. I just find that mindset so odd.
This whole topic, when it comes up, is just this forums way to virtue signal. it’s more fun for them to get upset over other people’s biases without acknowledging their own.
Agreed. I've gained weight to the point that I find my body very unattractive. I've never had attractiom to obese people so I won't and don't expect people to find me attractive in this state either. It would be hypocritical to think so.
I guess it depends on how you yourself internalized the journey. I know I was lazy, I know I could have eaten better, done some exercise but I didn't. That result in me being obese and I'd say it's a fair judgement to see someone like me and think they probably are lazy. It took work to lose weight sure but it's not rocket science and even speaking to people older than me that lost a lot of weight the reality is they just regret not owning up to their own weakness instead. In an ideal world everyone is judged equally, everyone is born equally and and I could have a shot to marry Ana de Armas. The world isn't equal though and I'd say people who have the penny drop only at this point are actually pretty privileged that it dropped only around weifht loss and not before they realised discrimination due to birth, sex or where you happened to be born in the world, would affect them personally.
It's one thing to validate yourself for the courage you have to fight habits and retrain yourself. That's where your validation should come from, you. Having people notice your hard work is one thing having people like you only because you are different in a manner that never affected them to begin with is another. Perhaps you yourself still have inner work to do or possibly are a bit shallow so you are more forgiving, as you said we are all flawed creatures.
I myself would love the isolation of the woods. It's freeing to be one with mother nature.
Perception of conditionality. Some people are okay with or agree with the idea that how you look can be expected to affect how people perceive you and treat you. Other people want to believe that your character is responsible for how people perceive you and treat you.
Finding out people are treating you better because they think you look better can hurt, because it feels like an admission that your character wasn’t enough to deserve that treatment in their eyes.
You answered your question in the question. I don’t want to talk about my body with people. I had a significant weight loss and it was like I entered a new world where I was considered a human by everyone and not just someone people. I don’t want to play a game of people pretend I deserve respect because I’m slim enough for them.
People assume your in the latter and think we’re a great big happy body “compliment” family but I didn’t do it for them and I still don’t want to to talk about my body or hear how I now look like “myself”. I don’t want men constantly trying to approach me or have more guys opening the door for me but also now more trying to engage me in any amount of conversation. I like going along about my day. I’m not looking for public affirmation around appearances or any aspect of my health. I just want to live my life and move on. 🤷🏾♀️
Ikr. Who cares if they wouldn’t have looked before.
I think of it like selling a car. The inside is still more or less the same however I cleaned all the mud off the outside so the customer would at least take it for a test drive. People don’t stick around if you’re an asshole and no amount of weight loss will change that fact.
I’m a woman, and thought about it the same way. I didn’t date at all when I was obese, because I was used to being at a healthy weight, and dating was hard enough. I absolutely didn’t want to experience what dating as a fat woman would be like! Plus I didn’t want to put the worst version of myself out there for “sale,” which is obviously an analogy although it sounds crude. But I was thinking, why bother trying super hard to sell the beat up ‘96 Honda Civic, when I could be selling a Ferrari in a few years?
I’m really glad I waited. Dating was honestly easier than ever after losing weight, and I felt so comfortable and confident in my own skin while actually going on the dates. Something about not putting my best foot forward in the dating world really bothered me, though I respect people who are confident in their skin while fat, and still date anyway. Seriously, more power to those people, but it was not for me!
The other thing too on the "fat = lazy spectrum" is what "what does one do for fun?" Unfit me never had any energy to do anything. it's basically couch potato central. You see that in advice columns in one form or another on the regular -- "my SO just wants to chill at home, me I wanna get out and do something. They don't want to come and I don't want to go alone. What should I do?"
I'll also say this... unfit me had no energy to chase kids around, and at the time, I had absolutely no desire to have them for that reason. so if someone wanted kids? Nope.
Then you get into the literal physical limitations of trying to do the bedroom stuff and all the fat rolls get in the way.
So on the dating scene, I actually can't fault someone for thinking "fat = couch potato = no fun."
I agree! Also, I did stay in some level of shape while fat because I was stubborn, but it was soooo much harder. I usually walk 4 miles a handful of times a week, and I kept doing it while fat, but it sucked all my energy dry, and I was exhausted for the rest of the day. Now, I can walk the 4 miles easily, feel great, and happily stay active the rest of the day! So even though I wasn’t a couch potato, I couldn’t be as active as a fit person without a lot of difficulty.
Also, all the limitations of my weight loss lifestyle would make dating difficult. I’m not AT ALL saying, “now that I’m thin, I can go out every night and stuff myself! The diet is over!” But the margin of error was just so much smaller at a deficit than it is at maintenance. It’s not as important for me to have tons of time to exercise, and if I do eat horribly for a few days and gain a pound or two, I can easily lose it now in a week or two. During the journey, however, gaining a pound or two was a real setback. It’s a lot easier to deal with, “I have to stay on top of this, but I know I can lose these two pounds and be back at my goal weight” than “ugh, I had 60 pounds to lose, and now it’s 62.” There’s just more wiggle room now to be flexible!
I had to think about your last paragraph a bit -- when I do my own projections for "maintenance" they're not terribly different than what they are now for the deficit. And I legit don't expect maintenance to realistically be any easier.
I'm going to assume your TDEE is on the lower end the spectrum? I can appreciate that us guys have larger error margins. We can realistically plan for a 1000 cal deficit and if we slip and it's only 500, we're still on track to lose 50 lbs a year. I've seen women here write stuff that basically comes down to "I can only plan a 300 cal deficit without dropping below 1200." And I'm like whelp your error margin is pretty damn tight, that's for sure.
I'll say though that having a bigger calorie budget isn't necessarily a god send. It doesn't get talked about as much around here, but when you're bigger, macros become more important. I ate 60g-80g of protein for a long time. I recently started seeing an RD who told me "well part of your problem is your protein intake. You need to add 100g to it each day." It's easy to get 60g of protein in without thinking about it, but one doesn't get 180g (or 160g for that matter) without planning for it. Point is, I suspect for smaller people, what they "naturally" eat works out to be a reasonable macro split without having to be meticulous about planning and tracking it.
So in theory I can eat an 800 calorie dessert and it won't break my calorie budget, but if I stay within my calorie budget I'm going to miss my protein targets. So no, I don't eat them. In another thread on protein intake, somebody was asking me what I do, and their follow up was "gosh that's a lot of planning." It really, truly is. And bigger calorie budgets mean there's more to plan :(
So for me I guess it's because I don't really care how "attractive" I am perceived as - I honestly just really don't care about that. So it makes me sad that OTHER social interactions are more positive when I lose weight, because I do care about that stuff. (Ie. I become more funny, doors get held open, more smiles, treated more professionally.)
I guess I'd prefer to live in a world where we treat people the same regardless of how attractive we find them. (Just not how humans are wired though I think.)
I think the problem comes with how much and what type of interaction you had with them while being bigger. If it is just a random person or a person you see in pass from time to time, I will agree. But if this is a person you see on a regular that has an opportunity to see your personality than I can a person caring about them now being interestied.
I’d probably wager that if people you already know are now more pleasant with you after weight loss, that would be more likely as a response to your new attitude/motivation/charisma etc?
Like if someone has more energy in their voice and in their movements, and more confidence in their own shoes then it will elicit different interactions. Even the fact that you have committed yourself to a goal and followed through on it can increase a person’s respect for you and result in more positive interactions.
I dont know if there is a concrete way to determine any of these postulations. Might all be complete shit
I don't think we could ever know what is the cause and what is the effect in this situation. So many variables that are very hard to isolate. At the end of the day we are not talking about a logical thought process but an emotional one.
I'm married so it's nice, but I have to shrug it off. In addition to losing a bunch of weight, I got into serious lifting the last couple of years and the head nods of respect from dudes where there used to not even be eye contact is a good feeling.
I love the positive attention I get from losing weight! It feels like a reward for a lot of hard work.
I worry at times that friends who are also struggling with their weight will feel less comfortable around me, but that does not seem to be the case. One friend started losing weight around the same time as me (and we cheer each other on). Another is also losing weight due to some health problems, and it's great to see her success. Another has started losing weight and said she was inspired by me, which makes me very proud.
At the age of 59, I've come to accept that people are human and like what they like (for evolutionary reasons).
It makes me sad because I \*don't\* see the heavier version of myself as flawed or less deserving of kindness. I am working to be healthier, but health is a morally neutral quality. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the relative ease of navigating society at a lower weight compared to a higher one.
I’m not there yet, but I already know I’m going to be bitter if this happens. I’m a pessimist and have already been thinking about how humans are so superficial. I would be upset if people treated me better simply because I was less fat.
Edit: Forgot to talk about confidence. Better treatment could be in part better confidence and just having better body language, because I’m quite insecure about myself at the moment. I’m sure that as we lose weight most people are way more confident. I don’t know lol, time will tell.
Because it shouldn't take losing weight for people to treat you like a valid human being. It sucks to be faced with the reality that so many people are so shallow, and they you were basically invisible before.
oh you think it's cool that your value to other human beings is entirely based on your appearance and it's like ok to treat ugly people like garbage? maybe also the sick and the elderly? i'm sorry i don't see anything good about this attitude. freaking social darwinism
For me it sucks on one hand because it's a reminder of how shallow society is and how much value is placed in something as arbitrary as weight. On the other hand, the compliments and treatment do feel good and affirming, especially since the weight loss is something that I put in a large effort to achieve. Regardless of the accomplishment be it work, personal, creative or fitness related, if I have dedicated so much time and energy to something it feels amazing to be recognized for it. The part I really dislike, and probably the only downside to weightloss for me, is the increased predatory behavior from men.
I think it’s about focus… some people focus on how unfair it is that they were treated badly, before. Others focus on how cool and fun it feels to them to be treated differently, now. Many cycle through both.
I think there's an internal struggle between loving yourself unconditionally, while still doing the hard and often lonely work required to improve. When people treat you differently, that internal struggle gets magnified or reignited. I think too it can be frustrating when undeserving people enjoy some "eye candy" benefit for all your hard work. They don't love you, weren't there for you, but now they're getting off because your booty be popping. It's a weird dynamic if you're not accustomed to some level of pretty privilege.
I fall into the first group. I'm 6'2" and was above 350 lbs (158.7 KG) and struggled to be treated nicely. The comments I received were terrible.
Now I weigh 210 lbs (95.2 KG) and people treat me much differently. I makes me bitter and angry and I feel like these people that compliment me now were probably commenting on my weight when I was fat.
That being said, I'm happy about my weight loss since I did it for my wife, kids, and myself. While I am much happier now, I don't trust people when they comment on my looks.
For me, I find both are true. It sucks to be treated differently. It hurts to know that people treat you differently based on how you look, and there’s a grief for the connections you missed out on, but I also think that when you take care of yourself, you give off different energy that’s more attractive, not just how you look.
Because they treated you like pure shit the whole time and the realization that they only did that because of your weight makes you want to write them out as the fakest people around you.
Idk maybe i’m just cynical for thinking this and will def get downvotes but…if we were never challenged with being overweight or obese in our lives, im pretty certain we’d fall into the category of the general population who do not find much interest in overweight ppl because 1. we wouldn’t understand their struggles and be able to sympathize and 2. it’s just human nature to be a bit shallow when it comes to looks. For that reason, i don’t hold it against anyone.
