We all know someone who has lost weight and our first response is "Wow, you look GREAT!" At diet workshops, the leader and participants applaud successful dieters who, upon weigh-in, register a lower weight on the scale. Advertisements for weight loss programs publicize how much better you'll look when you shed excess flab.
Although this praise is intended to be positive, it can sometimes backfire. The following story, told by a woman recovering from anorexia, could perhaps teach us how to wisely acknowledge weight loss.
"When I was a student in medical school, I was unhappy and my life felt out of control. I followed my strong desire to be able to control something, so I started to diet and exercise. I got carried away and within a year, I had to admit myself into an eating disorders program. The sad part is no one saw my unhappiness. Mind you, I was in medical school, surrounded by health professionals and I got nothing but praise the whole way down. Doctors, nurses, friends and family would say:
"You've lost weight. You look great!"
"I barely have time to sleep, but you manage to get up early to run an hour every day."
"I admire you. You always eat such healthy foods--salads, fruits, rice cakes."
Praise and compliments flowed endlessly--but no one saw this woman's unhappiness. After losing twenty pounds and exhausted with compulsive, relentless exercise, she ran out of energy and admitted herself into an eating disorders program. She knew she was ill, but no one else noticed. No one made the appropriate comment: "You are looking very thin, are you OK?" or "I'm worried about you. You look so tired and seem to have lost that sparkle in your eyes."
A similar episode took place in a health club. A 39 year-old trying to get back to his college "fighting weight" claimed he was training for an Iron Man Triathlon, but the truth was he was over-exercising to lose weight. His thoughts about food and exercise consumed 99 percent of his day--to the point where he did little but exercise, work, sleep and eat as little as possible. He also received nothing but praise about his changed body:
"You look great. How much weight have you lost?"
"You are so dedicated to your training program. How do you find time to exercise for two hours every day?"
A year later, this exhausted "athlete" ended up in my office saying, "I don't know if I need to see you or a psychologist."
In both cases, these individuals received nothing but praise as they tumbled into their eating disorders. Granted, their friends, teammates and training partners were not responsible for their eating disorders. However, they failed to say the appropriate words.
Acknowledging Weight Loss
What should you say when someone has lost weight? What you do not want to say is "Have you lost weight? You look great!" This implies:
They looked horrible before.
Physical size is more important than health.
Weighing less makes them a better person. Also, what happens when the dieter regains the weight (a common occurrence)? Does he/she revert to being a worse person?
Whether someone has lost two or twenty pounds, the best way to acknowledge weight loss is to shift the focus away from physical away changes and focus on praiseworthy phrases:
"You look like you've been working hard at the gym. How are your workouts going?" The dieter will be ready to talk about how proud they are of their hard work. Let them brag.
"You are looking more fit. How do you feel?" If they are losing weight appropriately, they'll feel great.
Oftentimes, saying nothing is best. Regardless of the dieter's response, help the person have a solid appreciation of their value as a person. Their beauty is in their smile, friendship and caring nature--not their clothing size. Dieters need to know they are loved from the inside out, not judged from the outside in. Losing weight does not make a person better or more likable--they just weigh less. Hopefully they are also healthier, more energetic and happier with these benefits.
Nancy Clark, M.S., R.D., nutrition counselor at Sports Medicine Associates in Brookline, Massachusetts, educates athletes on how to eat well for better health and energy. Her book, Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook, Second Edition, is available at www.nancyclarkrd.com. Nancy appreciates the help of the following Registered Dieticians who contributed to this article: M.J. Detroyer, New York; B. Beardsley, New Mexico; R. Romely Connecticut; K. Geagan, Massachusetts; C. Fenwick, North Carolina.
That's a great article! I happen to be one of those people who seldom make comments about someone's body/hair/etc. because I'm afraid of either making a mistake or because I don't want to be told that the change is due to something bad. I like the reworded phrases she suggests.
