Do you like being called skinny?

Nobody likes being called names. (Or maybe some people do, idk, the world's your oyster I suppose.)

 

Nope. I was underweight for a big part of my childhood. I have always been considered weak. Hell, maybe I even was. When someone calls me skinny, I feel like they are calling me weak. Lean or fit? Sure. Why not. Skinny? If you don't keep calling me that all the time I propably won't even bother to request you to stop or do anything else about it, but the thought of killing you might visit my mind even though I'd never act on it. It's just one if those things that remind me of a lot of emotional baggage.

 

Being as my family is naturally heavy, I would be confused. 200 pounds is extremely lightweight in my family, and we only breach the 100's to proudly serve our country, which we have an extremely long and storied history of military service. I do however get uncomfortable when foreigners (particularly asians) call me fat. Black people call me Big Man, or Big Mike, which I am ok with because there is no implied insult, and it is a factual statement.

 

If anyone sees me as unattractive, it is most certainly because of my below-average height. But I'm not too worried.

 

I used to be skinny and I hated it. When I was 14 I decided not to be skinny anymore and I started lifting heavy weights. 5 years later, I'm not skinny. I highly recommend that skinny guys start lifting weights.

 

I am in the exact same position. My genetics are mostly bad, thin bones and skinny legs. I'm a hardgainer, especially legs. Focusing almost exclusively on heavy squats for 6 months did help a lot though, mostly in strength but also in size.

 

If I work out twice a week, I experience extreme gains. My noob gains are beyond the overall gains of most men. However getting rid of excess fat would require extreme amounts of effort, to the point where I would have to track every calorie to cross my lips, and I would have to commit to hours of daily cardio. I did it for the Navy, and wont do it again. However my family members live into their 80's at 250 lbs, with extremely healthy blood tests, cholesterol and blood pressure.

 

No I bloody well hate that, and in fact people (especially coworkers at my old job) used to tell me I was way too thin or that I needed to eat more because I was "skin and bones". Granted I was perhaps a tiny bit underweight but who tells people that rubbish or think that's an acceptable thing to say? All it did was make me self-conscious and damaged my self esteem more than anything.

 

i always get called skinny but i dont take it as a negative aspect. i used to have to take vitamin pills and medicines that forced me to be hungry because i was underweight and barely ate, now i am healthty weight and some still consider me skinny. but i know my journey and i am proud of where i am. i could increase my muscles, sure, but if i were to do it, it would be for myself. i dont do it for others calling me skinny. but i am a person that doesnt really care about negative opinions of people, only if they say it about my friends and family so this can be a reason why im dont offended from being called skinny

 

I personally never minded it and I don’t see why it would be offensive. To my knowledge, skinny is just a synonym for “very thin”. If I’m very thin, then I’m very thin. The reason people point it out is because it’s something out of the ordinary, because there is a correlation between malnutrition and low body weight. Now that doesn’t mean that everyone who is underweight is also undernourished, as some people simply have a very efficient metabolism and can eat whatever they want without gaining weight (like me). But I’m not judging people for assuming something when they can’t or don’t know any better. If a person on the street is just randomly calling people “asshole” and “dumbass”, I would tell them they are being rude, when actually they have Tourette syndrome and are not intentionally being rude. I think people who let words offend them have to work on their self-esteem and not blame other people for pointing out facts.

 

What does telling someone they're skinny or fat do? Even if something is a "fact" (in your opinion anyways) that doesn't mean you should be pointing it out just because you can.

You may not mind it but that doesn't mean everyone else will; being called something you don't like or hate repeatably for years will have a lasting negative effect, furthering compounding issues people already have around their body weight (healthy or not).

Maybe people can mind their own business instead, and the folks that point things out just because they can are the problem. If somebody you think is subjectively ugly, would you tell them that?

 

I didn’t say that it’s pointed out for the sake of pointing it out. I said that it might make people aware of something they’re not aware of that could pose a health risk (malnutrition), as someone above said. We do not constantly observe ourselves. If someone told me ‘you look very pale today’ then maybe I realize that I have been feeling weak and tired and might be getting sick. What motivation would someone have to point out things that have no meaning? That would be irrational. I’ve had teachers in school ask me if I was eating normally because I was so skinny and we’ve had girls with anorexia in our class. If someone is trying to help me and unintentionally being ignorant, then I’m not going to look down on them for it.

 

I would agree with you if we were talking about relatives making an intervention on someone who clearly has a problem, or better yet, doctor making the observation, but oftentimes it's about someone who should definetly eat less telling someone of healthy to little lighter weight to eat more out of spite. Also in most cases if a person has something out of ordinary in their looks, they will most certainly know anyways. In most cases pointing out stuff like that is just unnecessary and likely to come of mean.

 

I mean, since I'm about 4 kgs overweight (and working hard to maintain that), I don't mind it. Most of the time, people just have good intentions behind saying someone is skinny. They're trying to offer a compliment, they're just very awkward about it.

 

Why would a random person try to be mean to you? Have you ever had a random person approach you saying ‘you have a huge nose’ or ‘you have such small ears’? What motivation would a random person have to be mean to you? I think that speaks for some kind of insecurity where you think everyone is trying to put you down even though they are just trying to help or be nice.

And how is someone who barely knows you supposed to know that your underweight is genetic and not due to bad health?