In another post, about what it's like to lose 50 lbs. some of the members were talking about how people treat them differently now that they are smaller. I thought this would be an interesting discussion!

I am a 20-something, educated, female small business owner who lives in one of the weathliest towns in the whole country. I tell you this, because the experience that I have had truly has been in the worst environment for overweight people (compared to other areas where perhaps there are more people who are overweight). I speak to clients on the phone and have a great repore. Then, I meet with them and they act surprised when they see me. Bascially, the look is: "Oh my god, I can't believe YOU are ________________!" It's like their whole tone changes and they suddenly have doubts in my professional skills or abilities. I only end up meeting about 10% of clients (most work is done over phone/fax/E-mail) and honestly, my fear of people "seeing me" has really disabled me I think because I could make more of an effort to meet people in person, though, it's not required, it would make a much better impression maybe.

I make a six-figure salary and can afford to shop at nice stores, live in a beautiful home, go to nice restaurants, drive a luxury SUV and go on the best vacations. Though, I consider myself a pretty girl, who is polished and always looks her best, people can't understand how I, the fat girl seems to "have it all." I have even had people comment that my business can't possibly be "legitimate" because of my size! Even though, I have been nationally recognized in the media.

I feel like I am trapped in this body and my weight doesn't allow me to "look the part" that people automatically associate with a successful young businesswoman. Just today, I got my hair highlighted and cut at a very "She-She" salon here in town and when the colorist asked me what I did, she acted shocked when I told her. When I go into stores, no one says hello to me or helps me, I feel like I get a stare and the clerks are saying, "Why is SHE in here?" I have had waitresses in restaurants be downright rude and not return to our table except to take our order.

Even my own mother says that people don't take overweight people seriously. She is not overweight and has never been. She doesn't understand my weight problem and makes me feel like she is ashamed of me sometimes. She keeps telling me, "You would be such a beautiful girl, it's a shame that you want to be that size." Or, "I can't imagine what it feels like to carry all that weight around all day." Like I WANT to be this way.

Also, I have just begun noticing that only certain malls carry Lane Bryant stores. The really NICE malls, the upscales ones, do not, it's totally intentional! It's like they are saying, "Fat people, don't come to this mall."

Has anyone else experienced similiar treatment? It's truly severe prejudice. I wouldn't say I am someone who has low self-esteem, just sometimes, it comes out when I'm confronted with situations like the ones above. Someone in the other post mentioned that people won't even look you in the eye, it's SO true.

Anyone with similar experiences?

People tend to avoid fat people...I've experienced it my whole life but never figured it out until I started losing weight. I just figured that's how the world worked. Then, as I lost weight and people started noticing me and talking to me and in general being more polite, but I realized that THIS is how the world works for more people. It's just the fat people, not the thin people, who are getting treated poorly.

The saddest thing is, I sometimes catch myself acting the same way. Even at my heaviest, I was guilty of considering fat people as "less valuable" than thin people. Gosh, it hurts to admit that, and I'm so ashamed that I used to think the same things that other people were incorrectly thinking about me.

Hi Gingerbear,

I have a somewhat different perspective as a woman who was never thin, but a "normal" weight in my twenties and gaining weight during and after two pregnencies. I am 5' 7'' and have a curvy figure and always got alot of attention from men at 160 pounds. What is interesting is that women were not very nice to me. Never interested in friendships at work and sort of catty. I actually noticed that the heavier I got, the nicer other women were to me. It was like they were no longer threatened by me, so I was ok to befriend. Now this is not true of my closest friendships, but soooo true at work.

I am a professional also with a masters in speech pathology and work with adults. I always dress in skirts or nice slacks and wear appropriate clothing. Nothing tight or revealing so I can't say my behavior or dress has changed to warrant this.

I actually had a really bad mental moment when I got to 220. I was fearful that I was loosing too quickly. What was really going on was that I was afraid the women I work with would reject me when I again became a threat. I also am somewhat uncomfortable with the attention men give me, so I am adjusting and the weight is coming off as I adjust.

So far the women at work have been supportive. (Don't you just love it when a 120 pound woman who is 5'5'' says "Hey there skinny.") I think its sad that people seem to shun us when we are fat and are intimated by us when we are fit. I guess I will have to reassess this when I reach my goal. My best friend is a beautiful smart professional woman who is 5'10'' and 140 pounds and even she admitted to me that when I was fit I made her feel like a plain Jane in comparison. I hate feeling that my female relationships will suffer because I am thinner.

