Fat VS Skinny, is that even a thing? I’ll be honest with you, this is probably a topic that many people are thinking about, but don’t normally talk about. As most of you know, I have been on a “Getting Healthy Journey” as of September/October of 2017. It’s been almost a year since I started working on my overall health while losing my weight. And boy oh boy have I noticed how differently I’m treated now that I’m smaller than I was before. Let’s chit chat about this, shall we?
As much as we all love to share our accomplishments with others, I think talking about weight loss is like an unspoken language. You either have those that support you and encourage you no matter what and those that talk about or put you down. Then, you have those that just don’t talk about the subject at all. But, once you really start losing weight, do people treat you differently? Well, after 10 months of working on my weight loss journey, I’ve noticed that I am most definitely being treated nicer in comparison to my heavier self.
You can read more about my weight loss journey here, but I’ll tell you that in about 10 months, I’ve lost over 80 lbs. Having gained all of my weight after having children, I was about 125 lbs through my mid-twenties, I guess I never really remembered how differently I was treated as I started to gain my weight because I was so caught up in everyday life. Fast forward to 2018, having lost as much as I have, I notice that so many people are polite and sweet to me. Going as far as acknowledging me with a smile (instead of a nod or a smirk) and often times holding my door open for me when they wouldn’t have done so before.
How can you tell that you are being treated differently?
Now you may be saying… “How can you tell that you are being treated differently?” Well, Maui (my island home) is small and you basically shop and visit the same locations most of your life, while seeing the same people each day, time and time again. So it’s very easy to compare how they treated you at one time VS how they treat you now. I’ve definitely noticed.
I’m super proud of my accomplishments, having not only losing over 80 lbs but also going from a size 3x/4x shirt to now wearing an XL. When it comes to jeans, pants, and shorts – I was wearing a size 22/24 and can now comfortably fit into a size 14/16. It’s been a long and challenging road and making the changes has taken a lot of time and effort. I’m very happy with the new me, but I can’t help but notice that being smaller means people are much nicer than before.
If you’re smaller in size, you may not have experienced this before, but imagine being overweight (or fat to put it bluntly) and in a grocery store and purchasing food. It doesn’t have to be “bad for you” type of food, because we don’t eat badly in our household. Imagine you’re buying vegetables and have a person say under their breath “Yeah right like you actually eat vegetables. If you did, you wouldn’t look like you do.” Or imagine that when you’re shopping for clothes, you have someone tell you, “no ma’am, that will not fit you, it’s meant for a more petite frame.” How about someone not say anything to you at all, but just snicker when they look at you, snob you or ignore you when you ask for assistance. I grew up with my Dad holding open the door for any woman or girl as my husband and sons do for me now, but imagine being at a door and a man walks past you while letting the door slam in your face.
Now, those may seem like they are quite extreme scenarios, but I assure you that if I didn’t experience them myself, I would have never known that it happened. While I experienced these things during the time when I was much larger, I just assumed that people were having a bad day or just didn’t like me. It didn’t dawn on me that it had to do with my weight. Fast forward to the present and I’ve had many encounters in similar situations and in some cases with the same people only to find that I was treated respectfully and nicely. Many of these people smiled at me, took the time to greet me and even have conversations with me. Some of these people even continue to acknowledge me by name, which only instills in my mind that they just did not like the fact that I was overweight before. Whether it disgusted them or they just had a phobia of it, I don’t know. All I know is that I noticed a difference.
This is a long post, so if you want to hear the Podcast version, click here.
I guess the reason for this post is to remind people that it doesn’t matter if a person is skinny or fat, tall or short. It doesn’t matter if someone has a skin color that is different from yours or they have curly hair and you have straight hair. No one deserves to be treated like they are beneath you. There’s a stigma in the world that basically states that “overweight people are gross and disgusting and that they don’t deserve to be treated with respect because they don’t respect themselves enough to lose the weight,” but most of the time that could be furthest from the truth. I didn’t gain my weight overnight and much of it stemmed not because I overate, but because of underlying health issues. I didn’t like being overweight or unhealthy and it took me a long time to figure out the formula to change all of that for me. I do want to say, that I am in no way skinny, but I’ve noticed a huge difference in my body as others are noticing as well.
If there is a lesson to be learned from this post, it is that everyone, no matter their size should be treated with respect. Smile at more people, hold doors open and treat others as you would like to be treated. We shouldn’t have to deal with that on top of everything else that is happening in the World.
I hope you all enjoyed this post. It may have been a little bit of venting or a whole lot of nothing, but it came from my heart and I wanted to share it with all of you.
Aloha,
If you’re interested in more “Fit and Healthy” stuff, be sure to check out some of my blogger friends and their posts. This post is in collaboration with some of my favorite bloggers and they have a wide range of information to share with all of you.