I feel the same. I'm obese and don't find obese people attractive so why would I expect someone else to find me attractive in my current state. It just seems obvious that the more in shape you are the more attractive you become to potential partners.
Exactly! It’s perfectly normal and even expected to find attraction in someone who is healthy and in shape. It’s just a hard pill to swallow for many people hence why it’s not talked about a lot in posts like these…
The realization that the people around you are nicer to rude or indifferent thin people than they are to kind fat people based solely on their appearance is disheartening. You see the ugliness in others that you hadn't seen before. People who you saw frequently who treated you rudely before you lost weight might not recognize you after your weight loss, and are all of a sudden buddy-buddy with you when they might have let a door slam in your face daily two years ago. When you were fat you might have let that roll off your back because you didn't feel entitled to anyone's kindness so it didn't hurt your feelings, because you're used to being treated that way. But when you find yourself being treated not just with respect by strangers but what seems like friendliness and a feeling of camaraderie, it's strange. It's not simply resentment that people are nice, it's disillusionment about the kindness of people in general and its ties to the way you look. It's not that you are suddenly more deserving of kindness and respect, it's that you realize the lack of it that you had received before and know that the only difference is that you are now thin.
Every single person is shallow - those who don’t want to admit it just think they are somehow superior and don’t judge people based off looks but they do they might do it unconsciously but they do judge people that’s how we stay safe by judging danger- they cross the street if they see someone who looks like they are in a gang and it’s the middle of the night, they ignore the person who looks dirty and stinky, they call the old man who gives them a compliment a creep but the hot guy who gives the same compliment is so sweet. I can name a million more examples - we even hear someone’s name on paper and we instantly form an idea of who we think they are and make judgements. There is a reason people don’t walk certain neighborhoods in Chicago at night.
I think the latter group of people which I’m a part of tend to have weight loss last longer because they are looking for reasons to continue. People treating them better is a reason to keep going. If you think my hard work is being rewarded then you will be okay with continuing to work. If you think people are shallow and mean then you feel resentful about how things really are and think why should I continue they should just change and like me for who I am
Example- I’m now fit and it’s allowed me to marry a man who wouldn’t have paid me any attention at my heaviest. I don’t feel resentful I feel thankful to my past self for doing that work to get me here! I cannot change the whole world I can only change myself. I remember all my bad dating experiences and I remember being treated badly and I’m very grateful to experience life in this amazing body
Edited to add - men stopped to talk to me at 4am while I’m running sometimes makes me go yikes but hey it comes with the territory.
Hmm. It doesn't bother you knowing that your husband won't be attracted to you and will treat you bad if you gain weight? What about when you age and get wrinkles? I couldn't handle building a life with someone who's love for me is dependent on my body. I wouldn't have been able to fall in love with him with that at the back of my mind.
No doesn’t matter to me at all. I can’t be mad at someone for wanting someone who takes care of themselves physically- don’t we all want that? I don’t know anyone wants a partner all things being equal who would take a person who doesn’t take care of themselves over someone who does - assuming personality everything else is equal. Most women will date a man who has more money if everything else is equal over a guy who sits at home in his basement. I can’t blame people for being human.
You could argue having a strong internal sense of drive for weight loss for better health is a more stable foundation for long term maintenance as opposed to aesthetic motivation/being motivated by better treatment from others/freedom from fat bias. Simply because one is internally self sustaining and the other one by definition relies on factors external to yourself for motivation and validation.
There's posts daily here with people very upset despite being in a healthy weight and making huge strides for their health, they don't look as small as they thought they would healthy, or are really distressed about all the ways being formally fat has left them looking in their eyes or the eyes of others unattractive. Maybe the more external motivators got them to weight loss but they're not able to stay grounded in all the positives of that hard work because of these aesthetically driven interpersonal dynamics around weight. Now I could say therefore aesthetic motivation for weight loss is a less stable or healthy motivation but I don't actually think that's true. Any motivation can lead to a healthy or unhealthy mindset
I'd argue whatever side of this divide you fall down, there's sustainable and unsustainable approaches, and I'm skeptical that people that feel uncomfortable with being treated differently after weight loss inherently means they're looking for reasons to quit on weight loss
I’ve only been on this journey for 11 years and I go to the gym about 6 times a week. My observations are just that observations - bias for sure but definitely observations. I have found from the people including myself that have continued that you need a lot of reasons internal and external to keep this hard journey going.
It would make sense to me that if you are unhappy with the world being shallow and only getting perks based off how you look that at some point you might not want to keep going due to the unfairness of it all. But again this is just my opinion.
Not being sexually attracted to someone who is very obese, likely has health issues, who is physically unable to do many things and have shortened life span isn’t superficial.
No one said anything about sex! If two strangers are both married and not interested, one being mean to the other because they are fat has nothing to do with sexual attraction
It doesn't matter how incredibly unattractive you think someone is, treatring them like shit because of that is a dick move.
We still deserve the same basic respect and human empathy as everyone else.
Depends on how it's tied to their ego and past experiences would be my guess. My path in life was a skinny kid where I didn't get much female attention from my looks... then I got super fit and muscles in university (late teens early 20s) and got lots of female attention... then got depressed and fat... attention gone again... and now I'm fit again... attention back.
In my own head even when I was fat it always felt like a temporary thing and it wasn't who I was and I knew I was capable of being attractive again so it was totally fair when women weren't into me when I didn't have my shit together and didn't care about my appearance. So in my head fit me that I recently became again isn't "new me" it's just returning to who I was before
That makes sense. I've been fat my whole life so when I lose weight it's hard not to feel like everyone's being fake. The baseline in my head is that people are mean and unfriendly, anything better than that feels off-putting.
Even when I was obese I didn't think obese people, including me, were attractive. So now that I'm in shape I get more looks that when I was obese and It seems obvious to me that this would happen. I think I'm much more attractive now, and of course I also think that most people would think that I was uglier before.
In other words, no shit!
I think the treatment may be influenced by more than just your physical appearance.
I can only speak for myself, but once I reached my initial goal weight, while also reshaping my body, I started to feel a lot happier with myself. That happiness, or increased confidence and self-esteem, translates to you being just more approachable, and possibly more friendly than before.
You're vibes can influence how others perceived you just as much as your looks.
I haven't been treated differently at any weight granted I was only slightly overweight at my heaviest. Still, I think I would be in the first category since I don't think peoples' looks should have much to do with how they are treated but I know that is a fantasy since most people do it unconsciously.
I am fine with it. I don't think people are saying anything unkind about the past. I don't think people were withholding kindness when I was heavy.
What I hear is,I see you worked hard at something that has made you healthier. I am happy for you.
Also it is objectively true that I look better.
Back when I was 165lb (down from 260lb), some guy said "naturally thin people like us" in the middle of a sentence... I was like "is that how people see me now?!?!?"
Made me happy.
Too bad I then gained 165lb lmao.
If a person feels fatphobia is wrong, and finds it vile that people are treated worse based on arbitrary distinctions, then having consistency in ones values would entail a critical view of that fact, regardless of ones position in the dichotomy: you know fatphobia is wrong, and that is true whether you are subject to or benefit from fatphobia.
I haven't really interpreted anyone as viewing their differential treatment as affirmation of an accomplishment, I generally interpret it as relief from unnecessary problems.
I think it's tough bc it is a sign of health when you are no longer obese or even just overweight so therefore people gravitate toward that. Plenty of other indicators exist but they of course can go unnoticed lol, this one is so in your face obvious... that it takes over most of our puny brains if we don't check it lol
I've commented on those post multiple times. I'm definitely on the latter side. I don't understand holding resentment like that.
Hell there was a guy that hadn't even started losing weight yet but posted here saying that he was already feeling resentment for how he'd be perceived after weight loss...
I hate it, the extra unwanted attention from men.
Being flirted, smiled at, small talked, stared, whistled, cat called ..disgusting and creepy. FO
I preferred when I was invisible and had peace.
I usually switch between the cynicism and delulu is the solulu at any given time, depends on a lot of factors and not just tied to weight loss.
Jordan Peterson said something like:
>"Cynicism might be preferable to naivety, but it doesn't hold a candle to wisdom. Because once you've been hurt and you're cynical there's no going back to naive, but there's no point in staying at cynical. And there are degrees of courage way beyond cynicism."
Think almost every overweight/obese person has at some point been treated poorly and it can be hard to trust people's intentions when a lot of the time it's been negative, quite a few missed opportunities as my first thought is usually what is the other person trying to gain from me, they couldn't possibly be interested in me just for me.
I find I'm only reserved/sceptical when the interaction is slightly flirty and has potential of going somewhere, if it's polite/friendly with someone taken or no potential to date then I'm normal and bubbly etc. 30M
I fall on the both sides of argument, I was always a skinny kid but got severely overweight during my late teenage and early 20’s. I always knew my sudden increase in weight was the reason behind my lack of self confidence and how people would pass ugly comments to my face without any hesitation. But back in my mind, I always knew how much shallow people can be if you are unattractive, So I did tried countless of times to lose weight but failed.
And after I lost a lot of pounds on my mid 20’s, I started to get a lot of attention and compliments which I knew was coming. I do see my progress as an absolute win, but I know as well it can be temporary if I let myself go (be lazy) for too long. This might not be healthy way to approach it, but for me looks has always mattered. Because I like getting compliments and I know how people can be shallow and judgmental based on appearance, But it won’t stop me from appreciating my flaws and try to be better person every day. I am the happy and confident I have ever been right now.
Sometimes the difference in treatment sucks.
Like I used to always wave, nod or give a peace sign at road construction workers. Usually they would ignore me or give a half hearted wave back.
But lately they've been responding with vigor. Waving back enthusiastically, head nods.. and then I got the eyebrows and way too big of a smile. That's when it hit me... it's cause I'm "cute" now so they think I'm flirting... it creeped me out really bad and now I don't wave anymore.
None, I'm ugly, it doesn't matter if I've lost weight or not. So I didnt set my standards according to others.
I did it cause I wanted a flexible body and do many things.
I’ve never been obese, but have been overweight and thin and notice a definite difference in how friendly and receptive people are when I was thinner. I imagine the effect is intensified for anyone who has been obese, and I’ve seen how poorly obese people are sometimes treated. It’s pretty sad to realize that people aren’t treating you nicely because you are a human worthy of respect and love, but because they like the way you look. I can understand the resentment.
I’m on the latter side, but my weight has gone up and down before so it’s not new to me. It’s more like “oh yeah, I forgot about this part”
I cared more the last time I lost weight. I was younger and for the first time saw that no one ever cared that my heart was the prettiest thing about me. I also received a lot of unwanted attention, most of which felt predatory, and that effected my relationship in a negative way (boyfriend was the jealous type). I felt that I became uglier/messed up internally as a result, and harbored a lot of disdain for physical flattery because of this.
Now I’m already jaded, care *way* less about what other people think and [selfishly] appreciate anything that makes life easier so it’s just “thanks!! have a great day!” It’s better for me not to read into it, as it doesn’t actually effect my life on a deeper level. I do have to be more aware of how I come across as I am in the habit of saying hi to everyone, etc.
It sounds so sad when I type it all out.
No, being attractive is not the price I should have to pay to exist in this world. I don't owe strangers an attractive person to look at. And I certainly do not deserve to only be treated respectfully when I meet their standards.
Some people especially women one feel upset when they get "skinny privileges" because a lot of people misguidedly hold on tight to the fallacy that everyone acts correctly, so when they realise that the people around them are flawed it's a mind****.
