Warm sibling relationships—those with more affection and intimacy than conflict—are a great source of emotional support. But when things don’t work out, the safe haven that is your family quickly turns into a battlefield where insults are the guns and hurt feelings are the main objective.

Two days ago, a man (also referred to as the original poster, or OP) submitted a story to the popular ‘Am I the [Jerk]?’ subreddit, asking its 4 million members to share their take on the friction between him and his brother.

Everything started when the sibling, who had just gone through a divorce, crashed at the man’s place—the guest began objectifying OP’s wife, commenting on the weight she had gained. And it got so bad that he just had to react.

After his brother went through a messy divorce, this man offered to let him stay at his place

Image credits: RODNAE Productions (not the actual photo)

But it wasn’t long before he felt like he had to kick his sibling out

Image credits: Kaboompics .com (not the actual photo)

Image credits: Tirachard Kumtanom (not the actual photo)

Chris doesn’t think that his words can hurt anyone, but as life and wellness coach Alice E. Schluger, who also has a Ph.D. in psychology, pointed out, body-shaming may be considered a form of bullying. And it’s not exclusive to one group of people.

“Although body-shaming is usually associated with fat-shaming, people of all sizes and shapes can bear the brunt of this cruelty,” Dr. Schluger explained. “Being very slender, I have been subjected to irritating comments, such as ‘Don’t you eat?’ or ‘You eat like a bird.’ Even in a joking manner, remarks about what or how much food people are eating constitute body-shaming. People may think it’s a compliment to say how lucky you are to be thin, but words can be harmful especially if you’re already self-conscious about your weight. Even though you may not intend to hurt someone’s feelings, you may inadvertently be engaging in body-shaming.”

While Chris’s comments are definitely extreme, many of us can engage in body-shaming without even knowing it. That’s how deep we as a society have internalized it.

“How many times have you said to yourself that you feel fat or asked others if you look fat? You may not realize it, but these are also body-shaming practices,” Dr. Schluger said. “It implies that being fat is unattractive and something to be ashamed of. Let’s face it—we only have a certain degree of control over our genetic makeup and metabolism. Although people don’t choose to be overweight, weight biases remain widespread in many societies and the fat-shaming practices continue. This becomes a vicious cycle because the shame of weight discrimination contributes to stress and more weight gain.”

So even if you have the best intentions, guilt-tripping someone into what you think is better for them will probably cause the opposite effect.

The sad part is that Chris refused to hear what his brother was telling him. Even if he was to look at the whole situation from an egoistic point of view—a longitudinal study of university students found that when pursuing personal goals, sibling support is as advantageous as that from parents and peers—he probably should apologize if he wants to stay in contact with his brother.

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