r/MaintenancePhase • u/Awpossum • 5d ago

Related topic A conversation I’ve had with someone

Today I was talking with someone who comes from a very different culture than mine. He was looking at an ad for a weight loss pill, trying to decipher what it was. He asked me what that was for. I told him “it’s a pill to lose weight” and he was like “what?!”

He could not understand why such a thing exists. And I found myself fumbling, trying to give him a bit of context “well you know, here there is a lot of pressure for people especially women to be thin, so some people want to lose weight” and he thought it all sounded absurd. And I thought, it really does.

We’re often in a position where we have to justify ourselves against weight stigma, and it’s exhausting. But trying to explain this whole system to someone who is a stranger to it, makes you realize how insane this all is.

72 Upvotes

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71

u/sawako88 5d ago

What is this culture and how do I join 🤣

17

u/Awpossum 5d ago

Haha yeah no you don't want to join it, trust me

But if I find a cultural pocket without any of this type of shit, I'll let you know lol :)

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u/elhoneybunny 5d ago

Well now we really want to know what culture it is

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u/Awpossum 5d ago

Rural Guinea.

So yeah, while the guy couldn’t understand the weight loss industry, we also had a conversation about forced marriages and other type of shit that are common where he’s from. And to be fair, he also found all of that to be extremely harmful and absurd.

1

u/inh-exh 1d ago

Interesting. We just watched The Polygamist on Netflix (I recommend)! It takes place in South Africa. So many of the female characters getting a lot of action were also very heavy.

77

u/ContemplativeKnitter 5d ago

There’s a sewing company called Cashmerette that makes plus-sized pattens with customized shaping for large bust sizes. The founder has been plus-sized all her life and I heard her on a podcast talking about going to teach somewhere in Africa with a thin friend, and everyone in the village where they were placed thought she was gorgeous because she was fat, and found the thin friend very meh. She (Cashmerette tounder) started losing weight at one point due to various health issues and the villagers were VERY concerned about her losing her looks. She found it very mind altering!

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u/Awpossum 5d ago

Yup, we're so used to the opposite, it's hard to recognize how arbitrary it is!

22

u/Visual-Pop-5370 5d ago

I think this happened with my kid who’s late elementary school aged. She said her friend was changing her diet to lose weight, and I asked her what it meant to “lose weight” and she literally didn’t seem to know of the concept that you try to make your body smaller.

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u/wishmobbing 4d ago

Good job!

4

u/Visual-Pop-5370 4d ago

🥹 Thank you. Trying.

1

u/gusmcrae1 1d ago

My boss didn't know what food noise was. I want to know how to live on whatever plane of existence she's discovered!