Hello all! I just felt I needed to vent to someone who would know where I am coming from. I wasn't sure where to post this. I figured support would fit right. It deals with comments being made about my weight. Now I have had weight issues for along time, so this is not my first time dealing with this peoples comments. I just had no where to go before.

Well here goes, I work for a lady during the day who has disabilites. I help her to do things she cannot do for herself. So it is not a situation where I can ignore her. I have to take her places and be in her home every day. She has made comments lately though that have hurt my feelings. No she didn't call me a fat cow. I am not sure if I am just hyper-sensative or what. One day she told me she had put on some weight, 10lbs and this depresses her. She then turned to me and said "But I don't have any thing against someone with weight on them". Then today she made a comment of how she may need to buy some shirts in a 1x for the summer because she is top heavy. She then jokingly asked me if I had any shirts that didn't fit me anymore. It just made me feel kind of bad.

I am sure everyone has similar experiences. I have many others from over the years. Just feels good to tell someone thanks.

It sounds as though she's down about her own weight and to make herself feel better she's unnecessarily dragging you into it. I'm sorry.

It's really horrible when somebody makes comments about your weight. i remember distinctly a "friend" whingeing about her weight. I made some supportive remarks and said it could be worse, she could be my weight to which she replied "yeah you're a bit of a whale". I still burn up thinking about that now.

You've started to address your weight issues. Don't let her remarks put you off your stride - try and be inspired by them to stick on course.

Sometimes people say goofy/mean/joking/stupid/whatever kind of comments that hurt our feelings. Sometimes they don't mean to hurt us, & sometimes they are just talking before they are thinking.... and Sometimes we ARE too sensitive. Sometimes it's a little of all that! The important thing is that you KNOW you're fat. You don't NEED anyone to tell you that - to your face, behind your back, in a joking manner - whatever. The fact is that your fatness is hurting you. That is never clearer to us than when someone says something that hurts our feelings.

We ALL have been there. Even me... yes, me. I consider myself to have VERY thick skin, & very little people say ever gets to me. But sometimes... it does. And I just keep on doing what I'm doing... trying to lose the weight, coming here to get and give support, and reminding myself every day that "I AM NOT WHAT I WEIGH."


You said you've dealt with this before because you've been overweight for a long time, but NOW you know where to come to - YES! You do! - this is a great group of people here... we all lead different lives, we all do different jobs... we all are different. But the one thing we all have in common? WE'RE ALL FAT. From 10 lbs to 300 lbs overweight.... we ALL want to lose it & we're all in the same boat together.

GLAD YOU HAVE JOINED US! (Oh, & if you're REALLY Lois Lane, tell me... HOW IS Superman these days???? )

Hey Lois -

I'm sorry that your employer is so insensitive. Sometimes I think people just don't quite know how to handle it when you're quite obviously overweight. I mean, ignoring it probably seems a little phony, you know? On the other hand, I think sometimes they think that just coming right out and saying stuff like your employer has said to you seems more honest, somehow. I mean, WE know we're overweight, and the only reason we're so sensitive about it, I think, is because we aren't very happy about it ourselves. But you and I - and everyone else here on 3FC is DOING something about it, you know? So we can feel good about that, right? One thing that I've learned over time - and I'm WAY older than you - is that NOBODY is ever completely happy with themselves. I've had very thin and trim friends who just hated their teeth or thought - really were convinced - that their nose was too big and that the only way they'd ever "look normal" and be happy was to have plastic surgery. It's always something.
My daughter, who is a little younger than you are, gained about 25 pounds over this past year or so. She's had a lot going on in her life - she and her husband bought a new house in Feb. '06, they went through all the moving and resettling, and then she changed jobs, and well...just a lot has been going on, and she hasn't been taking proper care of herself. Her husband's uncle died a month ago, and when they went to the funeral - in another state - they saw another of his uncles whom they hadn't seen since their wedding more than six years ago. He took one look at her, and said "Omigawd! You don't even look like yourself! You must've gained a TON of weight!" She was flabbergasted, of course, and felt hurt for about five seconds - just as long as it took her to come back with "Well, I can LOSE the weight, Fred, but I can see you'll be on that prescription for UGLY PILLS for the rest of your life!" (Then she went into the ladie's room & burst into tears).
Of course, when she got back, she immediately joined me in my *lifestyle change* and has lost twelve pounds and counting. Thanks, Uncle Fred.
Maybe we should sometimes thank these insensitive jerks for giving us the push we needed after all?
Stick with it, Lois. You're young, you've got your whole life ahead of you, and even if it takes a year or more to get your weight where you want it to be, you'll have many happy years ahead! You can do it! (We're ALL gonna do it!)

