Diet and fitness culture while physically healthy, isn’t really good for your mental health, is it? Especially when people promote losing weight instead of being healthier. They relate working out to being this and attractive instead of being healthy. 

With all beauty and body standards that we grew up with, sometimes you can be body shaming a person without even realizing that you are. Most of them time, you might not mean what you’re saying in a bad way, but you don’t realise how it impacts the other person. 

As a friend, you always want to empower and lift your friends up. To do just that and avoid accidentally body shaming them, here are some of the things you need to stop saying and doing: 

1. Saying “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful”

While you might be thinking that this is a way for you to cheer up your friend, saying this actually means that a person who is fat isn’t beautiful. Sometimes people try to reclaim negative words like fat and try and view their size from a neutral place by accepting it. 

When you tell them this, you’re telling them that fat and beautiful are two things that cannot be together. You are suggesting that only this is attractive. 

2. Saying “Did you loose weight? You look great!”

Firstly, did I not look great before this? Secondly, when you say this, you’re suggesting that any kind of weight loss whether it is intentional or unintentional is good or that the person looked worse when they were larger in size. 

Weight loss isn’t always healthy, and it isn’t correlated to happiness. Some people are unhappy with their weight, and they starve themselves or purge themselves just to lose weight. That’s why you should never related a compliment with a person losing weight. Just say “You look great”.

3. Giving any uninvited diet or exercise advice

So, you think by not commenting on a person’s weight but instead talking about their diet or exercise routine is good? When you give a person eating or workout advice, you start making them feel uncertain and insecure about their bodies. 

You, telling them to work out or eat healthier, is like telling them that they need to change the way they look because they don’t look good. 

4. Saying “You’re so brave for wearing that” or “You’re so brave for exercising”

You might think that telling someone that their brave is empowering but, in this case, it really isn’t. People should be allowed to do or wear whatever they want, whenever they want and wherever they want. Most of the time people dress a certain way or workout to feel empowered and strong. 

When you say things like that, you’re implying that working out a dressing a certain way in spite of their body size is an act of bravery when in reality it is completely normal for someone to wear whatever they want or even workout. Why is it that when I do it, it is suddenly called bravery? 

5. Talking about your body weight

When you say things like “ I look fat today” or “Do I look fat?” to your friends, you are implying that being fat is a negative thing. When you do things like complain about your tummy or your thighs in front of friends who have a higher weight than you, that is shaming, it is literally exactly the same as you, calling them fat. 

You are trying to say that there is a relation to your body size and the word fat, even though you are far from it. The friend you are talking to might be just a few kgs heavier then you but it will make them feel closer to being fat.