I like the reworded phrases too. Thanks for posting the article, Amber -- commenting on other people's weight loss is such a minefield and, like Allison, I always worry about inadvertently offending. It's so hard to figure out what to say to acknowledge someone's hard work without making it sound like you thought they were a fat slob before (which is most definitely not what's intended!) I like the idea of focusing on fitness.
I love this article. I could talk for days about my exercise plan, my gym time, and to a certain extent, what I'm eating, but being asked about my WEIGHT or how much I've LOST just puts too much focus on it for me. The reworded phrases are great for figuring out how to phrase these things with minimum conflict potential.
Just an observation... Everyone always wants to know how you lost the weight, but no one ever asks how you gained it. :P
Maybe if we (as a society) could find a way not to be so hung up on body issues and weight we could offer our help to someone caught up in out-of-control eating.
Any way - Just thought it would make an interesting book title: No one ever asks how you Gained it!
It's been a long day - I'm kinda punchy, so I thank you for indulging me!
I sometimes have someone hesitatingly say "Have you lost weight ? ", I answer "Yes, and I did it on purpose". They are then relieved to know I don't have a debilitating disease, although they don't say so.
Yes those are nice ways to rephrase it. The first time someone acted like they were concerned about why I was losing weight caught me by surprise. Usually people say things like the article mentioned (You look great! How much weight have you lost?). It hadn't occurred to me that at 346 lbs someone would think I wouldn't have wanted to have lost weight.
The story of how I gained it wouldn't be all that interesting though.
That is a great article - how I would have loved (in hindsight!) someone to tell me I looked too thin, I looked flat, and I looked over-worked when I was losing obsessively.
All the way down to 50kgs (110pds) people used to just say "oh wow, you've lost so much weight, you look great!" while inside I hated myself more, obsessed more, exercised harder and ate less.
Eventually someone DID say "hey, um, I love you, but maybe you've gone to far"
God bless Mums!
I like the re-worded questions, I also could talk for days about my gym routine, boot camp, running etc...but rarely like to focus on the scales because I am now concentrating on body fat % and it isn't so relevant. People look at you blankly when you say that though - we're all so hung up on a number on a scale!
As I've mentioned before, I practiced all kinds of eating disordered behavior from the ages 15-18 (maybe 19?) At my lowest weight ever (105 lbs on my medium-large 5'7" frame at the age of 16), a FEW people were FINALLY starting to get concerned, though most just gawked at me and told me how they wished they were as skinny as I was and asked, "DO YOU EAT?" in this admiring way, almost as if NOT eating was a good thing, and when I told some of them that the reason I got that skinny (now, don't get me wrong, I was TRYING to lose weight, but the scale just wouldn't budge beyond 115) was because (at the time) I recently got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes This spawned comments like (I kid you not), "OMG! I wish *I* had diabetes!!!"
Needless to say, I ditched that crowd a couple years later.
I personally love when people comment on my weight loss now, if it's in a more indirect way like, "you look GREAT!" or "You look GORGEOUS!" as opposed to, "WOW! You've GOTTEN so pretty!" or "WOW! You've GOTTEN so SLIM and BEAUTIFUL!" That just makes me feel like asking, "Oh, so I was ugly before?" But I can't complain too much; I really do enjoy the admiration people give my newfound "nice" body.
Just an observation... Everyone always wants to know how you lost the weight, but no one ever asks how you gained it. :P
Maybe if we (as a society) could find a way not to be so hung up on body issues and weight we could offer our help to someone caught up in out-of-control eating.
Any way - Just thought it would make an interesting book title: No one ever asks how you Gained it!
It's been a long day - I'm kinda punchy, so I thank you for indulging me!
I think this is a good point. Over the course of three years I put on (I kid you not) 90 pounds because I was in an emotionally abusive relationship. I hid the abuse, though, and dealt with it by putting on weight. The one time my mom looked at me and said, "Are you okay? You're not okay," I burst into tears. Once he got into treatment (mental disorder) I stopped gaining, and once we/I got into therapy I started losing. I look back, though, and wonder what life would have been like if someone had reached out to me sooner, and I had been able to grab on.