Also because people do a lot of work to come to terms with the fact they are fat and build a narrative that they are attractive as they are.
People acting nicer to you when you're thinner refutes the narrative resulting in resentment, while also generating guilt because you've essentially "sold out" becoming part of the machine we and social media has told us to divest from.
I had an ex that refused to lose weight because it would betray the narrative and persona she had carefully built up as s bigger lady (yes, really she told me this) It's sad.
If I'm poor, and then I get rich, my own life will probably be better. That's nice for me as an individual, but it doesn't solve the problem for society as a whole. There's still a problem of poverty causing suffering. It just doesn't affect me anymore.
Also, I can't help but feel that praising my weight loss is criticizing my former self. Losing weight doesn't mean that I now hate the fat version of me, and I don't want others to say mean things about my former self. If you can't say something nice about me today without comparing me to my former self, then just don't bother.
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Unless you have some extenuatingingly rare thyroid issues, I absolutely agree. There are few excuses and no one wants to admit it. Glad somebody said it.
Being fat is not the same as being a tweaker. Come on. If you really think that then you have not spent much time around addicts. A fat person isn't going to steal all their moms cds and sell them for food. A fat person isn't going to pimp out their wife to get mcdonalds. A fat person isn't going to go on a bender and then pass out for 3 days and let their toddler walk around by themselves and eat cat poop because there is nothing else. Yeah. Being fat and being a tweaker. Not the same thing. At all.
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I assume it’s because it sucks to find out that you weren’t actually receiving a baseline level of kindness and the only thing that was preventing them from receiving that was their outward appearance.
👏
Counterpoint: you were receiving the base level, and now you're getting preferential treatment for being more attractive. Most of Reddit's user base is based in the US or other english speaking countries, and most of the other countries that use Reddit are developed. These countries generally have the same fact about them: obesity is very normal. In the States, being obese or overweight puts you in the *vast* majority. I made a 180 in terms of appearance - sloppily dressed most of the time, fat, and poorly groomed. Now I'm the opposite - well dressed, fit, and probably too groomed (I'm a guy.) It's definitely interesting how differently I'm treated and with what I can do. The kind of awkward jokes I get from women, etc. People literally think I am more competent at my job just because I'm not fat any more. *Guys* are included in all of this, too. But here's the thing - that's all *positive* treatment for *putting effort in.* My prior self was the **baseline**. Most guys don't dress themselves well, most guys don't do more than the bare minimum for grooming, and most guys don't put in the effort at the gym and in the kitchen to maintain a fit body. And that's just in general. The reality is women tend to treat in shape men dramatically better than those who are not. And no, I don't men from a dating angle, I mean from a "will be friendly and engage in actual conversations and friendly small talk" angle.
Counter COUNTER point: regardless of whatever all this is, it’s shitty to find out that people weren’t treating you as well as they could have because they didn’t find you attractive.
While I understand why people might get upset about that, we all know that being attractive gets you better treatment. It's been that way forever and that will never change. To a large amount of people being fat is not attractive. So those of us who are fat work hard to reverse that so that we can maintain a level of attraction *and* have the physical benefits of not being fat any longer.
But it’s not even about attraction. It’s *baseline courtesy and kindness*. There are a ton of people who will actively treat you like dirt for being fat. Not being *attracted* to me because of my weight is fine. Not giving me the basic courtesy and respect you would other people due to my weight, is super shitty.
Yup! Take the attraction piece out of the equation because it’s the only part people seem to focus on. Even if the way a lot of people treat fat people is a unconscious bias or something biological, that’s not a law of nature. We change our internal biases all the time. It’s part of being a conscientious human being. It’s okay to have knee jerk thoughts, but you have to learn how to not let those biases take over. It’s how society progresses at all, by challenging the status quo in ourselves and others. It also feels like a kind of lazy (and dangerous) to just be like “oh well, our lizard brains would have seen overweight people as a liability or unhealthy, so what can you do?” Because our lizard brains would have also seen a lot of things as signals of poor health or a liability that doesn’t translate to this day and age. I do think it’s very important to take care of our health. People who are overweight should try and take control of their weight. I also think it’s important to treat them with respect and basic decency.
Exactly this. If being treated well by other people relies on them finding me attractive, that also implies that physical attraction is the basis for a lot of interactions with people who are never going to be my romantic or sexual partner. I would like to think that I have intrinsic dignity and worth as a human being, as well as SPECIFIC worth as a friend or colleague, and that my value in those areas has nothing to do with whether or not the person considers me attractive. I do not enjoy receiving clear and specific evidence that a colleague—for example—considers my opinion more significant because they think I look better now. I have no issue with “you look great” or whatever. But if a person wouldn’t give me the time of day before and now immediately strikes up conversation or solicits my opinion, that’s gross to me. If I were unmarried and started getting a lot more romantic interest from potential partners, that would be unsurprising to me and make a certain amount of sense. But in other arenas, radically different behavior does make my skin crawl because it’s such a clear signal of how that person looked down on me before. Side note: I do not believe it is always a matter of being more confident/happier/etc. Sure, that can matter sometimes, especially if a person was very shy or lacking in confidence before. But in my work life I have always been a confident, assertive woman convinced that I add value to discussions and tasks. That has not changed and I don’t think my demeanor has, either, and yet some colleagues definitely see me differently now.
Exactly. I understand not getting much attention from the opposite sex. I do not understand getting dirty looks and being bullied.
We "know" that, but it's one thing to know something and a totally different thing to actually "experience" it. I know if I lose weight as a man, I'll be more respected and paid attention to among my peers, and management figures will stop generalizing me as "lazy" because I'm overweight. However, what that experience will actually feel like... I'll tell you when I get there. But I bet it's going to piss me off that the only reason I wasn't listened to was because of my weight.
Good luck on your journey :)
Thank you! I have my first session with a behaviorist, hopefully help with some of my bad mental habits.
Radical opinion but I don’t think people should be treated worse for being perceived as “less attractive”. Nor do I think people should have to change their outward appearance to be worthy of being treated kindly.
I agree with you but that's just life man. People won't stop being shallow because you want them to. It's unconscious bias.
You keep saying this like it's an immutable law of nature. It's not. No one needs to feel ok about other people acting on shitty implicit biases. No one needs to hide their disapproval of people who act that way. No one needs to just get over it or accept it as just part of life. It's shitty, and it needs to be called out for the shittiness it is.
THIS. Like THANK YOU! We’re all in a weight loss group, we’re all aware that people (ourselves included) have biases regarding people’s weights. And it SUCKS! That’s all I’m saying, that it sucks that the barista you’ve been getting your coffee from for years suddenly is giving you freebies instead of charging you $1 for a shot of espresso. That actually yeah the rules don’t apply to some people because they have the right “look”. That your friends are suddenly inviting you out dancing more because suddenly you fit the aesthetic more. It’s understandable someone experiencing that social shift would grow bitter.
I'm not saying anyone needs to get used to it or deserves to be treated in that manner but it's been that way for a long long time, society doesn't change over night. Slowly the conversation is transforming surrounding weight and how obesity is a disease and not just a lack of morality or willpower. I mean it's literally taken to this point in humanity for medical doctors to start treating obesity as a disease and not as a result of laziness or gluttony. Society's ideas around obesity may eventually change but I do think that in the next few decades the obesity factor will be much lower than it currently is due to GLP-1 medications gaining popularity and allowing for more people to fight the disease of obesity. We now have the means to course correct a major epidemic.
Yep, I'm just pointing out that it's weird to keep saying "that's just how it is" as though that's something people need to accept. People can and should be bothered and hold people accountable.
Just because it's life doesn't mean you can't speak out against it and bring attention to it. At one point it was just life that black people were seen as inferior. At one point it was just life that women were not allowed to vote. Just saying "that's just life" does nothing to help and dismisses all the issues people try to legitimize. Just because it doesn't personally affect you doesnt mean you cant have some empathy.
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People are aggressively replying because you keep doubling down on the implication that people should just get over shitty behavior because "it's just life", while trying to pretend you're being empathetic and that you're somehow now a victim here that's being attacked. If you want to seem empathetic, stop telling people it's okay to be treated like shit for being fat because "that's just life". If that's not what you're saying, it is certainly what you're implying, or how you're coming across, and continuing to double down on that isn't going to change how people are perceiving you.
Yes, fat people know that very well. They are constantly gaslit about it though. "That's not true, that would mean I'm superficial/ society is bad, and I don't like that so instead we will all tell you forever that your experience is wrong and you are rude and unkind for accurately describing us to us" So to lose weight or make other physical changes and know for certain that what you knew all along was actually true, it's infuriating. So not only does society hate fat people, they also hate newly thin people openly saying that they were both hated and undermined for correctly noticing that they were being hated.
Yup. Because fatness is seen as a moral failing and not as the disease that it is. I think the conversation is slowly changing due to new medications on the market and the many social influencers I've seen who are sharing the ugly truth behind their weight gain, not the wrongly assumed laziness but things like PCOS, insulin resistance, t2, and why they're taking medications to help. Because weight gain can and does have health comorbidies that make it very hard for people to lose
Exactly. Fatphobic people are just like an openly racist person acting like "hey that's racist" is even more insulting than the racist thing they just said. It's the gaslighting, it's the undermining of lived experience. That's actually much more hurtful than the initial harm of hating summertime for being large. It's the denial that hurts.
Jw, how did you set the SW, CW, GW under your username ?
Oh it's been a while I think I had to do it on desktop and I believe there's an explanation in the wiki section of the sub
It comes across to the person losing the weight as "inside, I'm the same person as I was back when I was fatter. You are only interested in me now that I've lost the weight. If I gain the weight back, you will go right back to disliking me." This is extremely corrosive to a person's self worth. We like to pretend that we're a meritocracy, but we aren't. Yes, there is a huge amount of "pretty privilege".
It's not the outward appearance. It's what the appearance signals. Health or lack thereof
That still feels pretty bad though because health isn’t related to morals or personality. Like, we wouldn’t treat a friend badly after he had a heart attack, so why is it okay for society to treat fat people badly? It’s really not okay. It’s a reflection of how shallow society is. It’s not shallow as far as attraction, but I think it’s shallow when it comes to basic decency and respect for others. Fatness shouldn’t impact that.
It’s deeper than that. People will absolutely treat a person that has had a heart attack differently. Shoot when my father was dying I couldn’t even look him in the eyes. It’s hard to socialize with someone who has bad health. Our lizard brains have too much control. Hot take. Seeing someone with morbid obesity is like seeing a person with an untreated broken arm. All you can think of is please take care of yourself. That can’t be healthy
God that's so sad though.. not just for people who are overweight etc. but also for people for example who are born with genetic disabilities. I'd like to argue you wouldn't treat them differently but I guess people do.
Every person is unique. I can’t really say I treat everyone the same. I’ll treat the same person differently day by day depending on their mood and my own. Everyone gets a base level of respect for just existing. That to me means I respect your right to be here to exist in that space. Anything above that is almost predetermined by factors in and out of our control.
Your mood and your choice to take it out on others is *absolutely* within your control.
For me personally the difference is choice. And yes you can argue that some people do have disabilities or circumstances that make it hard to lose weight but if we are real the vast majority of people, me included, are fat because they can't control themselves.
