I was just reading a debate on the pressure to be skinny. You always hear that phrase, “pressure to be skinny.” But is that pressure to be skinny as big as the pressure to be just the right size, meaning that you can’t be too fat or too thin? Think about it. If you are fat, you are ridiculed, but if you are really skinny, you are ridiculed as well. Society acts like there is this humongous pressure to be thin, trying to say, “If you are skinny the world will worship you, sick but true.” Well if that really is true, then why do people treat models and thin celebrities the way they do? My point is, I don’t think this ‘pressure’ people are referring to is necessarily about being thin, but about being in that tiny little window of being just the right size: not fat, but not too skinny either.
Anyone else think so? Share your thoughts!
13 comments
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November 5, 2007 at 8:28 pm
Emily
Yeah I never got that either. People say that there’s all this pressure to be thin but once you become thin, they criticize you for being too skinny and speculate an eating disorder. It’s screwed up.
November 5, 2007 at 9:00 pm
Chaslyn
You are my hero!! It’s about time someone stuck up for us skinny people. Have you seen all those thin bashing sites? How can they sit there and say that people are always putting them down and then they go and say that size 0 is disgusting. It’s insane.
Thank you so much for creating this blog. A brilliant idea Ashley!
November 5, 2007 at 9:10 pm
Greg T.
I saw your link on another site, but I’m not going to say which one it is because I’m sure that they will see this comment and I don’t want to evoke any more controversy, but I just want to say that I don’t think you’re out to troll. The questions and points you bring up are very logical and important and I think you pushed a few buttons on them so they tried to make you out to look like you were just want to stir up trouble, even though you clearly weren’t. How you have been calm and nice to them when they called you all those horrible names, I don’t know, but I respect you and support your cause here. Keep it up!
November 6, 2007 at 1:57 am
Katie
I think there is a lot of skinny-bashing, it is true, but only as a reaction to the dominant cult of thinness. When skinny people are criticized it is mainly out of envy. Deep down, most skinny girls feel secretly pleased when someone says they are “too thin”. And deep down, the people who criticize skinny women wish they themselves were skinnier. It doesn’t compare to the ridicule that fat people have to deal with.
November 6, 2007 at 4:04 am
Ashley
Katie, I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t compare to what fat people have to deal with. In grade school, I hated being as skinny as I was. People teased me so much that I thought it was a bad thing to be thin. I was pretty much brain washed since I was teased ever since I can remember, so when people called me too thin, no where in the back of my mind was I secretly pleased. I seriously would have given anything to be 10-15 pounds heavier, and I wore baggy clothes to hide how skinny I was. And even for a while, people had scared me into thinking I had cancer, because that’s what people wondered behind my back. It was traumatic.
Now I don’t know if some fat people hate skinny people because they are jealous, but if that’s true, it’s no excuse to bash on them.
November 6, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Katie
Ashley, I am sorry you had those experiences at school. But do you think it is bad to be thin now that you are grown up? I believe the vast majority of women would rather be labelled “too skinny” than to be even one pound overweight.
Of course jealousy is no excuse to bash skinny people – I completely agree with that.
November 6, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Becky
The thing is though, the “right size” *is* very, very thin. I have some quite thin friends, and I’ve never heard them say they feel like they are too thin and there is pressure for them to be fatter… instead they complain that they are too fat! I guess what I’m trying to say is, 99% of women are above society’s ideal. Maybe 0.5% are below it. So for most women, pressure to be the “right size” manifests itself as pressure to be thinner.
As for the way thin models and celebrities are treated… mostly, they’re revered and envied. Look at Jennifer Aniston, look how thin she is, and I’ve only ever see people say she has the perfect body. Yes, you have the occasional Nicole Ritchie who gets mocked for being thin (after a very dramatic weight loss, mind you) but I think that’s mostly a backlash against the pressure to be thin. Mind you, that doesn’t make it okay. But I don’t think it comes from the same place as fat hate.
November 6, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Becky
By “above” society’s ideal, I mean 99% of women are fatter than society’s ideal. Maybe 0.5% are thinner than it.
