Saif
When we step out looking for someone to be with, we look for empathy, kindness, and love above all. It’s about making each other feel safe as well as secure. If one of the partners is insecure about something, the other always boost his/her self-esteem and tries to turn those insecurities into strength. Insecurities often get exhibited through negativity for others. Having the audacity to make insensitive comments especially about how a person looks, usually depicts the commenter’s inner insecurities. If you love a person you don’t only love them for how they look but you usually fall for the good in them
Having feelings for someone naturally masks their flaws, but there are times where these negative energies create an aura around that person and make it hurtful for the people closer. Whether or not someone wants to eliminate the negativity in him/herself depends on their willpower to change. Acceptance is the first step towards change, however, if a person defines him/herself as perfect, the dynamics deriving the change naturally die off.
Today, we have brought another episode of AITA Reddit’s thread in which a Reddit user who goes by the username of u/Appropriate-Pea-156, loved her partner for the good he had rather than for how he looked but ended up fat-shaming her boyfriend in front of her friends. But why did she do that? You must know the story behind it! Even though her boyfriend was overweight but she always stood by him and would always try to eliminate the insecurities her boyfriend had in regards to his weight. She always encouraged him to be the better version of himself without affliction being there in her words. He on the other hand always un-necessarily advised her on pointless things, where he had no motivation to bring upon a positive change in himself.
There came an instance where she had enough. Once her partner started to project his negativity and inner insecurities onto other people, this is where she had to let go of the toxicity and make a bold decision. Anyways, let’s go ahead and read the complete story now, shall we?
1. A fact – being overweight isn’t all about “not looking good” but it’s also unhealthy.
2. She wouldn’t have gotten into the relationship if she cared about his appearance but that wasn’t the case here.
Only a balanced lifestyle helps you achieve and maintain, a healthy body weight. Diet alone or exercise alone is not enough. You’ll only be able to achieve an ideal body weight if you inculcate both in your daily routine
3. Being supportive.
That’s what an empathetic partner would do!
4. That’s where the hypocrisy kicks in.
5. She has a point.
And despite of knowing that, they guy still had the audacity to boss her around.
6. On top of that, an advice which he wouldn’t implement it on himself.
Maintaining a healthy weight despite the circumstances prevailing due to lockdowns and restriction is surely an achievement. The sedentary lifestyle has surely raised concerns regarding general health as well as nutritional status. You go, girl!
7. Chilling with his friends.
8. He decided to call out “fat chicks”
Oh god, that is ridiculous and definitely a red flag! Also, that’s what a majority of the guys do, we think. They boast off a lot in front of their friends. Even the girls!
9. A friend tried to normalize the environment by cracking a joke.
Obviously, why would he speak to you because he must be feeling embarrassed.
10. He thought it’s rude and disrespectful.
Wait, what? He thought it’s rude and disrespectful while he’s free to be judgemental to others and fatshame them? No sir, that’s not happening!
11. She ends up apologizing.
u/Appropriate-Pea-156 did her part by apologizing to him, but his courage to be stubborn enough on the wrong he did is pathetic! We gathered some professional health evidence of how weight and a height of the person doesn’t define how healthy a person is. And how obesity isn’t something specified to a certain gender or person, it’s just a condition that prevails. Also, why it should be seriously addressed.
Iris Gorfinkel, M.D general practitioner, medical researcher, and founder of PrimeHealth Clinical Research stated “The BMI is a measure of the mass of a person’s body divided by their height squared,”
BMI isn’t the most authentic health status determinant it just gives you a vague idea. Gorfinkel continued “So it’s just taking into consideration those two things, how much they weigh, and how tall they are. But the problem, of course, is that mass, how much a person weighs, is made up of both fat and muscle. So the BMI doesn’t give you a good idea of if a person is truly healthy or not, for example, they could look like, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger and be solid muscle.”
Waist circumference on the other hand is a more validated demonstrator of general health status, she added “People who carry their weight on their bellies is called visceral fat. It sits under the skin and it’s like a spare tire around the waistline. But it also includes the fat that’s deep inside our abdomen, and that’s the fat that surrounds the liver, the pancreas, the stomach, and the intestines. Turns out, the more visceral fat a person has, the more fat surrounds the heart, and the more artery blockage from atherosclerosis can occur. So visceral fat — that the tire around the waist — is actually a predictor of heart attack and stroke.”
The ideal waist circumference in men should be less than 40 inches (102 centimetres) and for women, it’s less than 35 inches (79 centimetres), to avoid the risk of chronic diseases.
On the other hand, the disease risk directly drops if the weight deposition is more on the thighs and hip than the abdomen and waist. Gorfinkel clarified “That may be because hip and thigh circumference measures, not just fat but fat plus muscle,” Gorfinkel said. “We know that strong muscles protect from inflammation and that directly reduces the severity of chronic conditions.”
