Fat or Skinny Shaming Jokes Are Not Funny...They Never Were

Recently I had a personal experience that was quite the opposite to what I have had the majority of my life and I will discuss it today and why these situations, despite still persisting are in no way ok or appropriate and can even be very dangerous.

I guess the first thing you want to know is what my experience was. Well I am not going to name names or go too specific in that way but I was recently at a gathering and I had an individual find it appropriate to say they noticed I am ‘starting to develop a gut’ when I was eating what is a very rare treat nowadays and this than lead to many others either contributing to bullying me in the way of continuing comments, laughing or witnessing the incident and doing nothing, hanging me out to dry essentially. This would continue later on, when I returned to the setting and the same people, after sitting alone and not wanting to be around anyone for ages, especially while eating.

Now before I go further into how it made me feel, I want to clarify my weight and measurements are actually very stable but the reality is if you want to gain noticeable strength and gain mass, you need to be in a caloric surplus (you will gain some fat), which has been my focus until only a week or two ago, I am now gradually and successfully cutting and will be doing for this until I feel I want to push muscle and strength growth more. That is the reality of training in the gym and look life sometimes will also not have us in ideal circumstances and you may fluctuate even without meaning too. Thats ok. It happens sometimes. I am certainly on track though.

Now back to the story. Obviously, none of these individuals understood anything about my training, or my approach to eating, where I was at in terms of cutting or gaining cycles or really anything at all. No one asked if my Sleep Apnoea is going ok, or if there have been complications which will affect body composition efforts, and nobody ever does in these situations. It’s a cheap laugh that might make everybody else feel good and superior in the situation but that leaves somebody feeling humiliated, possibly not worth much at all, completely disrespected and in many cases, it can completely stop somebodies’ efforts to be healthier or make them too obsessive. It can be outright dangerous depending on somebody’s mental state at the time and history. I went through a period at the end of high school where I started viewing myself as overweight and I was over exercising and under eating, getting to 50 something KG. Although I don’t know how I viewed myself as overweight looking back on it now, it creates a history and potential to go back to that state of mind in situations like what occurred recently, and I am not alone in that.

This isn’t to say that the conversation about somebodies level of body fat and general state of health isn’t important at times or it never has to had but most of the time people know exactly what is going on with their bodies and do not need to be shamed, and if the discussion needs to be had it needs to be handled with sensitivity and great care and it’s not appropriate for it to be the topic of general conversation in social settings or a source of humour. It’s a discussion to be had among the person and very specific individuals e.g., Very select family and friends who have the persons interests at heart and can avoid degrading or belittling someone, GPs, PTs, Dieticians or if it’s a particularly triggering conversation, a mental health professional.

Skinny shaming is just as bad. We all know people who have called people who have trouble gaining weight anorexic despite knowing nothing about their health or circumstances. Mental illness is a whole other thing and isn’t necessarily indicated by looking at somebody and it isn’t something to be thrown around like that. When you struggle to put on weight it also tends to make the whole gaining strength and/or muscle very difficult too, and it may be shocking but it’s not something people tend to like being highlighted either. As the kid who ate so much but could never gain weight and was therefore far weaker than anybody else my age and felt pretty useless physically it was something I hated. I still can lose weight very quickly if I want to but its more complicated if you want to retain muscle and strength.

I will probably leave it here, I don’t want to ramble too much, but I guess the main point I am making is we need to do better as individuals, as a society and I can’t help but think of that old saying, if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

There is a whole heap of history and different circumstances for every individual when it comes to their health and appearance. Body Shaming it’s not funny, it never will be and if someone gives you the privilege of sharing their circumstances or story, be mindful to respect that privilege and handle it with care and sensitivity. Be a decent person.

We all obviously need to active on a regular basis and aim for optimal health but that can and should occur and will only be successful long term without body shaming tactics or destroying somebody’s self-esteem. We make people successful with fitness and health by building them up.