I've been spending a lot of time visiting size acceptance blogs and read recently about someone's decision to not compliment people on weight loss. As someone who gains and loses a lot, it made a lot of sense to me. "You look great": nice compliment. "You look so skinny": WTF?
I had coffee with a friend today who doesn't wait for the compliments, she gives them pretty freely to herself. She was telling me that her daughter had told her that the shirt she was wearing "made her look really skinny". I took that opportunity to tell her that I'd decided to stop equating skinny with good. Her eyes got big - she was quite taken aback - and she said, "but how could you? I don't even know how to wrap my brain around that." Well, I consulted the thesaurus, and it did not find the two to be remotely synonymous.
I know what she was saying, though. Society certainly equates the two. This wasn't something she made up. (And I fear I may have jumped down her throat a little more than was necessary) She's just living in the world. She was so taken aback by my response because it certainly does not represent a world view.
But now I'm even more determined to keep it up.
You, by the way, look great. :-)
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