PS--There is NO ABUSE now. If there ever is, I'm walking. He knows this, and I'm very firm on it. No worries!
Hmm. I was under the impression that you should avoid commenting on eating disordered people looking 'too thin'. I read somewhere, sometime that those kind of comments can be taken as compliments and signs of encouragement rather than signs of concern by girls with eating disorders.
Just kidding, of course, but some people with eating disorders really do it because they so badly want the entire world to find them pretty. I think if a bunch of people told me I looked DISGUSTING in my lower weight ranges because all the bones stopped me from being pretty, I might have started trying to develop some *healthy* habits instead of keeping unhealthy ones to stay skinny.
I wish healthy weight would start becoming societally beautiful. It sounds almost like a dream that will never happen, but models years ago weren't emaciated, with the exception of TWIGGY who was that way naturally and she was called TWIGGY for a REASON! Now, the models are just as skinny as she was, but 4+ inches taller.
I wish healthy weight would start becoming societally beautiful. It sounds almost like a dream that will never happen, but models years ago weren't emaciated, with the exception of TWIGGY who was that way naturally and she was called TWIGGY for a REASON! Now, the models are just as skinny as she was, but 4+ inches taller.
So recently I saw an episode of America's Next Top Model where they were trying to classify a girl as either a standard model or a plus-size model. She probably was about a size 6. A couple of the judges were saying "She's way too fat to be a regular size model" and "She's not big enough to be a plus-size model," and Tyra eventually said something like "Let's just call her a real-size model." I also saw a spread in a magazine one where they had their own employees modelling clothes in every size from 2 to 20. They all looked great.
Anyway, about what to say to people who have lost weight . . . I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love being told "Wow, you look great!" and I like being called "thin." I like that people can notice that I have made a change in my life. On the other hand, once DH's grandmother said to me "You've really turned your life around," which, while somewhat true, made me feel like crap, because aside from my weight my life was going pretty well before I started losing.
I also understand how you need to be careful of what you say to a person with disordered eating. I dunno, I guess my one cardinal rule about what you say to people about their weight is to NEVER EVER call a teenage girl "fat." Ever. My dad told me I was fat repeatedly when I was in high school and it just made me feel even worse about my body than I already did, leading to more emotional eating and more weight gain. Maybe if instead I had been told "I'm worried about your health," or "Let's do (some physical activity) together," things would have been different. (For the record, I wasn't actually overweight at all when I was told I was fat.)
Thanks for the article, I really like the re-worded questions.
My future in-laws are very appearance conscious and every time I see them they’re all “you look so skinny!” At first it really made me uncomfortable, I think because I don’t like the word skinny and I know at 5’4’’ and 165 I am not skinny. I’m smaller than I was at 200+ but not skinny. And they never ask how my running is going, or how am I doing at the gym. Just comments on my physical appearance. It’s annoying. Now I just say "thanks" and move on to another topic. I know my future MIL a little better now and realize that those comments have little to do with me and lots more to do with her own weight fixation. And the really crazy thing is she’s a LCSW that worked with eating disorders for years! You’d think she’d have a healthier attitude.
I ran across another rewording today. (It's also a NSV!) One of the gym instructors asked me if I was training for some sort of competition. When I said no, she said something on the order of, "oh, you just take your health seriously."
I thought this was an excellent way to acknowledge accomplishments and devotion (we run into each other at the gym most days, so she knows I'm a "regular"). At the time I didn't even notice that the acknowledgment didn't include a comment about my appearance, but in retrospect I do.
Appearances Can Be Deceiving: Knowing How To Acknowledge Weight Loss
Thanks for posting the article, Amber -- commenting on other people's weight loss is such a minefield and, like Allison, I always worry about inadvertently offending. It's so hard to figure out what to say to acknowledge someone's hard work without making it sound like you thought they were a fat slob before (which is most definitely not what's intended!) I like the idea of focusing on fitness. 
This spawned comments like (I kid you not), "OMG! I wish *I* had diabetes!!!" 
But I can't complain too much; I really do enjoy the admiration people give my newfound "nice" body. 