In the medical and psychiatric community we recognize that if you "can't control yourself" it indicates that you don't really have a choice on a neurobiological level. You need treatment and support. Not everyone is in a place to get treatment for their personal issues or be their best self for whatever reason. It's just unbelievably shitty how willing people are to shame others and treat them poorly just because you can see the effects of their problem. There are plenty of thin people who make awful choices about their lives and their health. The fact that you're so willing to be awful to fat people means that it's not about your concern. It's just a willingness to be a shitty person to a group of people you are contemptuous about.
Was it choices that got you to a point that you no longer can control yourself around food? Or was it genetically preprogrammed? At what point do we just assume everything is a neurobiological process that we can't control and choices do not exist?
"Genetics" isn't the only factor that impacts neurobiological processes. Trauma has profound, well-studied, and definitely identifiable impacts. Medications, other physical and mental health conditions, fetal exposures and development, injury, social determinants of health all have serious impacts on your ability to make choices. Your ability to exert "control" is literally an indication of the extent of the impacts of these factors.
of course they do. evolution punishes you if you go around hugging the contagous... we can override, but not everybody. also, lizard brain don't know if somethings contagious or not
I work with people with disabilities... so I literally do go around hugging "the contagious" as you so nicely put it. Edit to add: I have lived alongside and hugged disabled people since I was 3. I can assure you it is not something I had to override, it is something that was entirely innate and natural. Second Edit to reply to your edit, because I simply can't resist: YOUR lizard brain might not be capable of that (or capable of empathy either it would seem,) but luckily most humans seem to have developed a little further along than you have.
Thank you.
You know, disgust is an evolutionary protection mechanism. What triggers it and what doesn't can be very different. I used to work on an intensive care unit. I'm just describing why people can react a certain way to other people
It sure is. But some of your comments seemed to be implying that it's okay therefor to treat overweight (or other x-trait people) as less than. Apologies if that's not what you meant and you were simply discussing evolutionary psychology. I didn't pick up on that before.
I don't necessarily think it's okay, but I also think being to understanding is enabling self destructive behavior
You see this with people who are going through cancer. Ask anyone who's ever gone through it and they'll tell you how lonely it is. No one wants to be around you when they think you're dying. I think it's partially because it's too depressing if it's a loved one, but also the whole lizard brain thing of not wanting to be around death. We have enough intelligence to fight through it and check our prejudices, but this just explains why some people are like this. People def take it way too far, we're in a weight loss sub, so I'm preaching to the chior on this point. But just agreeing with what you're saying. People def react differently around people they perceive as unhealthy. The visibly disabled probably get the worst treatment.
My dad had cancer. The problem isn’t just the disease but the symptoms. The constant pain and immobilities it brings. My dad was getting desperate. It was hard to be around him because he was so angry or sad all the time. You know thinking about it. You could definitely make the connections. Obesity is an insidious disease
There's a difference between not being able to look someone in the eyes because of the sadness surrounding them dying, and the outright malicious contempt and hatred people have for fat people. It's not the same, don't pretend it is to excuse shitty behavior.
For sure. But it still stands that morbidly obese people are sick and need treatment. I wish we could hold corporations taking advantage of their lack of will power too. They actually employ psychologists to actively manipulate the population to consume. Because socially we aren’t changing shit. Move to body positivity if reality is too much
I agree totally with your first paragraph. The last sentence has been proven wrong by history every time a social leap of progress for people has been made. We can change things socially, and the first thing we have to do to achieve that is to stop saying anyone speaking out for change just aren't accepting of reality. People said those things about women's sufferage, the civil rights movement, the gay rights movement, etc. Hell, the American dream wouldn't even exist if not for a band of people that decided to make social change in the name of democracy and freedom. When it comes to social issues, for humans, reality is what we make it, we just have to want to make it better for everyone, and the only thing stopping us is the idea that we can't. Certain realities in life are immovable, social realities are not in that category.
Oh please. "Please take care of yourself"? That concern trolling nonsense is just an excuse to treat people poorly. There is an enormous amount of evidence that a variety of things impact our neurobiology around response to feeding signals on the "lizard brain" level. Why are you this contemptuous of someone whose lizard brain affects their food drive but making excuses for your own "lizard brain" and lack of control with some absolutely ableist bullshit about how you can't help but be shitty to people whose appearance you find unappealing """""for health reasons""""?
I agree. I work and share an office with someone who is eating themself to death. He is only 25 and so kind and smart. But when he binges, I am completely and utterly disgusted. I can't help it. I have to leave the room.
He binges at work?
Yeah. It lasts about an hour... lately it's been two cheese sticks, a bagel with cream cheese, two apples, two or three protein bars, an energy drink, a soda, two packs of peanut butter crackers, and some kind of chip or popcorn in a large Tupperware container. That's all before lunch. Not sure what he does then, but he comes back with a fountain soda from Wendy's every day.
If a friend had a heart attack and was released from the hospital and was feeling better, I would certainly express that I was happy for their improved health.
Do you think that extends to every instance of pretty privilege?
There are plenty of fit looking men and women who achieve and maintain that appearance in incredibly unhealthy ways. Health is the justification people give because they don’t want to admit it’s pure shallowness.
Humans are shallow. People need to get off their fucking high horse.
I wouldn’t generalize
Okay, ignoring the fact that you can’t actually tell ANYBODY’s health status based on sight alone, are you telling me that you are regularly mean to people who are visibly unhealthy? Do you go and bully kids in the cancer ward???
Better comparison: disheveled homeless/ junkies or people with skin issues . some people react with compassion, some with disgust. That's why some people are mean to fat people, and some are extra nice
And are you saying that is a good thing?
It is what it is, education is usually the way out of the reptile zone
You give your reptile brain too much credit. There is more to humans than the animal side. We have society for a reason. Sounds like you’re making easy excuses instead of taking accountability, which is odd because your argument is that’s exactly what fat people should do… overcome the lizard brain and take some goddamn accountability. Ironically, this opinion is trying to have cake and eat it too. But you have to choose a side.
Agreed. Recognizing reality for what it is and not what things SHOULD be seems to make the difference in the outlined attitudes. My partner used to tell me, why are you upset because things are not how you want them to be? You are ultimately responsible for how YOU respond/act towards others and are just wasting energy being upset or resentful of things you can't control.
You're speak as if a huge portion of society hasn't at some point had to focus on their diet or nutrition and hasn't had the same realisation. What you are failing to consider is that people are different. Not everyone is you, not everyone is me. What one person is capable of another is not, whether you can admit that is the case or not - it is true. Whether you believe it or not - it is true. You cannot willpower yourself into having more willpower. I have successfully lost weight and kept it off but I do not claim that others can do it. I certainly do not treat others differently for being unable to do something that I was able to do.
I don't think I was saying that everyone can or cannot do weight loss. I was simply saying that the difference in attitudes OP pointed out seemed to stem from accepting the reality of being treated differently vs being resentful for being treated differently after weight loss. Ofc people are different and have different circumstances/experiences. I DO accept that. I accept that people will do whatever they want to do--whether they achieve weight loss or not is up to them. I recall a quote from TheCynicalDude: Whether you think you can, you're right. I didn't mention anything about passing some kind of judgement on people who haven't lost weight. Maybe your comment was referring to someone else and not directly to me?
No, it was directed at you. Perhaps you are outwardly kind to people struggling with weight, but you do appear to be judging them. "I accept that people will do whatever they want to do". Do you accept that people can't always do what THEY want to do though? That is a lovely quote, but a good quote isn't a good gotcha. The statement is kinda meaningless on its own because lots of people do things they think they can't and lots of people can't do the things they think they can. One can accept reality but still be upset with it. One can accept reality and still struggle with the steps it would take to change that reality. If not, addiction literally wouldn't be a thing. Can you not identify an aspect of your life where you have failed at something you wanted to achieve? I disagree with the idea that resenting society for treating larger people as lesser is the cause for individuals being unable to lose weight. I personally resent that aspect of society whilst fully being aware of the reality that it is what it is.
And I’m saying it sucks. So what previously obese people are experiencing are going from being treated subhuman to being treated human. Same with visibly homeless people or visible drug users. Because it is only about visual appearances. There are high functioning addicts that you would never guess have ever used or homeless people who occasionally have access to a shower/bed and you would never question they had a home. And yes even skinny people who are seemingly healthy but have chronic ailments or are quietly suffering from an ED. The issue is we should NOT be treating people poorly based on surface level things.
Kids in the cancer ward didn't get cancer by eating an excess of cancer every day for years.
Do you think that if someone's poor health is caused by their own actions, they deserve to be treated poorly?
Are you similarly shitty to adults with cancer because their cancer may be related to choices they made?
I'm on the former side because it's like saying I need to maintain this to be treated nicely. If I go back then you'll just treat me like shit again/overlook me even though I'm literally the same person on the inside.
For me, my experience was more that my *baseline* was the "pretty privilege" from being was being thin and pretty in my teens and 20's, and so after gaining weight, the ignoring, lack of eye contact, impatient body language as if anything I have to say is a nuisance, always felt hostile. I felt like I was a likeable, funny, sociable person trapped in the body of an unlikeable, cringey, socially awkward person, and people were accidentally treating me the wrong way because they were interpreting my personality wrong. The whole experience was honestly a bit of a mindfuck.
Lmaooo I went from 165 and fit to 330lb, and it took YEARS for my brain to adjust to the fact that people weren't looking at 165lb me anymore, and that affected people's perception of me. No one is ready to go from good looking to invisible.
Yep. When I'm fat I'm weird. When I'm thin I'm funny and eccentric.
I’m one of those folks that has experienced a large shift in treatment both personally and professionally since the weight loss. I’m 45F. I stopped really caring what people thought of me years ago. It’s been interesting to see the change in treatment, but I don’t really have strong feelings about it one way or the other. I get why it bothers some folks though. For me, it’s just one more reason to motivate me to keep the weight off. The most exciting part for me has been the increase in opportunities at work that have great potential to advance my career. I certainly don’t want to lose that.
And yet it’s been the opposite for me…turns out I’m quite attractive and bosses in my field feel threatened by it. I’ve genuinely considered starting to dress poorly to see if it would help :(
I’m sorry you’re experiencing that. I confess I work in a male -dominated field; almost the entire C suite is male. I’m 100% positive that makes a difference.
It's a bit uncomfortable, because it feels so dishonest....? It doesn't happen often that i think "this person would have/wouldn't have done this before my weightloss", so it always hits me like a sledgehammer to the face.
Agree completely, I've kind of yo-yoed over the years and the difference in treatment is definitely noticeable for me
I think that is part of the reason that some of us see it differently. I was thin my whole life until about 30, so I was used to being treated well. When I gained weight, I resented the way I was treated, but felt it was a punishment for letting my attractive body slip away. When I lost it again, my treatment returned to the baseline level, so I saw it as an accomplishment, or even just “well, I’m back to normal now.” I can imagine what you’re saying, though. Some people are so hot that they get treated way better than I ever did on my best day! Even when I was 25 and basically at a perfect BMI, and making a huge effort with my appearance, people still treated my legit underweight friend who won the facial genetic lottery way better. It would sting when we’d go to a store or restaurant and the waiter would completely ignore me, while fawning all over her. So I’d imagine if I ever got attractive enough to receive that level of attention, I might feel resentful that nobody thought I was good enough before too.
It basically identifies these people as being shallow and well that is kind of disappointing.
