Alright, buckle back up, because I need to get personal and emotional again. You've already read this entry's title so you know the subject, but let me elaborate on it nonetheless.
I was super-skinny as a child. I mean almost rail-thin. That was genetic; believe me, I've always had a big appetite, but an unusually fast metabolism, and nobody in my family has ever been overweight, to my knowledge. Almost every day in primary school I was called names like "Skinny legs," "Chicken legs" et cetera, I was frequently asked why I was so skinny or if I was anorexic or if I ate everything on my plate at dinner. (Let me also state here that in hindsight I wonder how so many of my classmates then knew what "anorexic" even meant.) Naturally, because of my build I was also usually among the very last to be chosen in PE class.
I've recently been re-watching Glee, and this scene from a season four episode resonated with me, even more than when I first saw it, to the point where it made me think back to those days.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9q_cNyMm9XE
Someone having weight issues, be it obesity as seen there or skinniness, should never make them a subject of mockery, and while body-shaming indeed says far more about the culprit than the target (and may I remind people here that both genders can fit in both of those categories), people who witness or hear it when it happens need to put their foot down and intervene. This reflective mood that scene put me in has also made me realise why, in 2017 on Facebook, I felt compelled to make a post defending a young woman who was deluged with abuse after being featured on the cover of Vogue UK as a plus-size model.
Everybody can help how their appearance evolves, with make-up and cosmetic surgery and whatnot. But nobody can help what physical genes they inherited, but everybody can help how they feel about others' physiques. Body-shaming stops with me, and hopefully with you, too.
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