Do you find people staring at you while you eat like you shouldnt be eatting ? Or when you shop and such ? I went to buy a pair of jeans and the girl was like I dont want to step on your toes but plus size is over there I thought it was really rude the way it was said and I find when i eat or go out to eat people look at me like I shouldnt be eatting I Just find it funny people think its so great to make fun of heavy person and say they are lazy and such seeing how my MIL tells my husband how lazy and how much I eat all the time . Take in mind I have always ate alot I just found with 2 pregnancy back to back really gaining and not taking it off as well I just get annoyed withe comments and such and skinny girls hitting on my husband becauae they think that he can do better than a fat chick haha sorry I guess I just ranted about a ton of stuff

Back when I was healthy and had a great body (about size 8) I was shopping at Express. The sales rep came up to me and asked if she could help me. I told her that the jeans were cut for men, and not for women with hips. She said, "Well, did YOU ever wear OUR jeans before.?" I told her I had, but I will never forget how rude she was.

Then again, the last time I was in Lane Bryant, I was getting looks because I was smaller than most of the women there. They did not reach out to help me, (like they do when my mom is with me - as she looks larger than I am). Anyway, I was just under a size 14, but I was there for bras. It took forever to get help when I was there.

Anyway, I know it's easier said. But we can't dwell on what others think. More importantly, we can't even really know what they do think. =) Hope that helps.

good rant....keep it up as it does help.

I had to return 2 sweatshirts to Abercrombie for my son and NO ONE would help me! They looked at me like OMG what is SHE doing here? I was livid! I walked around for probably half an hour, finally decided to get in line the guy didnt even say hi, he did the exchange without saying a word to me, I turned to leave and I hear Hi ma'am how are you today? I turn around and sure enough there was a stick woman behind me...she looked like the typical s"abercrombie" shopper.. so I guess her skinny money is better than my fat money? LOL....I ranted about it for months..lol.

i know what you mean about the eating thing. like sometimes i get funny looks when i say 'aghhh im so hungry' like if i were out shopping with friends all day and we hadnt gotten around to eating and they are starving too but somehow its not ok for me to also get hunger pains. and haha my dad. i love my dad but he has nooooo tact whatsoever. he'll go out and buy food for the fam and come back with a salad for me. or he will go and buy cookies and cakes and if i were to take some he would be like 'should you really eat that???' it stopped bothering me though because he just wants me to be healthy and the reason it used to hurt my feelings so bad in the first place was because i knew it was so true. now i tell all of my fam to say stuff like this to me so i dont over eat or eat badly.

strangers on the other hand are a totally different story. i hate when i am in a situation where i am meeting new people and no one even engages me to talk. guys do it especially. its happened a couple of times where a guy will introduce himself to a whole circle of people and just skip right over me. blech. the only good that comes if it is that i usually dont feel like eating much the rest of the day.

Hmmmm - just to be devils advocate here.........I do this and I think SOME of you may do it as well and not be aware of it - I have low self esteem and I ASSUME everyone is looking at me or thinking "why is that overweight woman eating" ? I am NOT going to say that some people do not think that way because I'm sure they do - and eating in public has ALWAYS been a difficult thing for me even when I weighed 126. I think we sometimes project OUR negative thoughts onto others. Even now when I have lost over 100 lbs and everyone tells me I look great - when I see a truck with one of those prefab houses or something on the back - and I see that "wide load" sign - FOR REAL - I think of ME.

This really bothers me: I was a size 5 118-122lbs. (34-24-34) until I was in my early 30s when I started my family. During my first pregnancy I seriously blew up about 100 lbs. I lost about 40 lbs. the first two months after giving birth and I have not dropped lower than 163 lbs. since having children and I reached 199 lbs. last summer. I've been overweight about 10 years now. Anyway, people used to come up to me and compliment me on my figure and ask me for advice. They would ask, "What do you eat?" And I would tell them "Not much." Once I was fat I immediately noticed that people really feel free to just say the most insensitive things to you. Men used to hold doors open for me and look at me and chat with me. All of a sudden I was invisible. Acquaintances would comment on my weight gain. I know that when I lose weight once again I'll be treated like a person ought to be, but I'll never forget the treatment and disrespect I've received at the higher end of my weight spectrum, even though all along I'm the same person. Do you know what I mean? I'm hovering between 165 and 167 right now, not obese, but still chunky, yet already I've noticed a shift in people's behavior toward me. This really bothers me, as I said, that people - men in particular - are so shallow. It makes me doubt a man's ability to truly love a woman for who she is on the inside.

Get your anger and refocus it. Direct your anger at your weight loss program or as my doctor prophetically told me many months ago .... "GET MAD AT IT"

In other words USE that anger instead of just holding it in and bringing up your stress level. None of us needs that!