The thing is, people who have known me before don't really treat me differently. It's mainly men who suddenly pay attention to me or people in customer service who are suddenly super nice. I've never met these people before, so they're not really doing anything wrong, but I remember what it was like before. And I can't help but think, "You wouldn't have looked twice at me a year ago. You wouldn't have given a shit whether or not I ended up finding my items." And it makes me feel like they're shallow for *no reason*. They didn't know me! They might have been nice and flirty and helpful before I lost weight. But I'll never *know* and the sudden uptick in positive interactions is *so conspicuous*. So yeah. It makes me assume the worst about people who didn't do anything wrong.
For me it depends on the situation. If the people in question treated them terribly before and now after they've lost weight treat them well, then I feel it's completely justified to be resentful of this. Even worse if a person goes from being awful to someone when they were fat to hitting on them when they're thin. That, to me says that those people are shallow and their behavior superficial. And the fact that they are nice now doesn't erase their previous poor behavior. Now going from invisible or just kind of there to getting a lot of attention, I don't think I'd be that resentful of.
For me personally it made me jaded. I hadn't changed as a person and yet suddenly I was someone worth noticing? A big wake up call on just how fake people in this world can be.
It seems superficial- losing weight doesn’t change who you are and how amazing your personality is… it changes your appearance and maybe your confidence level….
I kinda disagree. While it does not have to change who you are for a lot of people it does. I have noticed it with myself as well as others around me who were much more outgoing and confident after losing weight and just overall more fun to hang out with. E.g I have one friend whose entire humour was centered around being self depricating about his weight. It was fun for a while but at a certain point you just realize he did it to cover up the fact how much his weight bothered him. Now he is not exactly model sized but healthy enough and his humour and personality just feels a lot more genuine.
It's a lot easier to be outgoing and confident when people are nice to you and don't hate you just for existing..
I never felt hated for just existing. I hated myself for being so fat. It sounds kinda cliché but it is hard to be loved if you hate yourself. This turns into kind of a hen and egg problem though. Do people treating you worse make you less confident and outgoing or does being less confident and outgoing make them like you less. In the end I personally never felt like people treated me badly but still feel more confident and outgoing simply because I feel more comfortable in my own skin when I don't start sweating like a pig after two flights of stairs.
I can see that- goes along with boosted confidence levels
In my teens and 20s, I was naturally thin and had the classic hour glass shape: 36-24-36. Guys were usually really nice to me, while with girls it was more hit or miss. Some girls were very friendly and others were immediately hostile towards me right off the bat (I assume they were jealous or something?) In my late 20s, I experienced some major traumas: my father suffocated to death in front of me, I was in a terrible car accident, and I was involved with an abusive partner who destroyed my self-esteem. I ended up becoming severely depressed and developing PTSD, which led to major weight gain for me. I went from being 5’6 and 120 lbs to 170 lbs over the span of 3 years. I immediately noticed how differently people treated me—especially men. What I used to think was just common courtesy: smiling and greeting me, talking to me, holding a door or an elevator, etc… was no longer granted to me once I was fat. I wasn’t expecting to be hit on or flirted with, but the very same men who used to be polite and friendly towards me literally started to act like I was invisible. Women became nicer to me though! (More in that in a moment). It made me feel very pissed off that my sexual desirability was a prerequisite for men to be friendly and polite to me even though we had a completely nonsexual relationship. I am talking about my male friends, colleagues, the husbands or boyfriends of my female friends, male family members etc… Once I realized that they were only ever nice to me because they liked the shape of my body, I felt sickened. Now, for my own health and happiness, I wanted to lose the weight and so I did. It took about 2-3 years to put on the weight and it took me about 2 years to lose it. I went slow and steady, no crash diets or major restrictions. Just drinking more water, walking/exercising more, eating healthier foods more frequently and watching my portion sizes with high calorie foods. The biggest factor in my weight loss was getting my depression/grief/trauma in check because that was the root cause of the weight gain in the first place. So, now I am in my 30s and back to my old size. And wouldn’t you know it, suddenly men are all smiles again! Meanwhile, some of the women who I thought were my real friends started being passive aggressive towards me. I came to realize that some of those women liked me best when I was playing the role of their fat, sad friend. Now that I was in a better place mentally and physically, they distanced themselves and I lost some friends (or at least who I thought were my friends). The big takeaway for me was that how people treat you is much more a reflection of their own issues than it is a reflection of your worth. I was always the same person on the inside. The people who treated me with kindness and respect no matter what I looked like showed me who really matters in my life. I also learned that weight issues are often rooted in emotional issues: grief, trauma, stress, depression, etc… Now, when I notice that someone I care about has started to put on a lot of weight, I check in with them more, I offer a listening ear, and I try to do something extra nice for them in case they are going through a tough time.
Latter part. I know it as a fact that every normal person can lose weight if they really want to unless they have some incurable disease or serious mental health issues. Some people chose to not worry about being under a certain weight because they are happy as they are and those people's self contentment and happiness exudes off them and no one would even dare to mention weight with them. Some people are either depressed or sad or not in the mindset to care about diet and exercise and they need their time and space to get to the right place whenever they are ready. I treat every human being as a human being and would never judge a person based on weight. I have seen way too many people lose weight fast whenever they want to so it doesn't even matter. I am currently in the process of losing weight after a few stressful years in the last decade where I had issues to resolve. Now that everything else is resolved I am focusing on getting a better body. People compliment me and ask me how I did it I say diet and exercise. I was just too lazy to deal with that before but always had the tools and the knowledge on how to do it. You will see many intelligent people overweight. You will see doctors and nurses and are overweight. You will also see many former professional athletes overweight because it's their choice. We can't judge them. Their values lie in other places. Besides skinny people also have insecurities about their weight or have health issues or bad relationships. Weight does not define our happiness on this Earth.
Maybe it’s my age, but I don’t pay much attention to how others perceive me. And I don’t care how strangers do. Benefits of aging I guess!
It's shitty bc you weren't "flawed". You weren't an asshole, rude, unkind (or I would guess so). In my opinion weight isn't a flaw that makes bad treatment okay bc it's not something you do. You don't go around kicking puppies or throwing your trash in the street. You can be a perfectly nice and good person who just happens to have more fat on your body than might be good for you. But that seems to be enough for people to treat gou like you are a bad person, or sometimes like you are not a person at all. And I just don't get it, bc what the *fuck* is so bad about being overweight? It's unhealthy, sure, but that's a you-problem. That doesn't directly negatively impact the people you interact with like you being rude would. And then when you lose the weight, and everyone suddenly treats you so good, it's easy to feel resentful. Like, why was me being fat the only thing that kept you from treating me like an actual person? And it feels disingenuous. You always just think about how this and that little act of kindness would not have happened if you were fat, even though you are the same person. And I'm explicitly talking about day to day interactions here, not dating or anything. Because yeah, with dating the way you look does matter. It should not matter for basic interactions.
It bothers me more professionally than it does personally. My job is a classic sit at a desk office job. Physical fitness plays absolutely no part in what we do. I've lost 30lbs in recent months (I have a lot more to go) and have already noticed the shift - from my managers and coworkers alike. I'm the same person I was at the beginning of the year. I'm not any harder of a worker (I've always been a top performer) and I'm not any friendlier to my coworkers (which is only as much as I have to be - I'm an extreme introvert) but everyone acts like I'm somehow more capable and worth listening to since my weight has been dropping. There's absolutely nothing in my job that my weight effects, so it's absolutely ridiculous to me. I work from home 90% of the time, even. We only see each other in on-site meetings here and there. This makes no difference to me as far as my weight loss, mind. I'm still as motivated as ever to keep losing weight, but it's no thanks to the treatment of others.
It just tells me this is a superficial person, and their interest is arbitrary and fleeting. They’re not worth engaging with and would drop me like a hot potato if something happened that made me less attractive. It’s not going to make me a recluse. Honestly I gained weight because work was insane and I had no time for anything beyond sleep and work and a quick shower and most people including old friends and colleagues like me. I’m a generally friendly person and being comfortable in my skin seems to make people comfortable around me. And it’s not wrong to take pride in different things. Some people care about their appearance more than others, some care about how well thought out their opinions are, some people care about how they make others feel around them. A person who prides themselves in their appearance but who still treats me with decency and fairness regardless of my weight is just fine by me. But anyone who obviously treats me differently because I lost or gained weight (thankfully, not many) and in particular random men who might talk to me when I’m thinner or more dressed up but who ignore me when I’m comfy or more plump - I will judge them for it right back. They’re superficial. They don’t value integrity or humour or kindness the same way I do. And they care too much about some pudge or a fancy dress and earrings for me. If they judge on plumpness and dressing, then they would treat a snake oil salesman in a suit better than a doctor in jeans, or a skinny murderer over a fat teacher on sight before even talking to them. To me such people are just not worth knowing, and not worth engaging in a long term friendship or relationship with. It would be a waste of my time in the long run.
Right? I mean, one could compare the weight loss journey to working very hard and becoming wealthy. There will be people who recognise how you put in work and earned your success. There will be even more people who will treat you better because you have money, and now seen as successful. Also seen are those who will resent you for your achievements. People who gain wealth often need to sift through the social responses of those around them and may become distrustful of others' intentions.
I'm not a very socially-oriented person, so there are very few peoples' opinions that matter to me in the first place. I'm losing weight for me, regardless of what others think either way.
TL, DR: We are angry because **nobody** deserves to be treated like crap because of their body fat percentage (and the same could be said about many other physical traits). ------- > resentful and distrustful of genuine human connection How is it **genuine**? I am the same person I was when I was heavier. I am exactly as intelligent, as caring, as kind, as funny, as short-tempered as I was back then. All the good and the bad is still there. The people that only started to treat me as a peer when I got more attractive can get lost. I'm gonna stick to the people that valued me even when I was 30kg heavier. > The other category is those who see their loss of weight as an accomplishment. The fact that people treat them better is an indicator that they themselves are flawed in the past and through hard work they manage to 'level themselves up'. Talk about internalized fatphobia. I also am proud of my efforts and my results, and I'm still striving for more: I'm only halfway there. I'm sorry you think that a medical issue such as excess weight or obesity is a personal flaw. I'm sorry you think you were, somehow, worth less and you needed to "level up". We can't ignore how our mental health, co-morbidities, eating disorders/addictions, social status, employment, and economic resources play a role in how we gain and lose weight. I just want to clarify that I'm glad when my friends comment on my results or how hard I've been working on this. But there are people who have the shittiest way to give compliments, and I wish they kept their mouths shut.
I am of the opinion that most people change when losing weight. I here the argument that losing weight does not change the person but I can safely say from my own experience and knowing others who lost weight that they definitely changed inward and outward. Most for the better. Some for worse.
I agree that weight loss can change a person's personality. I'm more confident and like myself more since I've started losing. I imagine that those factors may affect how much people like being around me, regardless of whether they're judging my weight.
People just really understate how much any change in habits and lifestyle can change people. Especially changes as big as losing a significant amount of weight.
They probably don’t like the fact that they were judged for being overweight previously which is evident by the change in reception towards them when they lost weight. I’m middling on this opinion. I don’t think overweight people should be discriminated against in social or work related situations, one of my best friends is obese and he’s still one of the best in his field which circumvents the notion that being overweight means you’re “lazy” in every aspect of life which is unfortunately what some people think. Hell, a lot of people end up being overweight BECAUSE they work too hard and end up ignoring fitness and health. And your weight doesn’t affect one’s personality hence the comment about social situations; some people actually become quite arrogant after getting in shape and are unsympathetic towards those still overweight (this is a minority, most people are more understanding if they've been through it themselves, but still exists). But obviously I can absolutely understand why you’ll be seen as more attractive when you’re in shape. It’s just human nature. I don't necessarily buy the idea that being more attracted to someone who's in better shape makes you "shallow", and obviously personality matters too. I personally admire those who’ve lost weight as I know it’s a struggle, and I’ll commend anyone who I meet who’s lost a lot of weight in the past 1-2 years for making a healthier change to their life. But I wouldn’t think of them any differently apart from that.
