TW: fatphobia, eating disorders
Body confidence is something that social media both promotes and degrades. Since TikTok has become more prominent, I’ve found myself scrolling through hundreds of videos with women of all sizes. Finally there’s some self-love.
I’ve always been quite slender. Keep in mind throughout this post I’ve never been unhealthily skinny, just slightly underweight. It’s something which a lot of people have always said I should be grateful for. What I don’t think people realise is how being told this from a young age can be just as damaging as telling a curvy girl to lose some weight.
Ever since I can remember, but particularly in secondary school, being the skinny girl has come with a lot of mean connotations. I remember after someone looked my way in the changing room they said “one thing I like about being curvy is that I actually have boobs”. This comment might not phase me now, but as an insecure teen I’ve never forgotten it. No one hasn't been judged in secondary school, this commenting certainly isn’t unusual, but I also know this girl wouldn’t have made such a loud backhanded compliment to a curvier girl.
A lot of people that I knew would make a comment about me, either positive or negative. It seemed expected that I’d faced or was facing some kind of eating disorder, as though being skinny wasn’t due to metabolism. I was in a constant pendulum between being told skinny was ideal and being told boys like curvier girls. I don’t think anyone who hasn’t gone through this will ever realise how damaging this was to both my confidence and own sense of self.
Just because someone has a different body type to you doesn’t mean you can comment on them. If you’re a genuinely concerned close friend or relative of them, maybe you can, but not in a critical way.
A lot of people have comments thrown at them in secondary school. I’m definitely not saying that curvy girls haven’t had a, in some ways, much more damaging experience. But just because there’s more self-love being explored for mid and plus sizes doesn’t mean it’s time for the skinny girls to be criticised. We’ve had our fair share already.