Come back and share as often as you can. It really helps.

Ella

I'm always amazed when I hear these types of comments, it's not like you would walk up to someone and say "wow, you have the biggest nose I've ever seen!", so why should people feel they have the right to make weight comments? I have met very few overweight people who were actually thrilled with being overweight, so it won't make them say "yeah, I'm big this is great" if you have the audasity to comment on it!! I had someone I lived next to once see me about 3 or 4 years later and in the conversation of "what have you been up to" she had to say "You've really gained a lot of weight". Like I was supposed to thank her for pointing it out!! But it sounds like your employer wasn't trying to be hurtful, her comments were just ill-advised. If you are close enough to her, I would let her know they were hurtful, to guard you from getting any more from her. If she feels close enough to you to make these comments, then you are close enough to let her know they are not okay.

It may be her age as people get older you kinda revert into "kid phase" again. We experienced this with my grandmother she would say and do things you would expect a child to do. Once she hid the bathroom key and bnlamed it on my little sister for 2 years. My mom is also in homecare and alot of them do and say things also. So please do not take it to heart you could be doing the same in your "golden years".

In a twisted way she might be trying to "identify" with you and just being tactless

I don't know, as long as there doesn't seem to be malice behind it I don't mind comments acknowledging my size as much as comments that pretend I am something I'm not. Like assuming that the word "fat," is so terrible, that when I use the word to describe something about what it's like to be a fat person in a thin world, and a friend will say "oh, don't say that," or worse "you're not fat," I have over 200 lbs to lose, of course I'm fat! And there's nothing wrong with saying it. The use of euphemisms, and conscious attempts to avoid the subject at all costs, make me feel like it's something I'm supposed to try to hide, and since it's something I CAN'T hide, then I should dig myself a whole and not come out until I'm thin.

You have every right to be upset! I cannot believe how rude some people are about weight, especially at work. One of my former coworkers at a former employer used to make fun of my weight behind my back. I found out because my old spervisor told me that she always referred to me as a whale. A WHALE! I shrugged it off at the time, but I could not believe it was tolerated. She was never disciplined about it either. What made it worse was that my supervisor knew about the comments and did nothing to stop them.

Of course, I've moved on to much greener pastures now and my life is so much better. I make more than twice the money that I did at the old place. I love my job and work with great people. Meanwhile, my ex-coworker is still doing the SAME job at the SAME old place she has been for the last 10+ years. She's never been promoted, so I suppose there's some justice in that.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know you weren't alone. Try not to let it get to you. If her comments get worse or more frequent, you should take her aside and tell her candidly that you just don't appreciate that kind of talk, even in jest. If that fails, go to HR and see if you can make a complaint about her behavior.

The first comment sounds like it could have been just an edit problem (giving her the benefit of the doubt). After all, if she's gained some weight, she may be feeling badly about it. Then she tried to cover it up and made it more awkward. The second comment was pretty rude though. Don't let her get to you. Like several others have said, use it for motivation. Isn't there a saying "living well is the sweetest revenge" or something like that? You've started your path to living well (ie. getting healthier), don't worry about what she thinks.

