Now that I'm on the "thin" side and people go on and on about how "thin" I am, I am always surprised when people who've been on both sides of the scale actually believe that "thin insults" are as bad as the "fat insults" that were once thrown their ways. I'm like, really? Sure, it's annoying, but really--IT DOES NOT COMPARE.

I don't know if this is judging or having thoughts out of the knowledge I have acquired; I was at the gym and I was lifting those horrid weights (ya; I hate lifting, but I am starting to love the results )...anycase this cute late teens/ early 20's couple was working out. He was teaching her about different machines etc. They had a routine they were following. -- She was a little bit on a softer side what came to her physique.

I overheard her saying "oh, this was a lot of work, I bet I burned a ton of calories"

I wanted to step in and say; "Honey, you burned maybe 200-300 cal, please don't give yourself a free pass at the Mexican restaurant tonight" But of course I did not.

Was I judging? Perhaps.... but I know myself, I used to use that "excuse" all the time to over eat; "BUT I worked out".

I figured out yesterday that I can sometimes in a moment of weakness jealously judge anyone who is thinner/lower body fat than me who can't lift as much as I can. As in "it's not faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaair"

Just my humble opinion here, but I don't think we can ''measure'' how much or not having the ''fat insults'' VS the ''thin insults'' hurting someone. But I does agree that it does not compare ; fat insults hurts what a person is at the specific moment VS thin insults hurts, for someone who lost weight and still got judgmental things throw her/his way, all the efforts the person had to put out to work it's way through a weight loss process.

This is probably why skinny hating annoys/hurts a lot

I also don't think that judgmental thoughts about thin women carry the same baggage. The tone is rarely pitying or scornful (as it is for obesity), it is usually schadenfreude (pleasure at seeing someone else having misfortune) tinged with jealousy.

I dropped back in to say that several suggestions given in this thread have helped me combat my judgmental thinking, especially the one about creating more of a "backstory" for the overweight people I see eating junk food or wearing unflattering clothes. So, thanks everyone - all 60 of your posts (and counting). Wow.

I have a hard time believing people feel that when someone is being insulted it matters whether they are Fat or Skinny!
My teenage daughter had a girl walk up to her in the hall and call her Anorexic,my daughter told her no my weight is considered normal for my height and size, but you are Overweight for your height and size! The girl let out Hmmm like she could not believe what my daughter said ...and my DD said it in front of a guy friend too! So my daughter was being bullied but it is less hurtful for a random stranger at school to call her Anorexic !

I think maybe we all need to quit coming from our own history and acknowledge ...that it is quite acceptable in our society to do Skinny Bashing!
On the view one of the talk show host Joy Behar. Likes to refer to Skinny B...ch
Quite often as an insult!,if someone was to replace that with Fat B....ch. the sponsors and viewing office would be outraged!
There are people who are naturally thin ...so is it alright for them to be targeted?
I have been called Skinny in a derogatory way....never did someone to my face call me fat in such a manner?

I do not have thin skin ...but what is sauce for the Goose is sauce for the Ganter! All remarks can cause body image disturbances...there are tons of people in treatment for body image disturbances.
Bullies come in all shapes and sizes IMO.
Roo2
Oh that girl has not approached my daughter again ..calling her Anorexic!
My daughter gave it right back to her which apparently the girl did not expect!

I just. do. not. care. It took me long enough to care about myself. Let alone strangers.

And I can't be in the minority else the US would have universal health care.

A million thoughts go through your mind every day. Some may be useful, a lot are just junk--like having a radio on in the background. The important thing is to prevent yourself from jumping into action based on these judgmental thoughts--as though you are only a reflex reacting to what goes through your mind.

When I had lost 50 pounds, I was in line at the pet food store. The store was owned by an obese woman. In the course of her conversation with another customer, weight loss came up. The store owner said that she had lost over 100 pounds twice, but then had regained.

Me in my wonderful new relatively thin body wanted to tell her to "keep trying" and "not give up" and surely she could lose the weight and keep it off. But I didn't.

Now it is years later, and those 50 pounds I lost? They are back again. I truly believed I would never, ever, regain that weight. I have thought of myself as a failure, as a weakling. How could I "let" this happen?

Well folks, it happens, and sometimes it happens no matter how hard you think you are trying. I now believe that if someone restricts too long, and too much, that the body begins to push back.

I'm just glad I didn't say anything to the obese woman in the pet food store.

Roo2, do you see my profile stats, to the left of this post? Where I call myself "Midsize B...ch"? That's me, playing with the term and the book titled "Skinny B...ch" that came out a few years back, and also playing with "Fat B...ch," which I was called once, really loudly, in the middle of a college literature class by a male student who was arguing with me about a book under discussion. (Oh, how that hurt at the time, because the teacher just sat back & watched, and said nothing, which I think is totally wrong. Teachers should make classrooms a safe space, if nothing else.) I thought of "midsize sedan" in car commercials and decided that was my goal, to be a "Midsize B...ch." Healthy, moderate and not drawing down insults from both halves of the population.

But seriously, folks, something in our society hates the extremes of fat and skinny and is all over them, using them as a moral judgment on the other half and as the prime indicator of a woman's worth. I still think the terms are a shorthand for a whole pile of other associations regarding self-control, social adeptness, class distinctions, etc.

