Has someone ever told you that you are insanely fat? Has someone really come to you and said to your face: "Oh my God, how can you be this big?" Or "Everybody come here and try to put your arms around this girl!" Or "Have you seen this woman's legs and feet?! They are massive!"
Sounds terrible, right? All those things have happened to me, except you have to replace the word fat with skinny, big with small and massive with ridiculously tiny.
I have been very small for all my life. My parents and sister are small as well but still a couple of sizes bigger. Since elementary school I've been going to extra check ups at nurses and doctors, gone through many blood tests and received many accusations about eating disorders. All the test results have come back as normal. There is simply nothing wrong with me, I'm just small.
But the interesting thing in this is how people act. How they have pointed out my size at every turn, making a big deal about it. As a teenager I heard many times how I look like an elementary school student (this is obviously what every teenager wants to hear), at parties people went and got my shoes and showed them to everybody shouting and laughing who's kid is in the party. Later some random women came to me terrified, asking "How can you ever give birth?" (like you wouldn't be scared of it anyway). I have been told that I wouldn't be believable when speaking in front of people, I wouldn't have any authority because of my size...
And so on and so on. The list is endless.
What makes it alright to do this to small or skinny people? I often see campaigns on social media about how you should be appreciated the way you are. Usually in these campaigns there are a lot of pictures of bigger ladies saying "curves are beautiful" or something similar. And I agree that you can be beautiful no matter the size, but it is often the same people saying it's not okay to be skinny or small. Hang on.
Treat other people the way you want to be treated. Quite a simple rule. So the next time you are about to say something to the tiny neighbor of yours, think twice.
Hugs, Momone