My one really bad experience came from my ex....good reason why he's now the ex...
Anyway, shortly after we were married...I'd say a couple of good years...we found out that I had a thyroid disorder. Top this with birth-control and lets just say in that short time I had gained 80 pounds...not saying it wasn't my eating habits along with everything else. But to the point one day I was joking around and we were talking about sex. Well he looked at me straight in the eye and said...."well if you were skinner maybe you'd have sex more often." It's been over 10 years and that comment still sits in my head and I have a hard time looking at myself without thinking that (although my husband trys to prove that saying wrong when he is in town). Anyway back to the story, we went to see a counselor, my husband said it was to "motivate" me to lose some weight and all the other little comments he use to say to me about going for walks and stuff...I don't think he ever got it in his thick skull that until they found a way to control my thriod my RESTING heart rate was in the aerobic zone.
But anyway, just wanted to share my experience with you and kind of hope it makes you feel better. Usually when people are negative about your weight or looks or anything it's just a sad attempt to make up for the faults they see in themselves.

I'm so sorry your employer made those comments, I'm sure they hurt you more than she will ever know. My mom is one of those who says whatever is on her mind, then just blames me for wearing my feelings on my sleeve. MIL can also be extremely caustic. Anyway, I was getting a lot of negative comments from both my mom and MIL AFTER I had lost about 40 pounds. I came here, cried a bit, and through the advice of the wonderful 3fc-ers, opened my eyes and realized that the comments were not necessarily directed AT me, they were more of the sort that I had unknowingly been the yardstick they were measuring themselves against and by my losing weight, I threw their lives out of whack. Too bad, they need to suck it up! OK, I'm rambling, but I think the moral of this story is that even though it hurts like ****, sometimes it's not directly aimed at us, they're aiming at themselves but it's bouncing off of us in the process. Keep your chin up, you're very close to where I started....you can do this!

I think people say a lot of things out of ignorance, and if it seems to be just ignorance, trying to educate them or letting it slide is probably the better reaction than getting upset.

My brother-in-law is african american, and an elderly relative, as a COMPLIMENT, said to him "You're really a great guy - not at all like most blacks."

Wow, if anyone had a right to get angry, Todd did, but instead, he smiled and said "you'd be surprised at how many black men are just like me."

LOL. I would agree with this.

IMHO - dont get mad people - but I think maybe you are being a bit overly sensitive. She stated that she doesnt have anything against overweight people and she had the audacity to mean you! I think she was just trying to be clear that just cuz she feels fat being 10 lbs overweight, whatever you want to do is your business. I dont think her asking about the skirt is such a big deal either. You're getting mad because she is in a nonjudgmental way just stating facts about your being overweight, but it doesnt sound like she's trying to hurt your feelings. Why cant fat be discussed more openly? It makes it really awkward talking to an overweight person if the issue of weight comes up in any way and it needn't be like that.

I think "fat" is really weird, in that we're taught to pretend we don't notice it, the way we might notice "tall," or "blonde." Think how many times we - or friends, have expressed concern over "getting naked" or exposing flesh anywhere on our bodies, whether it be in a locker room, or with someone we're going to be intimate with.

How much do we think our clothes really hide anyway? My husband and I were both over 300 lbs when we met, and our first "naked time," was extremely stressful for both of us. We weren't "shocked and surprised," at what we saw when the time came, but somehow we expected the other to be? What's with that anyway, did either of us think that the other was going to be stepping out of the "fat suit." Of course, not!

I try to remember this when I go swimming, because I LOVE to swim, and with our culture saying you really shouldn't be seen in shorts or a swimsuit above a certain weight, it sort of reinforces that weird sense that you are really able to "hide" your figure under clothes. Yet, even when you see traditionally dressed middle eastern women in the burka or other traditional clothing, it covers everything, but not enough that you don't get a good idea of the woman's shape. If the burka hides no more than 15 lbs, how much do we really think our jeans and sweaters do?