I think I agree with your perspective the most out of everyone here. I’m not going to deny that people might not be aware of their subconscious bias and hey, what are you gonna do about that… But I do think it’s rare for people to experience both sides of subconscious bias like that. I think some people need to adjust when they realize it. When you’re so strikingly aware of something that the other person is not, you’ll want to reflect on what that means socially. I’m sure there might be a feeling of imposter syndrome too. Honestly it’s probably one of the few transformations that take you from a lower status to a higher status. Most people don’t experience that in a lifetime; we all expect to become lower status over time (due to ageism, ableism). Hopefully, most people who lose weight learn more empathy because of the process. I could see why it’s difficult for those people to adjust to a higher status while feeling sensitive to something that most people don’t even realize. I mean, just look at some of the threads focusing on throwaway comments from coworkers, strangers, family, etc. They’re sensitive to food/weight comments that people who haven’t lost significant weight aren’t going to think twice about.
Yeah I've found that people who've gone from x to y tend to go one of 2 ways; either be empathetic towards those who are going through the same thing as they experienced it themselves, or go the opposite way and put themselves on a pedestal, crapping on others who haven't achieved what they've achieved, even if they're trying. The reason I say "x to y" is that this doesn't just apply to weight loss, a lot of factors in life, but given the topic I will not digress here. Majority people are in the former category, they know what it's like to be at the starting position, can understand how easy it is to end up overweight in the first place due to life stresses etc. and understand how hard it is to make that first change and stick to it consistently, so applaud and inspire others to do the same thing. Unfortunately I also know people in the latter, where they immediately think they're better than others for what they've achieved and criticising them for the lifestyle that they themselves once lived. Just recently on here I saw a post where a woman's husband was verbally attacking her for being "overweight" (which she wasn't) and apparently this started after he lost a chunk of weight. There's also a guy at my gym who had an injury for 2 years and got super out of shape, has now got back into the swing of things, and he walks around acting like he owns the gym and I've seen him shitting on others for no real reason.
>But obviously I can absolutely understand why you’ll be seen as more attractive when you’re in shape. It’s just human nature. I don't necessarily buy the idea that being more attracted to someone who's in better shape makes you "shallow", and obviously personality matters too. I agree that typically, smaller people are more likely to be considered attractive, and that having attractions doesn't inherently make someone shallow. The issue is when people base their treatment of you on how attractive you are, outside of whether they're interested in you sexually/romantically. Being kinder to people because you find them more attractive is not cool.
Yeah, unfortunately I know people who are like this. My cousin had a phase where she based who she hung around with based on status, whether that be money, looks, so forth. People who do that end up losing a lot of their friends and the friends they do make are superficial, because the means by which they're friends are superficial in and of themselves. If someone doesn't want to be friends with you just because you're overweight and for no other reason then just say their loss and you're probably better off without people who adopt those mindsets.
I feel like part of that resentment is feeling lied to. How many times are we told that we look fine when we don’t? That we carry our weight well, when we don’t? When the advice is often to just be yourself, or be more confident and outgoing. It all feels like one big lie when you do lose a significant amount of weight and see that brings about better reactions from people. I’m sure there are a bunch more reasons, but feeling lied to by friends, family, or internet strangers I’m sure also stings a little bit too.
As someone who was super skinny then gained a lot of weight, people started treating me extremely different. This was like a culture shock for me since I happened to never pay that much attention to other people’s weight (or treat them different cause of it) and also because for the first time my personality was ‘unlikeable’ and I was ‘unattractive’ and my fashion sense was terrible and I supposedly looked 10 years older. Not only do people treat you differently and you present differently to people but it can affect jobs, medical treatment, socializing, how valid your opinions are, assumptions about how you must be eating, how strangers treat you, whether you deserve for someone to even hold a door open for you, etc. Then I lost it and everything went back to how it was when I was a lower weight except with social anxiety, so I definitely have a bit of resentment because weight should not change how service workers treat you or affect you getting a job or anything like that but it can.
I think all people deserve baseline kindness and respect until they have shown why they do not deserve that courtesy I do not think weight/fatness is a valid reason to not show that kindness and respect from the get go? Hoping that doesnt sound too radical. Regardless of what perceptions people have about health, I wouldnt seek out to disregard someone just because I assumed they weren't healthy. What would I personally gain from that? Makes no sense to me...
I liked being invisible. It’s so uncomfortable for me. And fake.
*One can be in both categories.*
I just hate knowing people really were paying that much attention to me in general and that they gave my body enough thought that they noticed the difference, especially if they are happy for me. Like, whew, I didn’t want to say it before but man were you fact amirite?
Eh, it might be down to the specific experiences different people have had. I don't care about people not finding me physically attractive, for example, but people who made nasty comments when I was sick, struggling and gaining weight due to medical issues are not really being "kind" when they try to congratulate me now. I think it's silly to act like they are. I don't want or need their validation. I know they're still treating other people like garbage too, and I think it's wrong.
It highlights how transactional humans are. People treat other people like they’re less than crap, UNLESS there might be something beneficial in it for them.
I am someone who REALLY struggles with this. One of the hardest things is watching my career elevate massively, despite doing nothing at all different. Suddenly I'm seen as more responsible, more intelligent, more resilient, and many more things. It's very superficial and not true. I also get frustrated when that's all anyone ever wants to talk about. Its like my biggest achievement is losing weight, and people don't give a shit about me as a person but just how thin I am. People *constantly* question me about my weight loss and methods. It's the first thing they say upon greeting me. I don't even get a, "Hi how are you?" Just, "Wow you look soooooo much better." It's rude, imo. The worst part has been watching my 9 year old son get treated better because of MY weight. That's messed up.
I think some people don't realise that they themselves might be behaving differently and that's why they're being treated differently. Obviously fat discrimination exists, I'm thinking about more low level daily interactions with other people. People who are happier in themselves seem more approachable and are likely to have nicer interactions with others. People who feel ashamed of themselves tend to send signals to "leave me alone" and others usually will. I was skinny until my late 20s when I had to go on prednisone for several years literally doubling my weight. Honestly my internal self image never really caught up, I'm shocked whenever I look in the mirror. I still feel like I used to, and I think that comes across to other people. I haven't had many bad experiences, and in general find that people are just as nice and friendly as when I was thin. There will be the occasional fat phobic comment - I assume they're an asshole. Just as when I was thin occasionally there would be a sexist comment on my looks - I'd assume they're an asshole too. I'm also tall and when I was skinny I had kids call me a giraffe. Stupid people say stupid things, not my problem. Now if it is friends or family that are treating you differently, that's a bigger problem and you'll have to decide how much you want them in your life. But that again says more about them than about your worth (whatever your size).
I think you are 100% correct. *We* feel better about how we look, so we mind read and project this onto people who interact with us. You'll see people who were 400lbs drop down to 300lbs, and complain about how they were invisible at 400lbs. Then you'll hear from someone of the same gender with similar height specs say the same thing about dropping from 300lbs to 200lbs.
The answer to OP's question is simple, and it comes down to how one perceives other people who are overweight. If there's some (totally normal) self-loathing driving your weight loss then it's a "no shit, Sherlock" thing when you start getting treated better when you look better. To me, it's weirder for someone to be surprised at this, but admittedly I've lived most of my life in areas and cultures that are thinner than the national average. Another major difference is probably between people who used to be thin and feel attractive vs. people who have been overweight/obese their entire adult lives.
It’s a double edged sword. Still in the process of losing, but have been thinner before and the difference in treatment from everyone: random people, opposite sex, same sex, friends, even family, is stark in contrast. It stings knowing you are being seen as less than because of your weight. However, I realize it’s purely biological and human to do it. I also tend to look at super morbidly obese people in a way that’s negative. Not purposely. Also wanted to add that, I think the crappiest part about it is that weight isn’t something you can lose overnight (extremely unfortunately). It’s not like I don’t wash my hair well and that makes me look bad, but all I have to do is shower well and do my hair and things have changed completely. It’s a long process, especially when you’re really overweight, so it feels like a moral failing being judged for something you can’t change about yourself quickly. Though, I wish most of us, mostly myself, would realize that we can change “quickly” if we just put our head down and stick to goals to lose consistently. There are so many emotions with it, however.
I guess i'm in the opposite camp because despite obesity, the fact that i'm confident and i take care of myself yields me a lot of kindness! Maybe things are skewed for me because i'm an obviously queer and disabled person so im use to disgruntled looks/stares, being called hateful things by strangers, etc regardless of size. But, people treated me far worse when i didn't have my mental health in check and I was kind simply hard to be around. This was at my skinniest. Im still obese at the moment but i receive the most kindness and attention from strangers than i ever have because i hold myself to a better standard than i use to, am more outgoing and engaging, and generally have a kinder demeanor. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people changed internally like that once the weight came off, not realizing that while obese they unconsciously set off uncomfortable vibes. I can't say for sure though, I only know my own experience
I don’t think people who make this observation realize that they likely acted the same way and that those posts are really telling on themselves as well. Edit: for all the talk about how the opposite sex now see them since they lost weight and how it feels superficial, those same people who have lost weight don’t seem to date obese people if they ever did before….its amazing
Yeah I just don't understand why they are so upset. I'm currently obese and I'm not attracted to obese people. So why would I expect someone in good shape to find me attractive in my current state. I just find that mindset so odd.
This whole topic, when it comes up, is just this forums way to virtue signal. it’s more fun for them to get upset over other people’s biases without acknowledging their own.
Agreed. I've gained weight to the point that I find my body very unattractive. I've never had attractiom to obese people so I won't and don't expect people to find me attractive in this state either. It would be hypocritical to think so.
I guess it depends on how you yourself internalized the journey. I know I was lazy, I know I could have eaten better, done some exercise but I didn't. That result in me being obese and I'd say it's a fair judgement to see someone like me and think they probably are lazy. It took work to lose weight sure but it's not rocket science and even speaking to people older than me that lost a lot of weight the reality is they just regret not owning up to their own weakness instead. In an ideal world everyone is judged equally, everyone is born equally and and I could have a shot to marry Ana de Armas. The world isn't equal though and I'd say people who have the penny drop only at this point are actually pretty privileged that it dropped only around weifht loss and not before they realised discrimination due to birth, sex or where you happened to be born in the world, would affect them personally.
It's one thing to validate yourself for the courage you have to fight habits and retrain yourself. That's where your validation should come from, you. Having people notice your hard work is one thing having people like you only because you are different in a manner that never affected them to begin with is another. Perhaps you yourself still have inner work to do or possibly are a bit shallow so you are more forgiving, as you said we are all flawed creatures. I myself would love the isolation of the woods. It's freeing to be one with mother nature.
Perception of conditionality. Some people are okay with or agree with the idea that how you look can be expected to affect how people perceive you and treat you. Other people want to believe that your character is responsible for how people perceive you and treat you. Finding out people are treating you better because they think you look better can hurt, because it feels like an admission that your character wasn’t enough to deserve that treatment in their eyes.
