We just met, so how about we start at the beginning. My name is Fran. I like horror films, heavy metal and Chinese food. I pride myself on being straight forward, honest and loyal. I do not mind telling you that I get a lot of compliments on my figure. I have a good amount of muscle, strong legs, and when flexed my biceps go towards thirteen inches a piece. I very much like the way I look mostly because this was not always the case.

At one point of my life, I was weighing in at two hundred and five pounds. For someone of 5' 3" in height, this is not okay. This is not healthy. For me, it was mostly a lot of people rolling their eyes when I sat by them on the train, or sighing heavily if, God forbid, I needed to walk past their seat on a plane. It was a group of girls I overheard in the bathroom in ninth grade saying they would rather die than look like me. It was a lot of mean girls on the bus, mooing at me as I boarded. Lastly, it was Nicole Arbour saying that she was concerned for others' health. People were not making fun of me. They were concerned for my health. But if you ask my father, he will tell you I was always beautiful. Enough with the sad music, let’s fast forward five years.

I wrote this after completing an hour long cardio workout, spent the hour before that hiking with my best friend and the hour after that drilling Brazilian Jiu Jitsu methods. I wrote this at 143 pounds. I am happy, I am healthy and I am comfortable. Let’s rewind again, to as recently as last summer, when little old me was coming in at 133 pounds. This was not okay. This was not healthy. Oddly enough, no one really seemed to care. The same people who were concerned for my health now wanted to sit next to me on a plane, or a train and they stopped mooing.

My mother, who once applauded my dedication and focus, was now expressing concern that I was not eating enough. I brushed it off as typical Italian Mother Concern and continued heading to the gym six days a week. My mother was right. I was not eating enough. I ate at most 900 calories a day. I explained to myself and to others that this was just the first step. I would lose as much fat as I possibly could and then begin to build muscle. I thought it was going to be hard, but I needed to reach my goal, so what were a few skipped meals in the grand scheme of things?

Until one day my father came home from work as always, and I gave him a hug. He grabbed my shoulders, held me at arm’s length and expressed in a very passionate manner that he thought I was too thin. Again brushing it off as my ever-devoted, loving Italian parents insisting food was the cure for everything. I genuinely did not see anything wrong. All I heard was the applause and the compliments and the ability to wear clothes off the rack. More importantly, I heard no one being concerned for my health. It’s a little late, but here is the point — I was starving myself, and no one other than my family thought something was wrong with my health.

Conclusively, here is what I learned, in no time in all human history, has anyone genuinely been concerned with the health of a total stranger. I mean in terms of obesity, the same people who are concerned for the stranger’s health are the same ones rolling their eyes at the overweight person in line at the grocery store. They are the same people who tell me to keep at it when all I wanted to do was lose just ten more pounds even when my body literally stopped losing weight. Somewhere around 134 pounds my body just said, “Nope. I’m done.” And stopped releasing fat.

My stomach was concave and my sister told me she felt ribs every time she hugged me. Finally my mother had enough of my nonsense and asked me to lay out my diet plan for her. Once she saw the 800 to 900 calorie quota, she proceeded to scream at me in two languages and legendary decibel levels. Did I understand that this was done out of love and guidance? No, of course not. I said she had no idea what she was on about and this progressed to a red-faced screaming fight. Sorry, ma.

The point I am trying to make here is this — if someone makes a rude comment about your weight in the name of “health concern,” ask them why that only goes in one direction of the spectrum. Why they are only concerned for health when the total stranger is taking up more room than they are. If you are going to raise your finger at me and point out skinny shaming is in fact a thing, of course, I agree. So here is my bottom line: out with it. Kindly mind your own business and worry about your own body. All I am asking is for the body shaming “well-meaning” people to abide by the golden rule we all learned in kindergarten — if you do not have anything nice to say do not say anything at all. [1]

[1] Unless you are my mother, then it is not criticism. It is well-meaning. I mean we are talking about a woman whose catchphrase is “I’m not running a diner, deal with it.”