Should YOU ever praise someone for weight loss?

The latest madness from the PC brigade: Don’t take pride in shedding the pounds – So, should YOU ever praise someone for weight loss?

• Sarah Vine and Natasha Devon debate praising someone for losing weight
• Columnist Sarah, says complimenting weight loss is a rule of female interaction
• Natasha argues commenting on weight could trigger an emotional trauma

Sarah Vine (pictured) argues most people would prefer to be slim than fat, if given a choice

YES 

By Sarah Vine, Columnist  

Not compliment someone who has lost weight? Are you insane? It is one of the basic rules of female interaction — like commenting favourably on someone’s haircut, or asking them where they bought their shoes, or saying how adorable their baby is (even if it’s patently hideous).

For most people — not all, of course — life after the age of 20 is one constant battle of the bulge.

The potential for calorific ambush lurks around every corner, and resistance requires an iron will.

Therefore, when you compliment someone on their weight loss, you are not merely commenting on their physical appearance, you are also, by implication, congratulating them on their mental and spiritual fortitude in the face of constant temptation.

In my case, mint chocolate chip ice-cream and pizza, mainly.

Like it or not, the idea that eating too much is sinful is entrenched in us from the word go.

Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, for heaven’s sake, and no amount of woke Generation Z social reprogramming, no amount of ‘bopo’ (body positive) role models, is going to eradicate that notion any time soon.

Society reveres the slim and chastises the chubby; it’s not nice, it’s not fair, but it is what it is.

That is why, regardless of what anyone says, if given a choice, most people would still prefer to be slim than fat.

Not only because it means they won’t have to die of heart disease and diabetes, but also — and possibly more importantly — because all the nice stuff in Zara only goes up to a size 16.

As an ex-fatty (roughly two years and counting), I understand only too well the denial that the overweight indulge in to counter their own feelings of inadequacy and shame.

Of course, people come in all shapes and sizes, and no one should feel inadequate because of the shape of their bottom or the size of their thighs. But being fat is a different matter.

Truth is, no four words fill me with as much joy as: ‘Have you lost weight?’ It’s like seeing a pair of magpies or a rainbow.

It lifts my mood, makes my spirits soar, gladdens my soul.

If that makes me shallow or sad, so be it. Or, to paraphrase La Moss: Nothing tastes as good as (being told you are) skinny feels.

Natasha Devon (pictured) argues commenting on someone’s weight could trigger an emotional trauma

NO 

By Natasha Devon, Mental health campaigner 

I can still hear the soft ‘thud’ of the envelope containing my university degree results hitting the mat almost 20 years ago.

Severe bulimia had transformed me from a slightly chubby straight-A sixth-former (who was also captain of the debate team, lead in the school play and deputy head girl) to an emaciated, miserable wreck too exhausted to show up to lectures.

But somehow, after making a momentous effort in the final few months of my degree, I’d managed to get a 2:1.

I ran into the kitchen to tell my family the good news. A friend of my mum’s was visiting. ‘You must be so proud, Natasha!’ she exclaimed. ‘Look at you! You’re stick-thin!’

I wish this had been an isolated incident, but it wasn’t. I, like many other thirtysomething women, grew up against a backdrop of unrelenting weight-chat white noise.

Now, according to the Mental Health Foundation, we’ve reached a stage where one in eight adults has felt suicidal because of body image concerns.

And yet, despite the burgeoning body positivity movement — which advocates taking pride in your body, whatever your size — it appears we haven’t learned a thing.

The recent social media furore over Adele’s 7 st weight loss just proves it.

The truth is, we don’t know the reasons why Adele, or indeed anyone, has lost weight. Studies show there are more than 100 unique factors that determine an individual’s body shape and size. They can be medical, genetic, hormonal, psychological or environmental.

It’s not as simple as making a visual assessment of a person, noticing they more closely resemble society’s narrow ideas about what it means to be healthy and beautiful, and concluding that they must therefore be happier. People are just as likely to lose weight because of heartbreak, bereavement or illness as they are through suddenly discovering a passion for jogging.

Commenting on someone’s weight can trigger an emotional trauma of which you have no clue.

I kept my eating disorder secret from even my closest friends. Every time I was praised for my shrinking waistline it threw fuel on the fire of my mental illness.

While we should be free to experiment with our bodies, no one should feel a pressure to conform. Yet still the incessant weight-chat dominates water coolers, coffee mornings and social media. No wonder, then, that the Girlguiding’s Girls’ Attitudes Survey found girls as young as seven already believe that society judges women more on their looks than their abilities.

We owe them, and ourselves, better. It’s 2020 and time we learned that other people’s bodies are none of our business.

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