Has anyone else felt this way?

OK here is my take

I have been on both end of the wieght issue when i was in my teens and early 20's i was very under wieght. 100-110 pounds at 5'10. i then started gaining weight and stopped at 201. or about 50-60 pounds over weight.

i found that at both end people wont talk to you. when i wa thin i was a b*tch and none of the females would talk to me cause they were sure i was only after thier boyfriends or there to make them look bad. and when i got fat its like i was not worth talking to cause i could not control my eating and i was obvouisly fat and lazy ( in thier eyes).
the only time i had women talk to me friendly was when i was slightly pudge like i am now. i dont look "fat" but i am deffinaitly not thin.

I think as a whole we women are so much harder on each other then men are its like we see what the media puts out there as beautiful and if you are to close to that ( you know 5'10 and 100 with long blond hair like i used to be) you are obvoiusly stuck on yourself and so self centered that you can only be a b*tch.

but if we get to fat we are lazy and dont even care enough to take care of our selves so why should i was my time getting to know you.

i dont know personally i avoid all this but just having guy friends LOL !

oh well that is my take.

I agree. I was slim in my teen and college years and had much trouble making girlfriends. After I became fat while I was pregnant, those same girls wanted to be my friend. They told me that I always seemed like I had it all and that I was very confident. If they only knew, I have never been confident a day in my life!!!! I even modelled and still had no confidence! I look at my pics and wonder what on earth could've been wrong in my head. I look at myself now, and realize what it's like to look bad.

As far as the professional scene....I was military. I was gaining quickly with my first pregnancy and hormone problems. I was harrassed like you wouldn't believe. They actually forced me to run every morning for three miles. Until I passed out from hemorraging. They took me to the hospital, and even after the docs confirmed it was a medical issue.....I was told I was lazy, malingering, and doing everything I could to get out of the military! Nothing could be further from the truth. My superior's looked at my college photos and said that I would never look like that again. It hurt very much. No one over weight wants to look like this....no matter what some fat people tell you. No one wants to be looked at as worthless. Even though it's been termed as an addiction.....we don't get treated like it. People seem to understand alcoholism. It's almost expected in certain social circles. But obesity....it's as if it were contagious. If they were to talk to us....they'd some how catch it. Even fat people are cruel to fat people!!! I had a guy bark at me the other day! He had to be at least 300lbs!!!

I don't know what the answer is....I wish I did. But I'm glad to have a group like this that I can share my stories with. It's nice to know that others do understand and can relate. Thank you for that.

It really is a double-edged sword. At 25 and a curvacious size 8, I got loads of attention, especially from males. Women - well, I was in grad school, and there just weren't many in my PhD program, but of my two best friends, one was 5'1 and weighed maybe 108. The other was 5'4", quite heavy and pear-shaped.

When I was thin and pretty, everything seemed fine until I opened my mouth. The PhD candidate IQ didn't seem to go with the barbie doll package, and guys were intimidated big-time. It didn't matter if they were dates, fellow grad students or profs. If I was going to be pretty, they wanted me as a vapid arm decoration.

Fast forward 60-80 lbs. Now I'm invisible, and people treat me like I'm stupid. One of the reasons I'm losing weight is that it will be hard for hiring committees to take me seriously at my weight, plus, as a sociologist, I know that overweight people tend to get paid less. Ain't that a kicker?

Cheers,

Friday

Hey guys-

I don't know why but I'm starting to believe within my heart of hearts that it's more about how we see ourselves that ultimately matters. I know that people look at the outer and judge based on that. I think however that our own self image and whether we choose to agree with others' thoughts or perceptions is what's most important here. When you look in the mirror, what do you see? I know I was my worst critic. I had always felt like my beauty was hidden behind all this fat and the key to my beauty and ultimate happiness would be revealed when I got to goal. I figured I would get more attention from guys and people would treat me better. Yeah that's the case for a while but if you don't have real self love right now....even when you are skinny or whatever, there's gonna be issues. I look back on old pictures of myself in high school and I recall my state of mind back then....I thought I was fat back then...and always compared myself to others instead of being the most beautiful best me I can be. I let what I thought of myself affect my confidence. I look at those pictures now and only wish I was back to that size. I was truly beautiful back then and didn't even know it. Most times....people treat you the way you see yourself. But there's a kind of catch 22 involved with that because generally we only tend to start feeling better about ourselves and have more confidence when we start to lose weight. My objective right now is to start treating myself like I want to be treated and carrying myself in a way as if I'm already at goal. I hope what i said made sense to someone!

