Skinny. Let's talk abou this word.

[WilliamG]

So mid-pandemic (late summer 2020) I weighed in at 212lbs. Last Friday I weighed in at 178lbs. I'm 63 and 6' tall.

Without spending a lot of time discussing my exercise routines I follow, or my moving from mostly vegetarian to straight up vegan... The term "skinny" has come into my life. I never thought I'd hear this. I expected perhaps "Oh you've lost some weight" or "have you been dieting?" But not the " you look so skinny now" kind of "compliment". And I still have a little tummy to nail down but that's neither here nor there. Even my wife said "you're getting skinny".

My mt biking is much more rewarding with a lighter weight on the bike. Sex is better (not that it was bad before). My penis appears larger without the overhead storage shed above it. And I had to buy new gym and cycling clothes today... MEDIUMS! If someone asked me to label myself, I'd say "proportionate".

Why is the term "skinny" still in play?

 

[Scarletbegonia]

Because A) Americans are oversized, fat and muscle, B) people are judgmental as fuck.
Go you!

 

[Cum_is_Great]

So mid-pandemic (late summer 2020) I weighed in at 212lbs. Last Friday I weighed in at 178lbs. I'm 63 and 6' tall.

Without spending a lot of time discussing my exercise routines I follow, or my moving from mostly vegetarian to straight up vegan... The term "skinny" has come into my life. I never thought I'd hear this. I expected perhaps "Oh you've lost some weight" or "have you been dieting?" But not the " you look so skinny now" kind of "compliment". And I still have a little tummy to nail down but that's neither here nor there. Even my wife said "you're getting skinny".

My mt biking is much more rewarding with a lighter weight on the bike. Sex is better (not that it was bad before). My penis appears larger without the overhead storage shed above it. And I had to buy new gym and cycling clothes today... MEDIUMS! If someone asked me to label myself, I'd say "proportionate".

Why is the term "skinny" still in play?

Congrats, you're at my goal weight. Will be a long time for me to get there. I'd take the term "skinny" as a badge of honor. I don't think anyone would have even thought of using that term to describe me ever. I was called "skinny" by family recently after some weight loss but I corrected them. I'm no where near skinny whatsoever. But I have lost weight.

 

[halcyondays]

Yeah, congratulations! No small feat. The few individuals I know who lost a lot of weight said it's the hardest thing they've ever done.

lol... I know what you mean by buying new clothes. In a few years in my late 30s I gained 50 lbs & four inches on my waistline and had to buy new clothes. Then I lost it all in a year--glad I had saved all my old clothes.

IMO "skinny" is meant as a compliment in your context. A teasing one.

I am tall and have a long lean body type often called a swimmer's body in today's parlance. People have called me skinny all my life starting with women in my family then girlfriends, girlfriends mothers & sisters and women with whom I worked or attended school. I took it as tease and compliment--even from those ladies who said "we need to fatten you up." I'm about to turn 60 and friends still tease saying "he's a growing boy" lol--heard that again when I went back for seconds at Thanksgiving.

Still I find the moniker uncomfortable sometimes. I don't remind friends and family of their body types and weight. All but a few are overweight and most are obese. No surprise when 70% of the population is overweight and 42% obese. I sometimes wonder why they think it's okay to describe me by mine. One friend keeps telling me she hates me because I'm slim. She's only a little overweight herself. I know it's meant as a compliment but there's a sharpness to it I don't like. Overall it's as if it's okay to tease slim but not fat and overweight. Bill Maher has been on his soapbox about that.

I'm glad you feel so much better. An added bonus is eliminating the overweight co-morbidity for covid.

You're skewing the data you know! Most people have gained weight during the pandemic. See? Even I tease.

 

[Scarletbegonia]

@halcyondays brings up a great point.
Over in fat acceptance-land, I hear them saying “a real woman has curves” or they call women my size( and I’m on the line of overweight myself) twigs and say things like snap them in half.
I get that it’s defensive, after lives of being insulted and taking offense at things like airline policy (and the reality tv world of gastric surgery candidates), but that doesn’t make what they do right, or make me inclined to be overly kind back.
Comment on my size, and yours is fair game.

 

[WilliamG]

I'm glad you feel so much better. An added bonus is eliminating the overweight co-morbidity for covid.

You're skewing the data you know! Most people have gained weight during the pandemic. See? Even I tease.