As a teacher, I am stunned by this. I cannot imagine someone in one of my classes actually saying this to another student. And, almost as bad, I cannot imagine the teacher doing nothing!! What??? I would have dismissed that student from class, reported his behavior to my Chair/the Dean, and not allowed him to enter the class again until he had apologized to the person whom he insulted and the entire class for being so disruptive. That teacher must have been like a deer in headlights. Once in a blue moon someone has said something inappropriate in class (not insulting another person--just inappropriate), and if I think it's uncharacteristic of the student, I might allow it to pass simply to avoid calling more attention to it. However, I would NEVER allow what you described. Saef, it's teachers like that, that give so many in the profession a bad name; sorry that that happened to you.

My experience is that it doesn't matter if you are overweight or thin, but people tend to be more judgemental when their diet and exercise seem effortless to maintain. You are "on the zone", you feel like your diet is a lifestyle change, everything is smooth and you can continue what you are doing without excessive effort. So you see other people struggling and probably think: come on, I can do it, you are just making excuses and being lazy. But as maintainers and those who have been at this for a while know, there will probably come a time when things will not seem that easy, your circumstances will change and then what it used to work it won't work anymore so you will probably start to feel more empathy for them.

I think it is the same when you want to help someone to make better choices and that person is not ready to change. You try to project what it's working for you, probably out of love, but it will not work until that person is ready to make the change. You will probably feel frustrated because you just want to help them and I think judging goes along the same lines but in a negative way.

Judging or trying to help others comes from a conflict you have in your head between what is happening to you and what is happening to other people. It is probably better to disengage your own experience from that kind of thoughts and just be there when someone asks you for help.

I find that the more I'm focused on my weight, the more I tend judge others or at least notice their weight. It's like thinking about buying a red car and as you look around, you see red cars everywhere. We notice what we are paying attention to, and if we are watching our weight, we tend to notice other's weight as well.

I have never been obese, just overweight. And while I didn't get a lot of comments during the year or so I was down in the middle of the correct weight range (I'm now slightly back into the overweight range), I got way more comments about my weight than I ever did in all the years I was fat.

Weight loss is so much more than numbers on a scale. When I was at my lowest, I felt like I looked the same way I did at my highest. My flaws were the same, the places where the fat accumulated were the same. I felt good, but it was hard to justify all the work to stay that way just for how I felt. Now that I've gained some of what I lost back, I have a somewhat different perspective. How I look simply isn't motivation enough for me to go to all that work to be thin. It was a lot of work, and I did a lot of judging.

So my ongoing issues is reframing all of that so I get back into the healthy range again (I am less than 10 pounds away from it so it is oh so close). But if I am going to do it, I don't want to be so wrapped up about it. It was a strange new world, and I am not sure where I fit into it yet. I am sure part of my obsession with others weights (especially those who were skinny) was trying to fit into that world. I still hope I will figure it out.

But to the OP, I so do feel your pain. I totally understand the obsession and the loathing of it.

^THIS. So, what can I do about it as an individual? What can we do about it, as people who have felt the sting of judgement? This thread has inspired me to put conscious effort into seeing the light in all people, and even reaching out more to compliment and connect with them.
It has also helped me to identify who I tend to reflect my insecurities onto. While I would tend to agree with a previous commenter that commentating on a heavy persons weight carries harsher implications than commenting on the thin, here is the thing...does it matter? Either way, such judgments are two sides of the same coin. When the overweight berate the thin as being "less than" or anorexic or whatever AND when the thin are cruel to the overweight...they promote duality...they diminish the opportunity for a mutually supportive environment...they promote the false idea that worth is external. Lasting influence is achieved with the mind, with kindness, with compassion, with intelligence...not with curves OR ab definition.

ITA and I think we would all be happier if we put in the effort to be compassionate and reaching out.

One thing that I am so amazed at about the whole fat discrimination thing is that so much of it has to be coming from other fat people -- according to the folks who keep the records 2/3 of us are at unhealthily high bmi's right? It has always made a certain amount of sense to me that white people who are in the majority (I'm in the U.S.) could discriminate against and set up a society where black people, who are a minority, are treated as lesser. But the numbers are completely reversed with fat people. So we are so self-loathing bc of our fat that we cannot even manage to have compassion and empathy for ourselves and people in our situation. I do thinking a little more self-love and a little more loving-our-brother would go a long way.

I actually had this conversation with a friend today. I commented how most people at our work are trying to lose, and a couple have had WLS. With the exception of 1 person (who had WLS), I am the only person who has lost (and so far maintained) weight. I knew the way I was saying it sounded judgemental, but it was more of trying to analyze their thinking without sitting down and having a conversation with them (as most people are not as open about weight as I am).

I know how hard it is. I know how impossible it is when you are not ready to commit. I know how easy it is when your head is in it. I know how sh*tty it feels to be judged, but I was sitting there doing it. And I admit, the words sounded down right mean, and I felt bad about it, but had no other words that expressed what I was thinking and feeling about myself.

The one thing I'm terrified of is regaining, and by trying to analyze other's behaviors, I am trying to line up "prevention" techniques. Especially since this is the first time in my life I've taken weight loss seriously.

I guess what I am saying is we all have those thoughts. I just try to use them to help me in my journey. And I'm sorry if I ever sound like an @ss (in RL or here!).