hi gingerbear,

the sad truth of the matter is, is that we live in a society in which the perception of "fat" people are lazy, ugly, dirty, etc. these stereotypes are often not understood because the people doing the labeling, has never known what it has felt like to be more than 5 pounds overweight.

in your case (like many others) it's not easy for those that discriminate against the overweight--to realize that hey, there is a brain underneath it all, and that regardless of what a person looks like, they are capable of doing their job like anyone else, if not better!

unfortunately, that's what our society is made up of...why do you think we strive to be thinner--besides the health stuff, but for image reasons, for acceptance, for NORMALCY. we are as guilty as making the same preconceived notions as anyone else.

as i go through my own daily struggles of being overweight, i can tell you that from personal experience, being thinner--the world treats you in a whole different light. right now, although i'm 191 pounds and stand at 5'8", before i got sick, i used to be 140 pounds. I was thin--but not too thin, curvy and i liked it that way. but, if you were to compare me to any other asian woman here, at 140 pounds, every asian person thought i was fat. in the whole "asian world" i would be perfect, even though i'm 5'8" at 110 pounds (at the most). this is just an example of how distorted perceptions are because our environment has such a profound affect on how we view ourselves, let alone others.

another sad point is that women when staring at you, look at you for the whole package...meaning, you'll hear a woman say, "she has a pretty face, but her body sucks". when it comes to men (not all, just the majority), regardless of what you look like, you're a 10 if you have a good body. and that's the plain truth. i've really never had girlfriends, all my friends are men. i asked all my friends before (this when i was thinner) if they would rather go out with a beautiful bigger woman or an ugly thin woman, and most of them answered the thin one. surprise? no, not at all. i don't blame the way my friends have answered, they're just brainwashed like everyone else--into believing that thin is better, therefore more beautiful.

as for your success, you will ALWAYS meet people that try to knock you down. TRUST ME. in my case, i'm finishing up my last year in graduate school and hoping to become a professor this year--at the age of 25. do you know what kind of negative stuff i've gotten from people? it's insane. when you see jealously exude from others, all i can ever think is "what a waste". they spend all this energy focusing on me, when they should be focusing on themselves--figuring out how they could be the best person they can be.

you should be proud of yourself and all of your accomplishments.

don't worry about your mom, i think certain generations don't know how to phrase certain things...like my mom. her intentions are those of great magnitudes, and i'm sure your mom feels the same way...

just my thoughts...

blue skies,

Kimmy

Interesting thread.

I think it comes down to 2 things.

All women deal with sexism regardless of size.

Thin women deal with a lot of internalized sexism from other women in the form of "she must be a man-stealing b!tch."

Fat women deal with fatphobia and sexism. It's a complex combination where we are desexualized as women and usually made into cartoonish mama-figures. We are often invisible and have our womanhood, our personhood stripped from us. We are degraded as women and as fat people.

Fat or thin - women deal with a whole lotta nastiness in this world - and a lot of it we heap on each other.

I have noticed it before, but have been really surprised since starting back to school how nice and friendly people are being. I was very nervous to start back for this very reason, but it's been fine.

BUT, there was one club my dh and I belonged to and I was gaining steadily after we met and I noticed how the friends dropped away to the point where they'd all talk to HIM, and invite him places but would exclude me. He ditched them when they started doing it, but it HURTS.
sweet revenge though, one girl who was particularly nasty to me, (used to puff out her cheeks while talking about me to other people), gained in the years since I've seen her. I saw her on campus and just had to shake my head and hope that now she knows how it feels so she never does that to anyone again.