My weight loss is directly tied to us moving from a mostly vegetarian to vegan diet. I never thought about the weight loss part. I was noticing high blood pressure in the morning and super low in the evening. Increasing the medication made me light headed when bending down and up. My visit to the cardiologist showed some "irregularity" in one of the heart chambers. Now I passed the stress test with flying colors. But he though an angiogram was in order... So I read up on it and thought "I'm joining the ranks of those folks I see on prescription drug ads".

Turns out I didn't need any stent but did have a 30% constriction in one area. Our private health insurance is already thru the roof so we'd had enough. My wife led the way as one who's always fought autoimmune issues. I wanted to show this cardiologist I could reverse this without any medications. I was not going go down the "eat less carbs, more protein, more cardio, lift weights" drone regimen that folks always fail.

We'd had a couple books by Dr. Dean Ornish and John McDougall that we revisited. But they seemed convoluted. So before long, YouTube took us down the rabbit hole:
First we soaked up Dr. Micheal Greagor. This lead us to Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn... A way for us to eat properly for the rest of our life... All on one fucking sheet of paper. These are the foods. Do anything you want with them. It blew the doors off of everything I'd been told. Just eat these things and do some exercise. If you still feel hungry? Eat more of these foods!

Which leads us back to the skinny term (and I agree with Bill Maher on the obesity thing). There was a documentary a few years ago comparing cultures and body fat. They put photos of a white male with a lean body next to an Asain man the same age and weight. They asked folks in a group to comment on their bodies type. Everyone said the white man looked undernourished or too skinny. The Asian man looked fine. So our perception has sure changed!

 

[Notlikeskywalker]

Apparently I'm "lucky" enough to have a fast metabolism so I've always been extremely skinny, and never have I been on the receiving end of a "skinny" compliment. It's usually in mocking or negative context. I'm not woke but it's weird that body shaming only seems to be frowned upon if it's directed at the overweight or females.

 

[WilliamG]

Apparently I'm "lucky" enough to have a fast metabolism so I've always been extremely skinny, and never have I been on the receiving end of a "skinny" compliment. It's usually in mocking or negative context. I'm not woke but it's weird that body shaming only seems to be frowned upon if it's directed at the overweight or females.

In my case it's been in the "you're too thin" kind of compliment. That's what threw me for a curve. In my wonder years, there were people... And then there were fat people. But now with so much obesity as was brought up... Proportionate folks are now skinny? I recall my earlier discussion here about the validity of the BMI index. The majority of responses thought it was inaccurate and not useful.

 

[seventiesdemon]

Good on ya, I'm 63 myself. I don't really watch my weight as such. I watch what I eat, put into my mouth in the first place. I eat more when I'm active, less when not so. Pretty much always been that way. Don't think I could ever go vegan.

 

[HorseHung40's]

In our society, people feel that "body weight shaming" is still acceptable.

A professional colleague of mine lost, and, kept off 110 lbs over 5 1/2 years thanks to gastric bypass surgery. Spoiler alert, he said that he pre-surgery weight was 352 lbs; yet, nurses in obesity clinics pegged his weight at 270, and, were rude about it, until he stepped onto the scale. Instead of apologizing for their comments, those c-words said nothing.

Fast forward 5 years, when he goes for check-ups at the bariatric clinic, he is told that he looks to be 60 lbs lighter than his 240 lbs of weight.

 

[Dave NoCal]

I have found, when people are being offensive, to ask them very direct, but polite questions such as" Why is me being at ideal body weight a problem for you? Or: Would it be alright with you for me to comment on your size? Or: How many days of his life do you think Mick Jagger has worried about being too thin? When you put people on the spot, they tend to back off. If they blow a gasket, a good question might be: How is asking you about something you said about me out of line?

I'll just that there is a lot of passive-aggressive behavior out there. Many people are unhappy about their weight. They want to BE thin but don't want to GET thin because that would involve commitment on their part and sometimes, consciously or unconsciously, sabotage those who are successful. A few few years ago, my ex had an ankle surgery that limited his mobility and, thus, his ability to push food into his face all day and evening. I made sure he got three meals a day and would get him a snack if he asked. He lost about twenty pounds in six weeks. When he got back to work, many commented on his weight loss and and ones who were overweight started bringing him pastries and thousand calorie Frappuccino's.

A fair number of people are like 'crabs in a bucket' and try to pull down those who succeed.