When we are big a lot of us tend to think people are focussed on us because WE are focussed on us because we want to lose this weight.

It has been my experience that most people could care less what someone looks like. More than likely you just ran into someone who hates their job and doesn't care if they do a good job or not.

Hi flatiron, I was thinking about your post. While self-consciousness certainly makes things worse, I do believe regional differences in attitude about appearance may be at play here. I grew up in Orange County, California about an hour away from Hollywood. The glare of scrutiny here is ferocious. The pressure is on to look a certain way and to be in shape for the beach. I do believe that my experiences are not stemming from self-consciousness...I wish. I was just reading a Psychology Today article the other day written by a man from LA. In it he explains why he and other men in the area have become jaded. They expect what few women naturally have and even the very good-looking woman comes off as average in LA. I'll bet there is a similar vibe in New York City. At any rate, it is very painful to be devalued. Moving away just isn't an option either as it is home: friends and family, the flora and the fauna, the ocean air. It's very depressing.

WOW~Just go on with life~People are rude as Heck right now do to the economy sucking! I can not wait til Obama Gets it back on track.
Until then Just INGORE THEM!!!!! As far as the women around your hubby I would speak up about that definetly to the women doing it~& trust in your hubby~I just celebrated my 16th anniversary yesterday and have been heavy every year so he obviously likes me for being me and I am sure your hubby does too.But those women need told that they are crossing the line hitting on a married man~~THATS BULLCRAP!
GOODLUCK!

Oh I know how you feel- sometimes at work I feel like because I'm fat that I'm not taken as seriously with certain people- but to me I'm like I don't think they are good people REGARDLESS of how skinny or fat they are.

Then you know with my friends, though I am overweight and some are thin some are overweight- I feel like my opinion totally matters to them and that they care- but obviously they know me.

I've never felt people were looking at me like "oh she shouldn't eat" but I've had people stare at me while I work out at the gym- and that pisses me off to no end- I just ignore them- but I've only gotten looks- no comments. If I were to get a comment I'd fly off the handle lol.

I just tell myself that I can get skinny, but they can't become better people. In other words I can change, but they can't and never will.

Like I've said before as well, I'd rather be a fat and nice person than a skinny b*tch.

I rarely thought that people were condemning me outright for being heavy, though I do recall suffering under a few censorious glances. But yes, yes, yes, to feeling like the invisible woman. The thing is, my invisibility seemed to be confined to certain people.

The whole male sex mostly didn't see me. I might have been a chair or a steel beam holding up part of a building or a not particularly stylish parked car.

Young & attractive people didn't see me.

Sales clerks for the most part couldn't see me, though this depended on whether their store targeted affluent women. (Because we heavy women are all poor -- heavy women are never affluent.)

But I could be seen clearly by women who were just about my weight & age.

Also, animals recognized me immediately.

Then I lost weight, and I slowly regained visibility among these populations. So much so that it's made me cynical & also very wary.

I mean, over & over again, in public & in social situations, I could actually feel myself regaining my "privilege" as a thin, fairly attractive white woman wearing clothing from good stores.

I even entertained this thought -- now, bear with me -- that it might be somewhat akin to what black people with light enough skin to "pass" experienced decades ago when they moved to an area where they weren't known & began living as white people with white peoples' privileges. Okay, probably not so extreme as that ... but something like it.

Saef, That is just how I feel: cynical, especially with regards to men. I do have wonderful friends. My kids are wonderful. My husband...he has cooled towards me but never says anything mean to me about my weight. Some of my bitterness stems back to my teen years when my father left my mother because she got fat. When she lost weight he wanted her back, but she had already met someone else. My father says unkind things to me and looks at me differently. Treats me differently. He is a photographer and he used to photograph me - not anymore. I'm sure he still loves me in his way. I just had a radical hysterectomy for cancer and lost 13 lbs. due to a decreased appetite and I can see him sizing me up. I wish I could just let it go and be at peace, but, like Saef, I have seen both sides of the humanity coin and it is hard to go back to the naivite I had when I was slender: I just thought everyone was soooooo nice...yeah, to the cute, thin girl...

I was eating dinner the other night with friends and my friend really meant no harm and was just looking out for me, but it still peeved me off!

We were having chili and I was starving, so I dug right in. She asked how many points it was going to be for me (I'm on WW). Her husband said 'eh she'll count it as one point". My friend said with a snotty tone, she can't do that, she'll only be cheating herself and she'll never lose weight.

*wave* uh, hi I'm right here! The way it came across just made me mad. Sometimes I do need someone to say 'hey do you really want to eat that" because I'll munch away mindlessly, but for the most part I don't need a mother telling me what to do!!

No one knows until they've been in your shoes!

Here you go, Mandylyn -