I think it's very interesting that fat people are discriminated against and that's Ok with the government, work, ect. If your a minority it's a crime to discriminate against you, or female, or old, or for your religion, or sexual prefrence for crist sake! But it's ok for every one to treat us like crap cause were just lazy and can't control ourselves.
If your a drug addict or an acholoic people give you a million chances to do better, put you in rehab, feel sorry for you, ect. But a fat person can't even get a first chance, much less help or sympathy. I can't tell you how many stores I have entered and the sales people ignored me and went straight for the skinny person. When it happens I leave and take my money with me.

I know not everyone on this board is a Christian and I am not attempting to beat anyone overt he head with my Bible, but last Sunday my pastor gave us a verse from scripture that fits well with this discussion. This is addressed to wives, but is suitable to all women.

1 Peter 3:3-4 3)Your beauty should not come from utward adornment, such as braided hair and wearing of gold jewlery and fine clothes. 4)Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God's sight.

Another is found in Proverbs 31: 10-31...but I found verses 30 and 31 to the point. The other verses tell of her deeds and how her words and actions revealed her character. It is that character that makes her beautiful. Verse 30 says "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised."

Our culture tells us we need to be a big breasted, tiny waisted, toned woman without fat, wrinkle, or blemish. We must have the perfect body, an attractive face, silky hair, and dress like a prostitute. If we don't, we are not going to attract a man, get a good job, get respect, get noticed, get invited or included, get just pay, etc. We are then told that women ashould just shout louder and become the "B" in order to get what we deserve. If we are "too nice" we'll get trampled. So, now we have a bunch of insecure, hurting, ticked off, women who are trying to act like a "B" and only succeeding in being seen as a "fat, lazy, B"! It has backfired!!!!

But the Bible tells us that the outside is not what is important. Sure, it recognizes physical attraction, but the emphasis should be on character, integrity, wisdom, compassion, mercy, love, responsibility, willingness to work, etc. We all know the idiot girl or B girl who gets all kinds of attention just because of her looks. But, can real men of character stand to be around her for more than 5 minutes? No intelligent conversation? A bad attitude and horrible personality? Self-centered-ness? The looks may draw some in initially, but if she is cruel or just not enjoyable to be around, she suddenly becomes very ugly. We focus, because our culture has conditioned us to focus, on the exterior. Imagine what this world would be like if we worked on our character as hard as we work on our weight loss or muscle building. Do you really think that a person who is eating a meal or wearing clothes or benefiting from a financial donation cares at all whether the gift is from a person who is overweight? If your life was just saved by a surgeon, would his size matter?

I admit, I fall victim to seeing me as my weight. If I am heavier, I am tempted to sulk and feel "gross" and less worthy, less attractive, just LESS. But then I remember, my children don't care what I weigh. I'm Mommy and they love me. My husband is the same way. My weight does not impact my character. I have decided to make an effort to improve ME not my waistline. I think as I change my focus...and stop thinking so much about ME-ME-ME...how I look, how my clothes fit, what I get to eat...how much...and when, I should STOP, be thankful that I have clothes and food and focus more on others. Maybe if i get busy with others, i'll forget about food 9it won't be such a focus) and maybe I'll actually lose weight??? Who knows. Regardless, God sees my heart. He couldn't care less what the scale says. I want to be pleasing in His sight....and He is looking at me the way society is. I want Him to be pleased with my heart.

Love to you ladies and all who are struggling with this.

xoxox

yeah it's sort of sad. . .that to be accepted as a decent person one has to lose half of ones self. I think my time as a fat person has been well spent. . .I had more confidence per square inch when I was at my largest size than when I was small before college. So I learned self confidence at 270+. I learned that not only was I a great person inside. . .but I was still sexy and very girlie. The one person whose opionion hasn't changed about me is me. . .I am proud of the weightloss. . .it is one of those things I had on my 'don't even dream about it' list. But then I am now the lead singer in a band for my churches new service to start in Sept. . .and that wasn't on any list! So dream bigger! redawn

You know, I agree with you all - women in general work harder to get ahead. I work for the government, have for the last 10 years or so,and I found early in my career that theywill promote a less intelligent slim man over a fat woman - doesn't matter how smart, the perception is that to be promoted to management you have to be presentable in a suit. Women that were promoted, myself included, back in the mid 90's, were still treated as second class management - and heaven forbid you should have strong opinions.

Anyway, before i go on a tirade, I have to say that as horrible as it is, it is the reality - fat people - especially women are treated very differently in our society, and it really makes me sick!.