 

[bill4494]

@dave NoCaNo when I was successfully dieting once and obviously losing weight a friend bought me two milkshakes the same day. I kept losing weight anyway. People unconsciously resist change in others. I don't think it's malicious,just unthoughtful.

@WilliamG great job!

 

[Dave NoCal]

@dave NoCaNo when I was successfully dieting once and obviously losing weight a friend bought me two milkshakes the same day. I kept losing weight anyway. People unconsciously resist change in others. I don't think it's malicious,just unthoughtful.

@WilliamG great job!

It seems to me that, sometimes, it is envious.

 

[Frozen Heart]

Because A) Americans are oversized, fat and muscle, B) people are judgmental as fuck.
Go you!

Americans are oversized as fuck. I remember the first time I visited the US. It remembered me of the tv show "my 600 lb life".

I had seen obese ppl all my life, but in the US ppl were extremely obese and there was infrastructure to support obese ppl. Every other place on Earth, if you are overweight, don't expect this infrastructure.

But answering the OP's question... I was skinny all my life. It was a shit until I turned 30. Being skinny is a rare thing after you are 30. I workout and have a nice body, but I will never have a robust body frame. I also look younger than I am. Every time a person is rude about my weight and call me skinny, I answer with a smile on my face: "I wish I could say the same about you". This also works for my baby face. If you are talking to a woman you may want to have a object between you two.

Being is skinny is a blessing after a certain age. It will be way easier for to gain weight with diets and exercises than most people actually losing weight in the long term.

 

[WilliamG]

Americans are oversized as fuck. I remember the first time I visited the US. It remembered me of the tv show "my 600 lb life".

I had seen obese ppl all my life, but in the US ppl were extremely obese and there was infrastructure to support obese ppl. Every other place on Earth, if you are overweight, don't expect this infrastructure.

But answering the OP's question... I was skinny all my life. It was a shit until I turned 30. Being skinny is a rare thing after you are 30. I workout and have a nice body, but I will never have a robust body frame. I also look younger than I am. Every time a person is rude about my weight and call me skinny, I answer with a smile on my face: "I wish I could say the same about you". This also works for my baby face. If you are talking to a woman you may want to have a object between you two.

Being is skinny is a blessing after a certain age. It will be way easier for to gain weight with diets and exercises than most people actually losing weight in the long term.

The term I hear at the gym is "hard gainers" for the guys that can't easily put on weight. I was never that. Nor did I ever want to be "big". Being a mt biking, ww kayaking, surfer guy for various parts of my life, being heavier was always a burden. I never understood guys that didn't like being "skinny" (especially after 30!).

I was just mt bike riding last week for the first time in a couple months. It was amazing how much easier it is to climb with less weight! There's an old saying that each pound removed off a 28lb mt bike costs about $1,000... I saved a lot of cash! Can't wait to see how my ww slalom kayak feels in the spring!

 

[deleted1074483]

there is also a problem with using terms like skinny and fat and others in between too - in that they are relative and according to one's own perception - so for example most people call me 'skinny' or 'thin' but according to most stats for my height and weight i'm at best overweight, even if not much. There is also the 'fact' that people have been getting larger over time - when i was at school in the 70s i don't recall one single 'fat' guy or girl but now there are some extremely large kids around - this is due to diet in the main but as each generation gets 'larger' framed/built, their view of what is 'large' alters as does the average person's build.
Ultimately there is no right or wrong to this just how we feel about ourselves - and we should only judge ourselves against ourselves not against others (ok sometimes that is bad for those with issues, accepted) and work at being comfortable with who we are and how we look - if we're not comfortable either accept that we need to put work in to change or accept that this is how we look?

 

[Neijo]

Bodyshaming. "Skinny" is just as bodyshaming as "fat".
Some people, especially thin/slim/"skinny" people do not choose to be skinny.

I for myself would like some more fat on me. But I can't do it, except if I keep track of my food and phyiscal behaviour 24/7, so I rather "stay" "skinny".

And what bugs me the most is people that say "Don't make such a fuzz your previliged whatever, a lot of people would kill to be as skinny as you"

Being as skinny as "skinny" people is not a goal to achieve, it is and will always be, a metabolistic disorder.

Just leave skinny people and fat people alone. It's their bodies.
Sincerely,
A skinny guy who gets unwanted commented about my skinny body a lot.