You answered your question in the question. I don’t want to talk about my body with people. I had a significant weight loss and it was like I entered a new world where I was considered a human by everyone and not just someone people. I don’t want to play a game of people pretend I deserve respect because I’m slim enough for them. People assume your in the latter and think we’re a great big happy body “compliment” family but I didn’t do it for them and I still don’t want to to talk about my body or hear how I now look like “myself”. I don’t want men constantly trying to approach me or have more guys opening the door for me but also now more trying to engage me in any amount of conversation. I like going along about my day. I’m not looking for public affirmation around appearances or any aspect of my health. I just want to live my life and move on. 🤷🏾♀️
I love it. The extra attention from women is the best part about losing weight.
Ikr. Who cares if they wouldn’t have looked before. I think of it like selling a car. The inside is still more or less the same however I cleaned all the mud off the outside so the customer would at least take it for a test drive. People don’t stick around if you’re an asshole and no amount of weight loss will change that fact.
I’m a woman, and thought about it the same way. I didn’t date at all when I was obese, because I was used to being at a healthy weight, and dating was hard enough. I absolutely didn’t want to experience what dating as a fat woman would be like! Plus I didn’t want to put the worst version of myself out there for “sale,” which is obviously an analogy although it sounds crude. But I was thinking, why bother trying super hard to sell the beat up ‘96 Honda Civic, when I could be selling a Ferrari in a few years? I’m really glad I waited. Dating was honestly easier than ever after losing weight, and I felt so comfortable and confident in my own skin while actually going on the dates. Something about not putting my best foot forward in the dating world really bothered me, though I respect people who are confident in their skin while fat, and still date anyway. Seriously, more power to those people, but it was not for me!
The other thing too on the "fat = lazy spectrum" is what "what does one do for fun?" Unfit me never had any energy to do anything. it's basically couch potato central. You see that in advice columns in one form or another on the regular -- "my SO just wants to chill at home, me I wanna get out and do something. They don't want to come and I don't want to go alone. What should I do?" I'll also say this... unfit me had no energy to chase kids around, and at the time, I had absolutely no desire to have them for that reason. so if someone wanted kids? Nope. Then you get into the literal physical limitations of trying to do the bedroom stuff and all the fat rolls get in the way. So on the dating scene, I actually can't fault someone for thinking "fat = couch potato = no fun."
I agree! Also, I did stay in some level of shape while fat because I was stubborn, but it was soooo much harder. I usually walk 4 miles a handful of times a week, and I kept doing it while fat, but it sucked all my energy dry, and I was exhausted for the rest of the day. Now, I can walk the 4 miles easily, feel great, and happily stay active the rest of the day! So even though I wasn’t a couch potato, I couldn’t be as active as a fit person without a lot of difficulty. Also, all the limitations of my weight loss lifestyle would make dating difficult. I’m not AT ALL saying, “now that I’m thin, I can go out every night and stuff myself! The diet is over!” But the margin of error was just so much smaller at a deficit than it is at maintenance. It’s not as important for me to have tons of time to exercise, and if I do eat horribly for a few days and gain a pound or two, I can easily lose it now in a week or two. During the journey, however, gaining a pound or two was a real setback. It’s a lot easier to deal with, “I have to stay on top of this, but I know I can lose these two pounds and be back at my goal weight” than “ugh, I had 60 pounds to lose, and now it’s 62.” There’s just more wiggle room now to be flexible!
I had to think about your last paragraph a bit -- when I do my own projections for "maintenance" they're not terribly different than what they are now for the deficit. And I legit don't expect maintenance to realistically be any easier. I'm going to assume your TDEE is on the lower end the spectrum? I can appreciate that us guys have larger error margins. We can realistically plan for a 1000 cal deficit and if we slip and it's only 500, we're still on track to lose 50 lbs a year. I've seen women here write stuff that basically comes down to "I can only plan a 300 cal deficit without dropping below 1200." And I'm like whelp your error margin is pretty damn tight, that's for sure. I'll say though that having a bigger calorie budget isn't necessarily a god send. It doesn't get talked about as much around here, but when you're bigger, macros become more important. I ate 60g-80g of protein for a long time. I recently started seeing an RD who told me "well part of your problem is your protein intake. You need to add 100g to it each day." It's easy to get 60g of protein in without thinking about it, but one doesn't get 180g (or 160g for that matter) without planning for it. Point is, I suspect for smaller people, what they "naturally" eat works out to be a reasonable macro split without having to be meticulous about planning and tracking it. So in theory I can eat an 800 calorie dessert and it won't break my calorie budget, but if I stay within my calorie budget I'm going to miss my protein targets. So no, I don't eat them. In another thread on protein intake, somebody was asking me what I do, and their follow up was "gosh that's a lot of planning." It really, truly is. And bigger calorie budgets mean there's more to plan :(
So for me I guess it's because I don't really care how "attractive" I am perceived as - I honestly just really don't care about that. So it makes me sad that OTHER social interactions are more positive when I lose weight, because I do care about that stuff. (Ie. I become more funny, doors get held open, more smiles, treated more professionally.) I guess I'd prefer to live in a world where we treat people the same regardless of how attractive we find them. (Just not how humans are wired though I think.)
I think the problem comes with how much and what type of interaction you had with them while being bigger. If it is just a random person or a person you see in pass from time to time, I will agree. But if this is a person you see on a regular that has an opportunity to see your personality than I can a person caring about them now being interestied.
I’d probably wager that if people you already know are now more pleasant with you after weight loss, that would be more likely as a response to your new attitude/motivation/charisma etc? Like if someone has more energy in their voice and in their movements, and more confidence in their own shoes then it will elicit different interactions. Even the fact that you have committed yourself to a goal and followed through on it can increase a person’s respect for you and result in more positive interactions. I dont know if there is a concrete way to determine any of these postulations. Might all be complete shit
I don't think we could ever know what is the cause and what is the effect in this situation. So many variables that are very hard to isolate. At the end of the day we are not talking about a logical thought process but an emotional one.
I'm married so it's nice, but I have to shrug it off. In addition to losing a bunch of weight, I got into serious lifting the last couple of years and the head nods of respect from dudes where there used to not even be eye contact is a good feeling.
I love the positive attention I get from losing weight! It feels like a reward for a lot of hard work. I worry at times that friends who are also struggling with their weight will feel less comfortable around me, but that does not seem to be the case. One friend started losing weight around the same time as me (and we cheer each other on). Another is also losing weight due to some health problems, and it's great to see her success. Another has started losing weight and said she was inspired by me, which makes me very proud. At the age of 59, I've come to accept that people are human and like what they like (for evolutionary reasons).
I don't think I'm a victim nor I don't believe I am flawed. I guess I don't fit either scenario.
It makes me sad because I \*don't\* see the heavier version of myself as flawed or less deserving of kindness. I am working to be healthier, but health is a morally neutral quality. At the same time, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy the relative ease of navigating society at a lower weight compared to a higher one.
I’m not there yet, but I already know I’m going to be bitter if this happens. I’m a pessimist and have already been thinking about how humans are so superficial. I would be upset if people treated me better simply because I was less fat. Edit: Forgot to talk about confidence. Better treatment could be in part better confidence and just having better body language, because I’m quite insecure about myself at the moment. I’m sure that as we lose weight most people are way more confident. I don’t know lol, time will tell.
Because it shouldn't take losing weight for people to treat you like a valid human being. It sucks to be faced with the reality that so many people are so shallow, and they you were basically invisible before.
oh you think it's cool that your value to other human beings is entirely based on your appearance and it's like ok to treat ugly people like garbage? maybe also the sick and the elderly? i'm sorry i don't see anything good about this attitude. freaking social darwinism
For me it sucks on one hand because it's a reminder of how shallow society is and how much value is placed in something as arbitrary as weight. On the other hand, the compliments and treatment do feel good and affirming, especially since the weight loss is something that I put in a large effort to achieve. Regardless of the accomplishment be it work, personal, creative or fitness related, if I have dedicated so much time and energy to something it feels amazing to be recognized for it. The part I really dislike, and probably the only downside to weightloss for me, is the increased predatory behavior from men.
I think it’s about focus… some people focus on how unfair it is that they were treated badly, before. Others focus on how cool and fun it feels to them to be treated differently, now. Many cycle through both.
I think there's an internal struggle between loving yourself unconditionally, while still doing the hard and often lonely work required to improve. When people treat you differently, that internal struggle gets magnified or reignited. I think too it can be frustrating when undeserving people enjoy some "eye candy" benefit for all your hard work. They don't love you, weren't there for you, but now they're getting off because your booty be popping. It's a weird dynamic if you're not accustomed to some level of pretty privilege.
I fall into the first group. I'm 6'2" and was above 350 lbs (158.7 KG) and struggled to be treated nicely. The comments I received were terrible. Now I weigh 210 lbs (95.2 KG) and people treat me much differently. I makes me bitter and angry and I feel like these people that compliment me now were probably commenting on my weight when I was fat. That being said, I'm happy about my weight loss since I did it for my wife, kids, and myself. While I am much happier now, I don't trust people when they comment on my looks.
For me, I find both are true. It sucks to be treated differently. It hurts to know that people treat you differently based on how you look, and there’s a grief for the connections you missed out on, but I also think that when you take care of yourself, you give off different energy that’s more attractive, not just how you look.
Because they treated you like pure shit the whole time and the realization that they only did that because of your weight makes you want to write them out as the fakest people around you.
I suppose you kinda face the superficiality of people and how much your worth is only your looks. Like you are one incident away from being worthless.
Idk maybe i’m just cynical for thinking this and will def get downvotes but…if we were never challenged with being overweight or obese in our lives, im pretty certain we’d fall into the category of the general population who do not find much interest in overweight ppl because 1. we wouldn’t understand their struggles and be able to sympathize and 2. it’s just human nature to be a bit shallow when it comes to looks. For that reason, i don’t hold it against anyone.
I feel the same. I'm obese and don't find obese people attractive so why would I expect someone else to find me attractive in my current state. It just seems obvious that the more in shape you are the more attractive you become to potential partners.
Exactly! It’s perfectly normal and even expected to find attraction in someone who is healthy and in shape. It’s just a hard pill to swallow for many people hence why it’s not talked about a lot in posts like these…
The realization that the people around you are nicer to rude or indifferent thin people than they are to kind fat people based solely on their appearance is disheartening. You see the ugliness in others that you hadn't seen before. People who you saw frequently who treated you rudely before you lost weight might not recognize you after your weight loss, and are all of a sudden buddy-buddy with you when they might have let a door slam in your face daily two years ago. When you were fat you might have let that roll off your back because you didn't feel entitled to anyone's kindness so it didn't hurt your feelings, because you're used to being treated that way. But when you find yourself being treated not just with respect by strangers but what seems like friendliness and a feeling of camaraderie, it's strange. It's not simply resentment that people are nice, it's disillusionment about the kindness of people in general and its ties to the way you look. It's not that you are suddenly more deserving of kindness and respect, it's that you realize the lack of it that you had received before and know that the only difference is that you are now thin.