November 7, 2007 at 1:50 am
Margaret
It’s both size and having the right body type. Being really really thin is TEH AWESOME, but it really should be either a thin hourglass or thin upside-down triangle. Skinny pear, apple, and rectangle shapes aren’t as great.
I have definitely had body issues over feeling I was too thin. Especially because I have 32As. And you can bet I have felt really self-conscious about that. And any small-busted girl (not all are skinny, of course) is made to feel horrible about it because the ideal is not only skinny, but busty (but then again, not TOO busty, and of course, women with big boobs are all vapid sexbots). I’ve wished for more curvature other than the boobs too.
Anyhow. Suffice it to say that body love is for every girl (and boy), regardless of shape. Body hate afflicts EVERYONE in some way. We are all afflicted by the idea that women’s bodies exist to be looked at and nothing more, and our worth is in a ridiculous and narrowly-defined ’sexiness.’ And the ideal is unrealistic enough that even naturally skinny girls don’t make it.
However, having said that, ‘thin priviledge’ does exist. I’ll probably never have a dumb doctor tell me all my health problems are due to my weight, and it’s unlikely my weight will be a factor in me being hired, getting a promotion, etc. Not to mention I don’t get dirty looks from people for eating fatty foods in public or wearing a bikini or exercising or dancing… Not to mention that we don’t hear constant harping on about how underweight people have the highest mortality rate and are at most risk for anemia, osteoporosis, and other such things.
The existence of that priviledge, however, rarely mitigates any body image issues the thin girl may have, and yeah, I do think those should be acknowledged, and people who “skinny bash” are just as vile as those who diss the fat.
Wow. This is a long comment. But yeah.
November 7, 2007 at 6:47 am
Sarah
I think a lot of anti-thin attitudes come from jealousy and hatred for their own bodies, but I don’t think that is anyone’s fault but their own. Not their fault for being fat, but their fault for not learning how to love their bodies and instead lash out against what they wish they could be. I’m sure some will say, “I was made fun of all my life for being fat and that made my self esteem plummet.” Well everyone gets made fun of. Everyone. But we all have to learn how to get over it and use it to make us stronger. I agree with Becky though that fat hate probably comes from a different place than thin hate. But the common ground is ignorance, on both parts. And we become so judgmental and speak out what we think so quickly without truly knowing what we are talking about.
January 28, 2008 at 9:24 am
anon
Think about all the celebrities whose weight have been scrutinized. Nicole Richie, Calista Flockhart, Lindsay Lohan, etc, can you honestly look at the pictures of them at their thinnest and say that they look healthy? There was basis in the speculation, they really were too skinny, people weren’t just picking on them, they looked unhealthy. I really don’t think it’s bad to think that there’s a perfect size that’s in between being too skinny and too fat.
January 29, 2008 at 11:50 am
skinnyminny
Anon, you have to think though, people are so quick to put the really skinny celebs in the same group. Okay, Nicole and Lindsay were both larger and then they lost weight. I’m not saying that they are in fact healthy. But maybe they lost weight due to depression, traumatic events, etc. People automatically assume that they are anorexic or bulimic and I’m trying to get people to realize that they don’t know these celebs, so they don’t know what really going on.
With Calista, she’s always been that skinny, so I’m more inclined to think that she’s just naturally like that.
May 8, 2008 at 2:43 am
yoganut
I agree. In high school i experienced a LOT of pressure to gain weight. No one worshipped me for my thinness. I heard “You need to eat girl” ALL the time.
I said: “I DO eat.”
And then they asked if I was bulemic.
*head desk*
People act like we need more ED awareness. Um no…we don’t. I was in high school 11 years ago. There is an early warning system in place. Anyone who is even slightly thin gets the third degree about it. I would have loved to weigh 10-15 pounds more and have breasts back then. But I didn’t. I had what many called a “model” or “dancer” figure, but it didn’t help me out with boys. It didn’t make me the queen of popularity.
I agree that the pressure, if it exists is to be in the tiny window of perfect. Not chubby and not thin.