Bony. Toothpick. Skin and bones. The names go on. Ever since I was little my peers and even friends have called me countless words to reference how skinny I am. Most of the time it doesn't really bother me. I know they don’t mean to hurt my feelings, so I try to not take any offense. But, at the end of the day, it does hurt my feelings and starts to alter how I view myself. I think what these people don’t realize, is that skinny shaming is just as offensive and hurtful as fat shaming.
People tell me that I am “too skinny” or that I “need to eat a cheeseburger...or two.”
So, for almost my entire life, I have made my New Year's goal “to gain X amount of pounds.”
I have been chasing a number on the scale for as long as I can remember because I felt like I wasn't healthy. Even though I have always eaten and exercised the same amount as an average person. I even started to drink as many protein shakes as I could in attempt to gain this weight I felt like I was lacking.
After someone would make a comment about the way my wrist bones or spine stick out, I would start to notice how they did kind of stick out, and maybe that was wrong and unattractive.
After years and years of this, I have realized that I am tired of getting shamed for being slender. It’s not right to make comments about someone's weight. Period. A person wouldn't go up to an overweight person and make comments about the way their legs or body look. It’s just not right. Our society thinks that calling someone a toothpick isn't mean. But, it is the same as calling someone a nickname for being fat.
I have come to a conclusion that I know I am healthy, I was just built with a super fast metabolism.
I will continue to eat as healthy as I can, and exercise like a normal person would. But I will no longer try to gain weight so that my wrist bones don’t stick out. I will not laugh and shrug it off when someone says I should eat a cheeseburger.
My advice to anyone reading this is to not make comments about someone's weight in general because you never really know how they will take it. Instead, if you want to make a comment about someone's appearance, just say they look beautiful. You can never go wrong there.
