Prejudices Against Underweight People

Our society is one that has progressed certain prejudices for a few hundred years. While there are many prejudices that people have that are addressed on a regular basis, there are certain ones that are rarely addressed, if at all. The prejudices that underweight people face on a regular basis are not realized by some, and ignored by others.

I have been underweight my entire life. While prejudices against underweight people are similar to the prejudices against overweight people are similar, there are differences in the ways that people address those prejudices, and pronounce them.

It is more common to hear someone being insulted to his or her face for being underweight then it is to hear someone insulted for being overweight. An underweight person will grow up being compared to an Ethiopian, a stick, a rail, a beanpole, and a skeleton. These are names that sometimes will follow the underweight person for the rest of his or her life. While many do not realize that these terms are fueled by a prejudice, the names still hurt.

If a person is overweight, it is not common to hear someone question them about his or her weight problem. It is very common to hear this about an underweight person. Many people would never even consider commenting on someone's weight problem if it caused the person to be overweight. The same respect does not go for those of us that are underweight. Instead, we deal with prejudices on a regular basis.

There have been multiple instances in my life where people have asked me if I was sickly because of the fact that I have always been underweight. In high school, I was tested for both anorexia and bulimia because of the fact that teachers saw that I would eat a lot of food, but never gain any weight. After the third time of being told that I had a quick metabolism, I realized that these tests were fueled by prejudices amongst the teaching staff.