Thread by @plsleaveamsg

I'm a thin person who's been thin my entire life. Twice, I've gotten the flu, losing a visible 15-25lbs each time, and after each illness, I received nothing but praise and envy for the unintended weight loss. That's how I know y'all's "concern" for fat folks' health is bullshit.

I'm feeling the need to elaborate on this, so here we go. I want everyone to be healthy. Like, optimum health. That's not always possible, but it should be the goal. Our societies often tell fat folks that we don't hate their fat,just the toll on their health,but that's not true.

The fact that so many people are thin or emaciated BECAUSE of physical or mental illness, and these problems are either ignored, dismissed, or encouraged is proof of that.

I'll support a healthy weight loss or weight gain journey. But the fact that strangers and worse, family and friends, are encouraging severe gastronintestinal illness, disease, viruses, and eating disorders clearly highlights that the goal isn't health at all.

Before the #notall's come through: I know it's possible to have someone so small or so large as family and friend, and take a genuine interest in saving their life. But for most folks fat-shaming and the emphasis on being thin by any means necessary starts at home.

And the comfort that absolute strangers feel in telling folks to lose weight/stop eating is also telling. What gives anyone the right to tell a stranger something like this? You don't know if they are in the process of losing, recovering from binge-eating disorder, ill, etc.

There are a plethora of illnesses that cause weight gain just as many cause weight loss. Even family can be passive-aggressive and undermine us, but if you don't even live with a person, it's not your place to give unsolicited advice when you don't know their journey.

If health was truly the concern, we wouldn't flat-out ignore or envy sickly, thin people. Too many of us see thin as synonymous with healthy and this doesn't just endanger sick, thin people, but it also encourages ED and dangerous weightloss quick methods in larger people.

Skinny people have all heard the "eat a sandwich" barbs but we know this doesn't manifest into social discrimination. For fat people, "jokes" on their size all revolve around taking up less space than they do. So no, skinny-shaming isn't a thin.

On this thread alone, I've read how ED, pneumonia, collitis, cystic fibrosis, poverty, depression, anxiety, genetic disorders, etc were championed by the people in our lives as "heroes" for making folks thinner. In mine (and many) cases, folks were emaciated and skeletal.

How is this about health, when even fat athletes are shamed for not doing more to be thin? How is it about health when a celebrity gains 10lbs and we assume pregnancy? How, when we treat anorexia like a saviour and binge-eating like a charactee flaw? Be honest, please.

Every body is idiosyncratic. We all function best at different set points. Y'all see the thin but sick through rose-coloured glasses because the entire point is that fat is seen as unattractive, and you don't care how healthy someone is as long as they look good to you.

The feedback on this thread has been amazing! I don't have a SoundCloud.

Make sure the people in your life know that you care about them no matter how they look. And find ways to compliment folks that don't revolve around their size!

I was a pre-teen when I read Stephen King's Thinner, the story of a fat man who was cursed to waste away following an accidental manslaughter. Everyone complimented him until he was too far gone to be saved. The true horror was that they preferred a thin corpse to a fat person.

What the book gets so well is how differently this man was treated when he started to lose weight. Then, even people who never said anything before told him he looked amazing now. Their reactions are why he didn't bother investigating the problem. No one thought there was one.

I'm unable to reply to every comment without spending the day on Twitter, but thank you all for sharing. I'm happy that this discussion was able to remain largely positive, despite divulging such painful experiences. Wishing you all health and happiness!