Why calling me thin is an insult – and the heartbreaking impact years of skinny-shaming has had on my sister
Fab columnist Stacey Solomon points out you wouldn't tell someone they were eating too much - so why is it OK if it's the other way around?
“YOU'RE so skinny in real life! I bet you don't eat bread do you? Don’t lose any more weight – eat more!”
Whether I’m out shopping or walking down the street, I get these kind of comments ALL THE TIME.
I’m sure people don’t mean it in a horrible way; I think they believe it’s a compliment to be honest, and they rarely get me down unless I'm due on or having a low day.
But it is strange how we accept calling people out on their weight when they're slim, but we wouldn't dream of doing it if someone was bigger.
Can you imagine? “You’re so fat in real life! I bet all you eat is bread! You need to lose more weight! You should eat less!”
There’d be uproar! Yet we seem to be completely desensitised to skinny-shamming; it’s almost as if skinny = perfect.
This may be engrained in our mentality. But is it right?
My older sister Jemma is naturally slim, at least three dress sizes smaller than me – though I don’t want to say what dress sizes we are, because I don’t think the number on your clothing label is important.
Jemma really struggles with her weight and being called thin. She’s had three children and was happiest with her weight when she was pregnant. Genuinely, she’d rather be at her pregnancy weight than her natural weight!
The infuriating thing about not liking your weight when you're slim is that there’s no sympathy and very rarely any help.
Jemma drinks protein shakes and eats more than me, and she's still ultra slim. Her GP says it’s her genes and she will always be that shape – my mum is exactly the same.
I watch people (myself included before I realised how it affected her) take the mickey out of her insecurities.
Some people are almost angry with Jemma when she's at her lowest weight because they believe she's magically gifted with the curse of being slim, no matter what she eats. They’re like, “How dare you be upset with that! What a shame, no matter what you eat you stay slim, poor you! Imagine having the opposite problem!”
She’s then made to feel as though she’s selfish and ungrateful, with comments like: “You have no idea how lucky you are, people would die for a body like yours.” So she often doesn't talk about how she feels.
It’s the same for 16-year-old Leslie Magallanes, who said she gets called anorexic and is constantly questioned about how much she eats and is told she looks hungry — simply because of her natural size.
The reality is, although both are extremely slim - which sounds wonderful to most out there – Jemma struggles to fit into adult clothes and her collar bones stick out.
She’s getting married next month and she's already had her dress taken in two-and-a-half inches just three months after she had her initial fitting.
Jemma stopped breastfeeding her nine month old baby and didn't realise how much weight she would lose. She thought breastfeeding was keeping her slim, like so many people tell you, but it had the opposite effect.
To me, Jemma is beautiful and perfect just as she is. But in her mind, whenever she looks in the mirror all she sees is bones. She hates posing for pictures because she says people think she’s anorexic and she finds it embarrassing. She always says to me, “I’ll never be sexy and curvy, I have no bum and no boobs, I look like a stick man.”
After seeing the negative effect those comments have on my sister, I've had to really think about what I say to people. I used to think saying, “Wow you look slim” or “Have you lost weight?” was a compliment, when really it’s just perpetuating that skinny-shaming dialogue.
I think we all need to accept that some people feel insecure about their body shape even when they're super slim.
MOST READ IN FABULOUS
Last week Stacey said she will plant kisses on her children’s lips for as long as they’ll let her - and won't stop sharing a bath with them.
Meanwhile, Stacey has previously taken on the world's biggest obstacle course.
And, she reveals the life-changing secret hobby she shares with Meghan Markle.