Life on the Thin Side

I speak on behalf of all naturally thin women when I say, “Stop telling us to eat more and give us a break”.

Some of us have been battling to put on weight for as long as we can remember, so we are not the bad gals here. I personally do not like the term “skinny bitches” and books, which contain these words in the title, should not be published.

We are called names like bones, broomstick, toothpick and sparky (because when our knee bones touch, they may spark and cause a fire).

We are limited to participating in certain sports, and our wardrobe is also limited just like the overweight person.

Life isn’t always perfect on the thin side.

People tell us to get some meat on our bones. It isn’t so easy.

When we fill our stomachs to capacity with the various food groups, how can we eat more? Do we have an extra mouth in our ears, and an extra stomach in our gluteus maximus that science has refused to acknowledge?

‘We may eat more than you’

Has it ever occurred to you that we may eat more than you, but we are simply unable to put on weight?

I am not talking about women suffering from bulimia or anorexia. I am talking about the thin woman who eats at least three meals a day, has never fainted a day in her life, rarely gets sick, does not have a stressful career, has no complications delivering an eight pound baby, engages in recreational activities, and loves to eat, but battles to put on the pounds.

In other words, I am talking about what the bodybuilding industry calls “hardgainers”.

If we can gain weight by simply eating, then we would not be so thin and underweight because we have already tried stuffing ourselves until our faces turned blue. We can live on junk food for every meal, but our highly charged metabolism would simply burn all the calories.

‘Our complaints are ignored by our friends’

Our complaints are ignored by our friends, who find it ridiculous that we want to put on weight. Our parents are impatient with us, and call us miserable because we do not appreciate the ‘blessing’ of being thin.

People tend to ignore the fact that being too thin may increase a person’s risk of dying from diseases such as heart failure and cancer.

A study published online in Obesity by researchers at Statistics Canada, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, showed that underweight people were 70 percent more likely than people of normal weight to die, and extremely obese people were 36 percent more likely to die. So excuse me if I am not jumping up with excitement for having a higher metabolism or having fewer fat cells or having “lean genes” as explained by our doctors.

‘Some turn to steroids, others turn to alcohol for increasing appetite’

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we have tried them all. Some turn to steroids, others turn to alcohol for increasing appetite. I tried those protein shakes, the ones that are so thick that you require all the muscles in your throat to swallow. I stopped after I was informed of the side effects some of these drinks may have on the internal organs.

Try drinking an oat and fig punch in the night after a dinner of heavy provision. Have you ever seen a skinny person with a big belly? Yes, it is very possible, and can be frightening.

When family and friends tell us “we saw somebody skinner than you the other day” or “when you get pregnant, you will put on the weight” or ” by the time you reach 30 years, you will beg for God to remove all the fat”, it does not make us feel better or comforted. I am living proof that those explanations do not work… well at least for me!

So be a little more understanding when you see a thin person walking by.

Do not tell them you mistook them for a piece of dental floss. We will continue our battle to put on weight, and we are not going to give up because we know the importance of having a healthy weight for our age and height. So again I say, “Give us a break”.

Author bio: Simone Johnson is a skinny girl who’s tried it all… well everything except blowing herself up with an air pump. A teacher, she’s currently pursuing her Masters in Criminology.

This post was written by

Simone Johnson – who has written 1 posts for Outlish Magazine.

kfrancisco

I will be honest, I buy the whole– trying to gain weight if you are ‘a 90-pounds when wet’ size, or if you’re tiny boyish-shape, you feel excluded. But I don’t buy it completely. Your size is still more acceptable than being a person with considerable size on her. People will see passed your size 0 faster than they will passed my size 22. The world still predominantly loves thin.
I feel your pain on some levels, the whole health thing — i get it, and I’ll never blame a skinny chick for the way the world treats me, and neither should you. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. Screw the haters! Show off the fact that you can wear a piece of gauze as a tube top– you are thin and you should be proud!
Keep loving you my sister!

Toodles,
Verliz

Hi.. I certainly feel your pain. I spent all of my teens and early 20′s fluctuating between 99 and 100 pounds, and couldn’t WAIT for my metabolism to slow down some! Finally in mid-20′s, I started getting some meat, and was elated to be finally filling my pants, and not looking like i was ‘walking on my hands’. Fast forward to a pregnancy, 2 years of breastfeeding, and I’m still struggling to regain some meat.

However, European chicks don’t GET why I would want to put some padding on me. “I would KILL for your long, lean legs”, they say.. “NObody is ever happy!” While back home, people keep whining when they hear the kid’s still nursing, because he ‘takin everyting from yuh!’.. So.. like the jealous Europeans say, “Nobody is ever happy!”