Throughout my life I have had to deal with people criticizing my weight. When I was a teenager I was thin, just like the majority of teenage girls. However, I was always told I looked anorexic and needed to gain weight (even though I was within the medically determined healthy weight range for my gender, age, and height). Even though being told you look anorexic may not sound like an insult, it always felt like one. The effect it had was the same feeling as being told you look ugly. To have some part of your body, no matter which part that may be, consistently criticized made me feel inadequate. I wasn't good enough the way I was, I needed to change to be acceptable in people's eyes.
Once I got married and starting putting on "happy weight", I started being told I looked much better having more meat on my bones. At this point, I was not happy with myself. I didn't want to gain "happy weight". I wanted to stay fit. But again, I struggled with the feeling that I needed to change in order to be beautiful to others.
Now, I am at the beginning of my third trimester in my first pregnancy. I was warned that people make comments about how big you are getting when you are pregnant, but I was not mentally or emotionally prepared for how it would actually feel to have your weight constantly noted by others. I'm not sure if people realize the impact their words have on another's self esteem. Even if I am pregnant, telling me I'm "getting big" isn't going to make me feel happy, it is only going to make me feel more self conscious about the changes my body is going through.
Why do people find it necessary to make verbal note of another person's weight or appearance? As if girls and women don't have enough to worry about with all the movies, television, and magazines making them feel like they need to live up to a certain beauty standard, having people always point out flaws (even if they don't mean to make it sound like a flaw) makes feeling inadequate even worse. This type of thing makes people feel the need to search out a way to make themselves acceptable in the public eye. And if they are unable to achieve a standard for "beauty", they will then feel as though they are less beautiful than others.
My point in writing all of this is to make people aware of how their words can be hurtful to others. I am only one of MANY girls and women who have fallen victim of being forever judged by their appearance. A word of encouragement to those who do the judging. Before you speak your mind about someone else's appearance, DON'T! You may think what you are saying is not hurtful to their feelings, but most likely, like me, they have learned to hide the fact that they have been hurt by someone's words. In fact, any time you can avoid making ANY kind of comment about another person's weight or appearance, take that opportunity to simply compliment them instead.
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