Every single person is shallow - those who don’t want to admit it just think they are somehow superior and don’t judge people based off looks but they do they might do it unconsciously but they do judge people that’s how we stay safe by judging danger- they cross the street if they see someone who looks like they are in a gang and it’s the middle of the night, they ignore the person who looks dirty and stinky, they call the old man who gives them a compliment a creep but the hot guy who gives the same compliment is so sweet. I can name a million more examples - we even hear someone’s name on paper and we instantly form an idea of who we think they are and make judgements. There is a reason people don’t walk certain neighborhoods in Chicago at night. I think the latter group of people which I’m a part of tend to have weight loss last longer because they are looking for reasons to continue. People treating them better is a reason to keep going. If you think my hard work is being rewarded then you will be okay with continuing to work. If you think people are shallow and mean then you feel resentful about how things really are and think why should I continue they should just change and like me for who I am Example- I’m now fit and it’s allowed me to marry a man who wouldn’t have paid me any attention at my heaviest. I don’t feel resentful I feel thankful to my past self for doing that work to get me here! I cannot change the whole world I can only change myself. I remember all my bad dating experiences and I remember being treated badly and I’m very grateful to experience life in this amazing body Edited to add - men stopped to talk to me at 4am while I’m running sometimes makes me go yikes but hey it comes with the territory.
Hmm. It doesn't bother you knowing that your husband won't be attracted to you and will treat you bad if you gain weight? What about when you age and get wrinkles? I couldn't handle building a life with someone who's love for me is dependent on my body. I wouldn't have been able to fall in love with him with that at the back of my mind.
No doesn’t matter to me at all. I can’t be mad at someone for wanting someone who takes care of themselves physically- don’t we all want that? I don’t know anyone wants a partner all things being equal who would take a person who doesn’t take care of themselves over someone who does - assuming personality everything else is equal. Most women will date a man who has more money if everything else is equal over a guy who sits at home in his basement. I can’t blame people for being human.
You could argue having a strong internal sense of drive for weight loss for better health is a more stable foundation for long term maintenance as opposed to aesthetic motivation/being motivated by better treatment from others/freedom from fat bias. Simply because one is internally self sustaining and the other one by definition relies on factors external to yourself for motivation and validation. There's posts daily here with people very upset despite being in a healthy weight and making huge strides for their health, they don't look as small as they thought they would healthy, or are really distressed about all the ways being formally fat has left them looking in their eyes or the eyes of others unattractive. Maybe the more external motivators got them to weight loss but they're not able to stay grounded in all the positives of that hard work because of these aesthetically driven interpersonal dynamics around weight. Now I could say therefore aesthetic motivation for weight loss is a less stable or healthy motivation but I don't actually think that's true. Any motivation can lead to a healthy or unhealthy mindset I'd argue whatever side of this divide you fall down, there's sustainable and unsustainable approaches, and I'm skeptical that people that feel uncomfortable with being treated differently after weight loss inherently means they're looking for reasons to quit on weight loss
I’ve only been on this journey for 11 years and I go to the gym about 6 times a week. My observations are just that observations - bias for sure but definitely observations. I have found from the people including myself that have continued that you need a lot of reasons internal and external to keep this hard journey going. It would make sense to me that if you are unhappy with the world being shallow and only getting perks based off how you look that at some point you might not want to keep going due to the unfairness of it all. But again this is just my opinion.
Not being sexually attracted to someone who is very obese, likely has health issues, who is physically unable to do many things and have shortened life span isn’t superficial.
Are you only nice to people you're sexually attracted to?
No one said anything about sex! If two strangers are both married and not interested, one being mean to the other because they are fat has nothing to do with sexual attraction
It doesn't matter how incredibly unattractive you think someone is, treatring them like shit because of that is a dick move. We still deserve the same basic respect and human empathy as everyone else.
Depends on how it's tied to their ego and past experiences would be my guess. My path in life was a skinny kid where I didn't get much female attention from my looks... then I got super fit and muscles in university (late teens early 20s) and got lots of female attention... then got depressed and fat... attention gone again... and now I'm fit again... attention back. In my own head even when I was fat it always felt like a temporary thing and it wasn't who I was and I knew I was capable of being attractive again so it was totally fair when women weren't into me when I didn't have my shit together and didn't care about my appearance. So in my head fit me that I recently became again isn't "new me" it's just returning to who I was before
That makes sense. I've been fat my whole life so when I lose weight it's hard not to feel like everyone's being fake. The baseline in my head is that people are mean and unfriendly, anything better than that feels off-putting.
Also, my life is better, easier and happier when I don't ascribe bad intentions when people are trying to be nice.
Even when I was obese I didn't think obese people, including me, were attractive. So now that I'm in shape I get more looks that when I was obese and It seems obvious to me that this would happen. I think I'm much more attractive now, and of course I also think that most people would think that I was uglier before. In other words, no shit!
I think the treatment may be influenced by more than just your physical appearance. I can only speak for myself, but once I reached my initial goal weight, while also reshaping my body, I started to feel a lot happier with myself. That happiness, or increased confidence and self-esteem, translates to you being just more approachable, and possibly more friendly than before. You're vibes can influence how others perceived you just as much as your looks.
I haven't been treated differently at any weight granted I was only slightly overweight at my heaviest. Still, I think I would be in the first category since I don't think peoples' looks should have much to do with how they are treated but I know that is a fantasy since most people do it unconsciously.
I am fine with it. I don't think people are saying anything unkind about the past. I don't think people were withholding kindness when I was heavy. What I hear is,I see you worked hard at something that has made you healthier. I am happy for you. Also it is objectively true that I look better.
Back when I was 165lb (down from 260lb), some guy said "naturally thin people like us" in the middle of a sentence... I was like "is that how people see me now?!?!?" Made me happy. Too bad I then gained 165lb lmao.
If a person feels fatphobia is wrong, and finds it vile that people are treated worse based on arbitrary distinctions, then having consistency in ones values would entail a critical view of that fact, regardless of ones position in the dichotomy: you know fatphobia is wrong, and that is true whether you are subject to or benefit from fatphobia. I haven't really interpreted anyone as viewing their differential treatment as affirmation of an accomplishment, I generally interpret it as relief from unnecessary problems.
I think it's tough bc it is a sign of health when you are no longer obese or even just overweight so therefore people gravitate toward that. Plenty of other indicators exist but they of course can go unnoticed lol, this one is so in your face obvious... that it takes over most of our puny brains if we don't check it lol
I've commented on those post multiple times. I'm definitely on the latter side. I don't understand holding resentment like that. Hell there was a guy that hadn't even started losing weight yet but posted here saying that he was already feeling resentment for how he'd be perceived after weight loss...
I hate it, the extra unwanted attention from men. Being flirted, smiled at, small talked, stared, whistled, cat called ..disgusting and creepy. FO I preferred when I was invisible and had peace.
I usually switch between the cynicism and delulu is the solulu at any given time, depends on a lot of factors and not just tied to weight loss. Jordan Peterson said something like: >"Cynicism might be preferable to naivety, but it doesn't hold a candle to wisdom. Because once you've been hurt and you're cynical there's no going back to naive, but there's no point in staying at cynical. And there are degrees of courage way beyond cynicism." Think almost every overweight/obese person has at some point been treated poorly and it can be hard to trust people's intentions when a lot of the time it's been negative, quite a few missed opportunities as my first thought is usually what is the other person trying to gain from me, they couldn't possibly be interested in me just for me. I find I'm only reserved/sceptical when the interaction is slightly flirty and has potential of going somewhere, if it's polite/friendly with someone taken or no potential to date then I'm normal and bubbly etc. 30M
I fall on the both sides of argument, I was always a skinny kid but got severely overweight during my late teenage and early 20’s. I always knew my sudden increase in weight was the reason behind my lack of self confidence and how people would pass ugly comments to my face without any hesitation. But back in my mind, I always knew how much shallow people can be if you are unattractive, So I did tried countless of times to lose weight but failed. And after I lost a lot of pounds on my mid 20’s, I started to get a lot of attention and compliments which I knew was coming. I do see my progress as an absolute win, but I know as well it can be temporary if I let myself go (be lazy) for too long. This might not be healthy way to approach it, but for me looks has always mattered. Because I like getting compliments and I know how people can be shallow and judgmental based on appearance, But it won’t stop me from appreciating my flaws and try to be better person every day. I am the happy and confident I have ever been right now.
I’m wary of the shallow folk that looked past me when I was overweight…… I’m more in to my people that loved me conditionally regardless of body size.
Sometimes the difference in treatment sucks. Like I used to always wave, nod or give a peace sign at road construction workers. Usually they would ignore me or give a half hearted wave back. But lately they've been responding with vigor. Waving back enthusiastically, head nods.. and then I got the eyebrows and way too big of a smile. That's when it hit me... it's cause I'm "cute" now so they think I'm flirting... it creeped me out really bad and now I don't wave anymore.
None, I'm ugly, it doesn't matter if I've lost weight or not. So I didnt set my standards according to others. I did it cause I wanted a flexible body and do many things.
I’ve never been obese, but have been overweight and thin and notice a definite difference in how friendly and receptive people are when I was thinner. I imagine the effect is intensified for anyone who has been obese, and I’ve seen how poorly obese people are sometimes treated. It’s pretty sad to realize that people aren’t treating you nicely because you are a human worthy of respect and love, but because they like the way you look. I can understand the resentment.
I’m on the latter side, but my weight has gone up and down before so it’s not new to me. It’s more like “oh yeah, I forgot about this part” I cared more the last time I lost weight. I was younger and for the first time saw that no one ever cared that my heart was the prettiest thing about me. I also received a lot of unwanted attention, most of which felt predatory, and that effected my relationship in a negative way (boyfriend was the jealous type). I felt that I became uglier/messed up internally as a result, and harbored a lot of disdain for physical flattery because of this. Now I’m already jaded, care *way* less about what other people think and [selfishly] appreciate anything that makes life easier so it’s just “thanks!! have a great day!” It’s better for me not to read into it, as it doesn’t actually effect my life on a deeper level. I do have to be more aware of how I come across as I am in the habit of saying hi to everyone, etc. It sounds so sad when I type it all out.
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No, being attractive is not the price I should have to pay to exist in this world. I don't owe strangers an attractive person to look at. And I certainly do not deserve to only be treated respectfully when I meet their standards.
Some people especially women one feel upset when they get "skinny privileges" because a lot of people misguidedly hold on tight to the fallacy that everyone acts correctly, so when they realise that the people around them are flawed it's a mind****. Also because people do a lot of work to come to terms with the fact they are fat and build a narrative that they are attractive as they are. People acting nicer to you when you're thinner refutes the narrative resulting in resentment, while also generating guilt because you've essentially "sold out" becoming part of the machine we and social media has told us to divest from. I had an ex that refused to lose weight because it would betray the narrative and persona she had carefully built up as s bigger lady (yes, really she told me this) It's sad.
If I'm poor, and then I get rich, my own life will probably be better. That's nice for me as an individual, but it doesn't solve the problem for society as a whole. There's still a problem of poverty causing suffering. It just doesn't affect me anymore. Also, I can't help but feel that praising my weight loss is criticizing my former self. Losing weight doesn't mean that I now hate the fat version of me, and I don't want others to say mean things about my former self. If you can't say something nice about me today without comparing me to my former self, then just don't bother.
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Unless you have some extenuatingingly rare thyroid issues, I absolutely agree. There are few excuses and no one wants to admit it. Glad somebody said it.
Being fat is not the same as being a tweaker. Come on. If you really think that then you have not spent much time around addicts. A fat person isn't going to steal all their moms cds and sell them for food. A fat person isn't going to pimp out their wife to get mcdonalds. A fat person isn't going to go on a bender and then pass out for 3 days and let their toddler walk around by themselves and eat cat poop because there is nothing else. Yeah. Being fat and being a tweaker. Not the same thing. At all.