My sister and I both recently lost weight as the result of being sick. When my mother saw us, she had two different reactions
- For my sister, she went on and on about how we need to feed her and get her weight back up. She was thin to begin with, but this weight loss wasn’t overly dramatic. She’s not “dangerously thin”, and she’ll regain some of that weight anyways once she can eat regularly again.
- I dropped a good 20lbs in two months, which isn’t healthy. I am weak, have trouble concentrating, and get aches and pains all day. My mother said I should “grow up” and just deal with all that, because weight loss is the best thing for me. She then told me stories about when she lost weight after I was born, existing on a bowl of Cream of Wheat and black coffee all day. She encouraged me to develop an eating disorder. She said that if I could lose this much weight just not being able to keep food in my system, think of how much more weight I could lose if I just stopped eating!
Thin privilege is losing weight from being sick, and not having people act like it’s the greatest thing to ever happen to you. I would much rather have those 20lbs back and be reasonably healthy, than to have to be within 20 feet of a bathroom at all times because of my sickness.
This is Thin Privilege: My sister and I both recently lost weight as the result of being sick….
When I went through my last breakup — which, mind you, plunged me into deep depression — I lost 5lbs in a week and my mom said, “See? Silver lining!”
(via redefiningbodyimage)
