I will apologize in advance for my rant, but there are some things I need to vent about. 

I will never understand why some people feel the need to make fun of overweight people.  I just don’t get it.  I don’t know if it’s a subconscious effort to make themselves feel better (”thank God I’ll never look like that”) or whether they just never learned any tact or manners.  I mean, one of the first lessons I ever learned was that it isn’t nice to make fun of somebody else.

Now, young children have an excuse based on ignorance or their tendency to just state their observations and the obvious (”boy, mommy, that woman sure is big.”  “Why yes, thank you for noticing, I am big.”)  However, such a conversation is a perfect learning opportunity to teach that child manners.  Sadly, few parents take advantage of these opportunities and instead encourage such remarks.

Adults, on the other hand, have no such excuse.  And it amazes me, still to this day, that people just can’t keep their mouths shut.  It also tremendously amazes me that people think others’ eating habits have anything at all to do with them.  If it’s not your mouth or your body, keep your mouth shut.  What I put into my mouth has nothing to do with you and affects you in no way - unless I take up part of your airplane seat and even then you should still practice basic manners when requesting a seat change.  Hell, if you don’t want to sit by me, I’ll request it for you, because frankly I don’t want to sit by you either.  Otherwise, shut it.

Even my friends are guilty of making comments at times that make me wonder, “do they not realize who they’re talking to?”  In my presence they’ll make fun of people of size.  Whether it’s “can you believe what s/he’s eating” or “wow, I can’t believe how big they are”  or “and she was huge” as if that had some remote bearing on the woman’s personality or was the basis for her behavior.

I remember a night in college when a couple of my friends were discussing Trisha Yearwood.  They went on for at least half an hour about how huge she was (she wasn’t).  I was sitting right there and I weighed at least 80 pounds more than she did at the time.  I didn’t have the guts at the time, but I wanted to scream “do you not even realize I’m sitting right here??  If you think she’s huge, what must you think of me??”

Was it because they were my friends that they just didn’t really see me as I was?  Did my personality overcome the way I looked on the outside, so that they just didn’t see how fat I really was or didn’t care how fat I really was?  This would be encouraging, but makes me sad for all that they’re missing out on.  Perhaps that overweight man that they’re making fun of has the potential to be their new best friend, but will they give him the chance?  Or will he overhear them making fun of another fat person and disappear into the night?

It’s interesting to me, too, that I’ve noticed some of my closer acquaintances making more and more comments about people’s body sizes in my presence since I’ve lost a great deal of weight.  Which is, in fact, what spurred this little mini-tirade of mine.  I still have 40 pounds to lose, so it’s not like I’m skinny by any means, but since I am skinnier than I was (massively skinnier), it’s like they’ve forgotten that I was morbidly obese less than two years ago.  Just because I weigh less now, doesn’t make it any more right to make fun of overweight people in my presence.  I still take it personally.  Especially if they knew me at my highest weight.

Anyway, to bring this rambling mess to a close, please think before you speak.  Regardless of whether a person is overweight, is not very pretty, has a lisp, or whatever their issue is, there is a heart inside of them that just might break at your thoughtless comment.  Even if they’re supermodel gorgeous, you can’t know what struggles they’ve experienced in their lives, or in the lives of their loved ones.