Stop Asking People If They’ve Lost Weight

Which means you need to stop associating thinness with health

Content warning: I talk about disordered eating, medical abuse, and drug addiction in this article.

“Great! You’re a healthy weight! You’ve made a lot of progress.”

I’m 13 years old at my pediatrician's office, the same pediatrician I had been seeing since I was little. The past few visits I was told that I was overweight according to the BMI chart, and had to make some changes.

My 13th year was likely the hardest I’ve ever experienced. My body changed seemingly overnight, and I was taller and curvier than every other girl in my school. Suddenly, activities I had loved like swimming became anxiety-fueled once I couldn’t hide what was becoming a woman’s body.

I got my period long before other girls and was constantly getting comments about my body. Suddenly, the world around me no longer felt safe. I felt myself being looked at in a different way. I didn’t fully understand it at the time but I was beginning to experience what it must feel like to be an antelope being stared down by lions. I was being desired long before I had the chance to grow out of childhood.

I had already experienced sexual abuse as a much younger child, and I felt more unsafe than ever. On top of the fear my body gave me, I was also being scrutinized for my weight. I was taller, curvier, and stronger than most kids my age. I was a competitive swimmer and a kid who loved to play outside any chance she got. In all aspects I was healthy, but the number on the scale was deemed unacceptable by every medical practitioner I came into contact with.

When my body started to change, I wanted to stop it. I soon realized that eating less meant less of me. It was simple and effective.

A Losing Game

At that doctor's visit when I was being praised for my weight loss, I was diving headfirst into disordered eating. I had learned the art of calorie counting at weight watchers, which my well-meaning but misguided mother took me to when I was 11 years old. I would ditch my lunch on the way to school and eat nothing all day. Certain foods brought feelings of guilt, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I could erase the guilt by emptying my stomach into the toilet with the jab of my fingers down my throat.

I was shaky, my period had stopped, and I was reaching close to 100 pounds at 5'5". My body was trying to grow but I was forcing it to stop.

A few months later, my parents would catch me vomiting up dinner for the 100th time and send me to an eating disorder clinic. For now, I was being congratulated by my doctor for my firm commitment to starvation and restriction in the name of being healthy.

The Cycle of Shrinking and Growing

Flash forward to a few years later. I graduated high school and was headed to a prestigious art school in New York City. I saw my new life as fashionable, chic, and sexy. I wanted a body to match the vision I saw in my head.

Once again, I slipped back into restricting, purging, and overexercising to the point of collapse. On my first trip back home, my entire family asked the dreaded question,

“Have you lost weight?”

The question was asked with excitement and wonder. When I responded that yes, I have lost weight, the accolades came pouring in. My family, friends, and anyone who saw me on a regular basis, the same people who knew about my previous hospitalization from an eating disorder, would say,

“You look great!”

I guess they didn’t notice the broken blood vessels around my eyes, peppering the soft tissue with red. They didn’t notice how my hands shook, how I seemed to be permanently exhausted, or how patches of my hair were beginning to thin.

I didn’t care and they didn’t care. I looked great.

You Look Great, No Matter What You Did to Get There

Things got worse again, and throughout my college years, I dealt with a drug and alcohol addiction that kept me thin. In my early 20s, I decided to finally get sober.

Like many people in early sobriety, I put on weight. I was sleeping, eating, and recovering, and my body was clinging on to pounds after years of irregularity and amphetamine-fueled starvation.

On my first trip to a primary care doctor, I was asked what I estimated my weight to be. I said a random number. The doctor then weighed me and told me that I was living in a fantasy world, that I needed to wake up and make some changes because I was overweight. I was throwing away the best years of my life with gluttony and laziness, according to this doctor.

The shame was too hard to handle. Once again, the medical system drilled it into my head that anything, even a life-threatening eating disorder or a debilitating addiction to cocaine and amphetamines is better than being overweight.

I decided to make some changes. I restricted my eating and began to count calories again. If I messed up, I threw up. I told myself it wasn’t bulimia, it was only an occasional necessity to purge myself of the evils of unhealthy food. The weight dropped, and my next trip to the doctor was met with congratulations.

I worked in the sports industry, and most of the employees were only there for the season, while I was there full time. At the start of the season, a co-worker who I hadn’t seen in a few months entered the break room.

“Have you lost weight?!”

He asked with enthusiasm. I smiled weakly in response. I didn’t have much energy left to fake a positive response to this question anymore.

“You look amazing! Good for you!”

Good for me, I thought. I remembered the taste of bile on the back of my teeth from the week prior when my coworkers encouraged me to go to McDonald's with them for lunch because I had never eaten their chicken sandwich. I couldn’t sit with the food in my stomach for the rest of the day so I made myself sick in the bathroom at work. I pretended that the food upset my stomach when in reality, I upset my stomach.

Congratulations on Killing Yourself Slowly

Throughout the past decade of my struggle with eating disorders, I have been congratulated every single time I’ve lost weight. The response was inherently positive as if I had made a healthy choice. In reality, I was punishing myself and my body for existing at a size that was unacceptable to those around me.

In our society, and especially in the eyes of the American Medical System, thinness is associated with health. Fatness is a cardinal sin to which people are punished with prejudice, abuse, and medical negligence. If your body gets smaller, people will always congratulate you regardless of how and why it’s getting that way.

Stop Asking People if They’ve Lost Weight. Seriously.

Before you ask someone if they lost weight, consider the fact that people lose weight for any variety of reasons. The medication they’re on might cause weight loss. Some people lose weight from severe depression. Maybe someone is grieving or experiencing emotional trauma that you have no idea about. Maybe that person is silently suffering from an eating disorder.

If someone you love has suddenly lost weight, consider these factors before you ask them about it. Don’t assume it’s inherently positive. Ask with concern and caring, not congratulations.

Instead of asking them if they’ve lost weight, ask them if they’re ok.