“As muscle strengthen, blood pressure tends to go down, cholesterol levels tend to improve, sugar levels tend to go down in diabetics, and heart attack and stroke risk go down as well. It’s not a one-size-fits-all, but a big waist circumference is far more dangerous than big hips and big thighs.” She concluded
Once the story hit the web, it did spread like fire. People expressed their anger and rage at the sexist and insensitive comments the man had passed. They furthermore advised u/Appropriate-Pea-156 to disassociate herself from such toxicity. As the people continued to comment, the Reddit user decided to open up more of her story in the comments section as well! Here’s what both the parties had to say;
12. Busting the double standards
13. You can’t demean him in public but he’s allowed to demean others in public?
Well, he needed this fact check for once at least! Or else it should have given him the push that he can disgrace others in public, that too women, despite him possessing the same body type.
14. Victim playing despite being the bad guy!
This comment perfectly lists down why and where he was at fault, still not even tried to understand his partner’s genuine disgust. Rather shutting his eyes to all his wrongdoings and playing the victim.
Obesity is the baseline from where most chronic diseases originate, it moreover increases the risk of declining health status while already suffering from a certain condition. Taking the example of Covid-19, an obese person would naturally be at a higher risk of mortality than a person who is of normal body weight as obesity leads to a compromised immune system. The mortality rate is 40% more in obese patients, due to the increased occurrence of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Doctor Gorfinkel further added, “Obesity ( especially central abdominal obesity) has a number of negative impacts on COVID-19 as well,”. “If somebody is really big, what winds up happening is that they have high levels of inflammation. Then if they’re struck by COVID-19, that inflammation can go ballistic, and a ‘cytokine storm’ can happen — that’s where the body’s own immune system attacks not only the virus but the body’s own cells. In other words, the immune system turns against the person’s body. And that can not only worsen pneumonia that COVID-19 can cause, but it can directly damage lung tissue.”
15. Well, you surely are NTA
16. Time to turn down ‘ boys will be boys ‘
17. Being a man doesn’t give you the trespass of being a sexist
Being overweight is not okay, regardless of gender. Obesity is a health condition that should seriously be addressed. However, jumping to conclusions right away is not an intelligent approach. People have their own struggles and problems. It’s not necessary somebody isn’t trying or determined to become a better version of themselves, there might be other reasons responsible for slow progress. Hereby, it’s better to be empathetic and not pass such comments…
18. This isn’t a gender-specific debate, it’s part of the HUMAN RACE
19. This one has a point
The human body is meant to change over the years. There are thousands of processes going on in the body, biological; chemical as well as physical, probably a million. All these processes end up inducing some changes in the body and these are known as physiological changes. Weight gain and weight loss are among the consequent changes too. You can’t keep the body inert, it’s meant to be dynamic.
20. You can do better than this, girl!
21. He’s just tryin’ to be ‘Mr know it all’
Apparently, this guy just can’t see someone being better than him especially his partner. He is the kind who wants to be the ‘superior’ one in the relationship and that is toxic! Relationships aren’t about comparisons and egos, it’s about compassion. Both of the partners have to invest an equal amount of positive energy to keep it going…
22. The world would be less negative without you…
There are different ways in which weight/fat gets deposited on the body. It varies from person to person. Hormones play a significant role in how fats get deposited on the body in males and females. Apple-shaped obesity is more common in males whereas females are prone to a pear-shaped obese body type. The rest only depends on the kind of lifestyle you have. It’s not that losing weight would only make you look good, it would also make you feel good. As mentioned above, obesity acts as a risk factor in the onset as well as the progress of many chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems, liver diseases, and stroke. Hereby losing that extra pounds deposited on the body would automatically make you healthy and less prone to disease.
There’s a lot that contributes to being obese/overweight. Considering the medical aspects, weight gain could be secondary to a specific disease condition, thyroid problems, other metabolic problems, and mobile status. Bringing into consideration the nutritional status; unhealthy food choices, dietary approaches, meal frequencies, meal patterns, meal timings, exercise regime, medication, and route through which the food is being administered also counts. Eating a well-balanced diet is enough to maintain a healthy weight. you don’t necessarily need to follow a crash diet to lose those extra pounds, there are ways through which you can lose weight and yet enjoy all food groups. Lifestyle changes such as inculcating a proper exercise regime in your daily routine also help maintain a healthy body and reduce stress which is another contributing factor to extra weight gain.
23. She had it enough…
We hope you find a better partner, for whom what matters is you not the amount of weight you put on!
However, lastly, we would like to state that mental health stands above all. Nobody, we repeat, nobody, has the license to disgrace you, especially that the other person itself isn’t so compliant to the stuff he wants you to take care of. Compromising over your mental health just to make a toxic relationship work out, makes you sick and question yourself. Oh and not to forget, it also affects your mental health status as well. You don’t necessarily have to keep trying to drag a relationship that is becoming toxic for you. If you see a red flag, that’s where you should make a decision rather than prolonging it. The more you prolong it, the harder it gets for you to get out of that relationship.
So, you must always choose your partner wisely rather than ignoring their red flags just to be with them or thinking to yourself that he or she can change for the good. Well, in some instances, people do change and there will be many occasions that you will get to observe those things but if you’re lazy enough, you will be stuck. There are better people out there and you will surely find your better half soon. Therefore, you should never rush!
Anyways, now we would like to know about your opinion in regards to the story and whether what the girl did was right or wrong? What do you have to say about body-shaming others? Did she make the right decision to move on? Do let us know about your viewpoint in the comments below!