Why do teenage girls do this? They say, “Oh, look at me, I’m so fat, it’s disgusting!” in a sing-song tone and expect everyone around them to say, “Oh no, you’re so skinny, I could never be as thin as you.” The sing-song tone indicates that these girls clearly know they aren’t fat, so it’s not an indicator of something more serious like Body Dysmorphic Disorder. It’s just a snotty little thing they say so others will boost their ego.
What really makes me angry is when they say something like that in front of people who really are overweight. Then it becomes a dig at that other person, who realizes that this girl is probably underweight, and then sees himself/herself as disgusting and worthless. I think that is the height of rudeness.
Why can’t these girls say, “Hey, I think I look pretty good!” To me, that is far less annoying, and I would be much more likely to agree with that than disagree with “I’m just a huge fat cow.”
Ugh. I would never dream of saying something like that.
I have a close friend who is a size 0-2. I’m a size 12. More than once, she has pointed out to me the (non-existant) mound of fat on her stomach and wrinkled her nose in disgust at how “aesthetically displeasing” it is. I never know what to say to this, so I usually don’t respond at all. I’m certainly not about to say, “No, you look great – I’m the fat cow,” like she may want, because I think I look fine.
The part that really scares me is my 10 year old son’s best friend Jennifer (who’s 11) is constantly saying she needs to go on a diet. This girl is so tiny she wears size 8 children’s clothes–since size and age usually correspond at her age, this is very small. Where do little girls pick up this kind of thing?
As for the teenage girls the OP refers to, I really think it’s a matter of just not feeling like it’s perfectly okay to feel good about yourself. As if there’s something wrong with looking in the mirror and liking what you see. And that’s just a shame.
I work with a guy who is somewhere around 400-450 lbs. He has no clue that he has a problem. Serious case of denial going on here. Kinda the flip side of the OP.
One day the guys were talking about “survivalist” stuff and how if “the big one” was dropped and civilization crumbled what they would do. This dude argued he would fare best because he could hunt, fish and trap his food. The guy can barely walk!
Folks should develop realistic body image. Me? I’m a fat bastard, but I’m workin’ on it!
Fagjunk Theology: Not just for sodomite propagandists anymore.
When I was 14, I was about 130 pounds. At 5’2", that isn’t supermodel skinny, but it’s certainly not overweight. But I always thought I was fat. I always felt so ugly. I had a friend that was about my height and, easily, 20 pounds lighter than me who always complained about being fat. In my case, I would say it was a form of BDD. In my friend’s case, I don’t know. It could’ve been. Or she could have just been a mean bitch. Who knows?
These days, I’m over 200 lbs. and I long for the days when 130 was “fat”.
My X best friend used to always pull that shit. She was a size 2 and her other friends was a size 0 and they used to sit around and pull the 'ol “oh we shouldn’t be eating that!, we’re so fat!!”
Mind you, I was sitting right there with them at a size 12. And if I were to say anyting about my weight, I’d immediately be met with an “you’re not fat!!” and actually sound annoyed that I was saying anything about my weight. The fuck?
I know they were probably just trying to be nice, but it was really pretty insulting to my intelligence. I mean really, if a size 0 or 2 is fat, how can a size 12 possibly not be? Compared to a size 0 or 2, a 12 is practically a beached whale.
I could not agree more. I am not a teenager, but I know that I feel like it would not be okay for me to be satisfied with my appearance, or admit it in public if I was. It’s so much the norm to complain about how we look that if we said we thought we looked okay, it would sound conceited.
As a former teenaged girl ;), I’m not sure if it’s an indicator of conceit or insensitivity as much as a bonding thing. The same girls who would be spotted sipping Diet Cokes all day long and talking about their huge thighs would also get together on Saturday nights and splurge on pizza and dreadful chocolate pudding/poundcake/Cool Whip concoctions (not that I would know about that personally…) while watching SNL or a Brat Pack video. Sort of a mild group eating disorder.
I can also understand, having also been thin–alas, no longer-- how a bit of pudge on your size 2 frame can seem grotesque. A size 2 body, especially if you are large-boned, isn’t streamlined and rounded off like a healthy size 8. A little potbelly doesn’t blend in well when the rest of you is angular as opposed to curvy. It’s because you know damned well that you are skinny, and try hard to stay that way, that that slight jiggle on the backs of your arms seems like an affront. And you feel like your larger friends look much better than you, because while heavier, they seem more proportioned. Probably because you aren’t looking at them to find flaws, as teenage girls often do for hours on themselves. Hard to explain.
I had a “friend” who confidently told me that I was fat. In a crowd of people. Very loudly. People turned around and looked at us. I was mortified.
I mean…I really revised my idea of friend that day. And for what it’s worth, I was maybe 10 lbs overweight but not fat. She was using my flaws as a confirmation on how perfect she was.
Because I am one. I recently graduated high school, so I spent four years with them. Sometimes it’s not avoidable. Believe me, I don’t plan on hanging out with them anymore, though.
I disagree. I think if you really had a problem, you wouldn’t say, “I’m so fat,” in a sing-song voice to just anyone. At least, with the ones I know, they say it so dismissively, too. Like as a non-sequitor. It’s not like my best friend says, “AwSnappity, I need to talk to you. I think I’m overweight.” That, I think, would be what you referred to, and that would be a shame. I would never be angry at someone for saying that to me. The girls I referred to in the OP, though, are girls I hardly know, who I might be having a conversation about airplanes with, and then all of a sudden they sigh, “I’m totally huge,” as if they’re begging me to tell them contrariwise so they can feel superior to others who really are “totally huge.”
This falls in the same category, at least to my mind, with people who complain about having to give their servants a raise to someone who’s barely getting by, or whining about the car payment on their top-of-the-line SUV to someone who has a rusting out beater that may not last out the week. It’s a pathetic cry for attention and acknowledgement.
I think part of it’s a lack of self-esteem, and I think the rest of it is what Elemenopy said. What she said rings very true, in my (non-teenaged-girl) mind. Elemenopy, thank you for such a brilliantly insightful and self-aware post!
Thou speakest the truth, FairyChatMom. I am guilty of this constantly, and it occasionally pisses off my friends, quite a few of whom are larger ( and less obssessed with their weight ) than I am.
But I can’t help it, and my girlfriends have just simply learned to accept it as part of my personality, just as I have learned to accept other annoying things about them. Our friendships will no doubt survive, as they seemed to have thus far.
Does it never occur to anyone that some of us guys actually like fat women? I’ve always resented the notion that fat=unattractive. I find thin, slender women to be less attractive than the ones with big butts and large, plump breasts. Other than health concerns There were lots of fat girls I knew in high school I would have dated if I weren’t too shy to ask them out, and if I weren’t afraid of the mocking I’d get from classmates for dating fat chicks. Had I only adopted a “to hell with what they think” attitude…
I see no reason why any woman should diet just for the sake of her appearance when it should be known that there are plenty of guys like me out there who like them just the way they are.
Shit, shit, shit! I inserted a new sentence in the wrong place! :smack: Let me try that again.
Does it never occur to anyone that some of us guys actually like fat women? I’ve always resented the notion that fat=unattractive. I find thin, slender women to be less attractive than the ones with big butts and large, plump breasts.
There were lots of fat girls I knew in high school I would have dated if I weren’t too shy to ask them out, and if I weren’t afraid of the mocking I’d get from classmates for dating fat chicks. Had I only adopted a “to hell with what they think” attitude…
Other than health concerns I see no reason why any woman should diet just for the sake of her appearance when it should be known that there are plenty of guys like me out there who like them just the way they are.
