Just now, I ran into a woman who works for the same organisation I do. I don’t know her well, but she’s one of those people who, because of her job, knows just about everyone by name. We had a conversation that included the following:
Her (in a positive tone): You’ve lost weight!
Me (in a rebuffing tone): I don’t think so.
Her: No, you have!
Me (sounding slightly upset): I’m sorry, I don’t like to have that sort of thing commented on.
Her (surprised, slightly offended): Oh …
Then someone else came by, and I headed off to do what I was on my way to do anyway.
I’m lucky – privileged, even. Even before coming across HAES and related philosophies online, I somehow managed to avoid internalising a lot of the hot mess that is the way we approach body image, eating, weight and dieting, and consider myself lucky for it. It’s kept me (mostly) from feeling that there is anything wrong with my body when I have observed it does not fit the images I’m told I should fit in with. (If you’re wondering, it’s not entirely upbringing: every single member of my immediate family, and most members of my extended family with whom I have significant contact, have, or had when I was growing up, at least a partly disordered approach to eating and weight loss.)
So yes, I’m lucky, privileged, that that kind of comment, whether made about me or someone else, merely disgusts me, and does not trigger me in some way. But the person who made these comments to me didn’t know that!
It wasn’t an appropriate situation to explain why I don’t like those kinds of comments, or why others might have more severe reactions (but might say nothing). All I can do is hope that my reaction was, of itself, enough to make her think a little about the problems with what she said to me.