Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Thin: Problems of a Tiny Girl in the Big World

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Don’t Hate Me Because I’m ThinI remember the first time it really sank in that I was physically different than a lot of adult women my age. I was well into a relatively easy pregnancy with my second child and managing a high end retail store in the mall. I never gained enough weight to put me in anything bigger than a size two. My co-workers made remarks in jest that I should eat more. They asked if I needed to go next door to Baby Gap and get some clothes for myself and my new baby, a “one stop shop” for the both of us. At first it was pretty funny. I was 25 and had never been especially large or small. Aside from the 10-15 pounds I put on in the course of college and a European study abroad experience, I’d always been a pretty solid size 4. It was somewhat nice to finally have that extremely thin physique I coveted all my life (well, save for the basketball belly I was carrying around). When I left the hospital after Walker was born, none of my clothes fit. But for the opposite reason of most postpartum women; they were all too big.

Now that tiny baby is nearly five and I called my fiancé into the bathroom a few nights ago to marvel at the numbers on the scale. “Babe look!” I yelled to him, “I’m up to 101 pounds!”

Here’s the thing. I know you’re all rolling your eyes at me because it must be sooooooo hard to be nearly 30 years old and a size 00. But you know what? It actually is. We talk so much as a culture about fat shaming; what about skinny shaming? Just like someone with a medical condition or a food addiction cannot help their obesity, I cannot help that I am genetically predisposed to being thin. My mom’s mom weighs 88 pounds. My dad’s mom weighs 105 pounds. This is just my body. It just is. I don’t go to the gym and I don’t count calories. I don’t skip meals and most of my food choices would make me for a 19 year old frat boy instead of a suburban mother of two. After nearly five years of callous remarks about my body, it’s wearing a little thin… No pun intended.

I get really irritated when I tell someone that I’m cold and I’m met with “Well maybe you should eat something.” I eat all the things. I eat a lot. But why does anyone get to throw that out at me as if it would instantly make a difference in my body temperature? And I’d never tell someone struggling with being heavy to put down whatever morsel they were putting in their mouth. So why is okay to say just the opposite of that to me?

I’m cold all the time yes, but I’m also in actual danger if I get sick. I don’t have a few pounds to lose here or there when I have a stomach bug. I actually had a stomach bug over the winter and was so sick, weak, and dehydrated that I was nearly rushed to the ER. My skin turned grey. I struggled to breathe. All because I was approaching being dangerously underweight after a four day illness which stopped me from eating and drinking. I also worry constantly if there is some underlying illness that is ravaging my systems undetected or worse, affecting my ability to conceive again.

Nathan and I have been struggling to get pregnant, which could be an entire blog post all its own. However, due to how thin I am and how my weight loss came about after giving birth, my OB/GYN has tested me for all numbers of genetic, thyroid, and other random diseases. Every time I go in for a routine check, I end up 8-10 vials of blood deep in the lab. I’ve had panel after panel and all the results so far, come back as normal. When someone comments that I “look sick” and “should eat more” I get deeply frustrated because maybe I am. Maybe I cannot conceive another child with the man I love because of some condition brewing in my body whose only presenting side effect is that I am very small. There are other, more insignificant problems to my size as well.

Finding clothes? Forget about it. Now that most retailers employ vanity sizing (the practice of smaller tag sizes being congruent with a larger actual size) even a size 00 or a size 0 in most shops is too large for me. There are very few stores I can reliably get pants from. Just like a very short, petite woman struggles with her proportions being too small for most lengths or a larger woman struggles to find something big enough on the rack to fit her body, I struggle too. I look like a little girl playing dress up in her mom’s clothes most of the time. I can’t layer this season’s boho trends; I look like I’m wearing a moo moo. I can’t order from online boutiques, as the smalls are most often not small enough for me. I have the most luck wearing little girl’s athletic shorts in a medium. Wrap your heads around that y’all; I am walking around in little girls size 7-10 shorts on the regular.

There are two sides to every coin. And just like it’s not right to make fun of someone’s weight for being “too large,” it’s also not right to make me (or any other tiny woman) feel badly for being thin. No one talks about the struggles of being really, really small, but us little gals struggle just the same as everyone else with body image, not to mention deflecting rude comments about our size. It’s hurtful to be told to “just eat a cheeseburger.”

Stop skinny shaming me. Don’t hate me because I’m thin.

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Ashley
Mama to Maddox, Walker and Finn plus three unruly dogs: Nick Carraway, Ladybird, and Charlotte. Owner of Nest, a custom painting and furniture restoration business run out of my SoKno home. I've written for Knox Moms since 2014, and have also written for The Dollywood Company, Her View From Home, and Today.com. I'm a recovering type-a personality, overcaffinated, sleep with too many pillows, am a better person near water, and love a good British period drama or anything about gruesome true crime. I'm going to die trying to pet something I shouldn't or lifting furniture I have no business lifting, and am a firm believer in convenience meals. Probably a top contender for the title of World's Okayest Mom.

12 COMMENTS

  1. First of all, you’re gorgeous! Second, I have been told to eat a cheeseburger most of my life if I say I’m cold, too, and it’s the most ridiculous statement ever said. I’m not sure who started it, but he or she is ignorant. Last but not least, I’m praying for you and your fertility. I hope this awesome post will bring you support and prayers and not trolls. We all need to show grace and mind our own business when it comes to other people’s body and weight.

  2. I have a friend with the same struggles. we were just talking the other day how people would never say something to an overweight person, but the “insults” fly freely to an underweight person.

  3. You’re speaking to my soul right now. Especially after having kids, like you’re not allowed to be skinny after having a child.

  4. I am 36 and weigh about 100lbs. People treat me like I’m 12 years old just because of my size. Big girls are especially rude to me or just plain mean. They don’t even know me, but automatically strike out at my feelings because someone has been mean to them. I’ve been made fun of since 6th grade for my size and looks, but I have never purposely tried to hurt someone just so I could feel better. I didn’t ask god to make me like this- I got stuck with it.

  5. I am 5’2 and weigh 99 lbs. sometimes 97. age 37. a mom of a 12 yo girl. my daughter has already reached my weight and almost my height. i wont tell her this for fear of making her feel fat which she is far from shes just not as railthin as I am. all my life Ive been called horrid things—bulimic, crackhead, methhead, ppl have accused me of having HIV. it’s been brutal. ive tried weight gain shakes etc nothing works. I accept that this is my bodytype and my body wants to be thin. I can relate to the rude comments and the fear of getting sick. when i caught norovirus I was 89 lbs at the end of it. scary. we get dehydrated easily even without stomach bugs.
    Just curious you dont say how tall you are?

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