I've found myself in a position recently where , I've slipped officially back into the " severely Underweight" category on the BMI scale. Outside of the small sense of achievement I feel now that I have hit BMI bingo according to ED (although he wants me to keep going down) , this is not okay. I deal with eating disorders, and they are tricky little bastards where sometimes you don't realize you're in it again. This is not good news. I repeat: this is not a humble brag about being ready for bikini season.
I know it's bad, but why? And why don't I know this? I am obsessed with weight stuff. I can give you calorie counts off the top of my head for any food. I can rattle off the reasons why it's bad to be overweight at the drop of a hat - diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, not able to fly Southwest. Even the BMI chart I'm looking at is helpfully color coded: Green=go for normal ranges, yellow=slow for overweight, red=danger, stop! for obese. and you know why i know these reasons??? because thats all the internet gives you. if you type in "health risks of being underweight" not much pops up. and that is sad and pathetic.
i feel there are two extreme comments people get when they are "underweight" or just naturally healthy thin.
one of them is the "girl you need to put meat on them bones!!!!" in America, it is seen as wrong, weird, strange for someone to actually be at a healthy weight or underweight. we get picked on just as much as overweight people, or even more. in america the norm is to overeat, sit on the couch and binge watch netflix, and pop in our bons bons and dorittos as we do so. if i were to say im going to the gym, or a run, some people would give me weird remarks as in "why? i could never do that" well yes you could you just chose not to. but what upsets me the most is how wrong and shaming it is to be underweight, yes i know the reason i am underweight is because of unhealthy means of getting there. but lets take that out of the equation. here is just a list of some comments ive gotten from people who didnt know i had anorexia....
-the famous... put meat on your bones!!!
- you need to go eat a few big macs!
-do you have cancer?
-do you like not eat?
-EWWW i can see your bones
-you look like a 10 year old
-guys like girls with meat, your never going to get a man until you gain weight
-i cant hug you ill squish you
-ETC
why is it socially acceptable to be overweight but not underweight or a healthy skinny? people claim that overweight people get bullied more....a lot of the time i disagree
the 2nd comment thats prevailent is "wow i wish i could be anorexic like you so i could lose weight" my response REALLY!?!? so you want bruises, blackouts, constant dizziness, muscle weakness, heart arrythmias, constant body aches, to be in and out of hospitals, osteoperosis, low blood pressure, hair loss, weak nails, dry skin, pale skin, etcc...sounds like aGREAT TIME to starve yourself to DEATH.We assume being thin is so positive and desired that we spend almost no time or effort on discovering how it's potentially harming us. It's like we don't care if it is or not, and we assume anyone that is thin must be doing just fine.
And I'm not saying that there aren't serious health risks associated with being overweight. Of course there are. But why are we so little focused on the other half of the bell curve? I can't conclusively say that the risks of being underweight are equal to those of being overweight, because no one is looking at those risks with anywhere near the same sort of scope. And before someone starts shouting (obesity epidemic! there are just more fat people in general!)
so yea it goes on two extremes. now i am not saying or ignoring the fact that all models tend to be oveweight and america supposedly promotes that. but in all honestly, from my experience, i am looked like like i am alien due to not being a little chunky or overweight. so maybe people need to rethink that theory.
I don't mean this to be an article about poor, sad, skinny people not getting what they need - the opposite, in fact. Despite my current size, I don't feel like a thin girl; I feel like a fat girl who has passing privilege in the thin world.
this wasnt a very formal, gramatically correct,. or overthought blog post, just something that has been upsetting me lately.
