“Do You Have A Stomach Tumor, Or Are You Just Fat?”: Karen Attacks Pregnant Woman In Store
Interview With Author
As much as we humans are good at brightening each other’s day, we’re equally capable of ruining it. This was exemplified in a recent Reddit post by a woman named Consequence-Prize.
Four months pregnant, she had a distressing experience at Walmart when a rude and intrusive elderly lady took issue with her belly.
The lady followed her from aisle to aisle and felt entitled to make insensitive comments even though she should have kept them to herself.
From morning sickness to backache and beyond, pregnant women face a number of everyday challenges
Image credits: seventyfourimages/Envato elements (not the actual photo)
But this woman also had to endure an additional one
Image credits: lucigerma/Envato elements (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Consequence-Prize
Body-shaming is never the answer
We got in touch with the Redditor and she said she has never experienced anything like this before.
“It was a very strange interaction,” the woman told Bored Panda. “A few people noticed, but I didn’t raise my voice, so those who did went about their business.”
According to her, it’s quite common in the city she lives in to be ignored when you end up in such a situation.
“I couldn’t tell you why the lady asked such a rude question other than maybe trying to belittle me,” the Redditor said, adding that she has noticed a lot of local older women seem to love drama, gossip, and being rude to those they have deemed “bad.”
“People around here can be quite invasive and entitled,” she said.
Indeed, it’s very difficult to understand what the lady was hoping to achieve. Fat-shaming isn’t just rude; it can make a person feel ashamed, inferior, anxious, or guilty about their body. Some experts even argue that it can contribute to obesity by creating unhealthy relationships with food.
The sad part is this form of bullying isn’t exclusive to random encounters at the mall. Angela Alberga, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Applied Physiology at Concordia University, believes anti-fat bias is rampant in all parts of society, including medicine.
Image credits: AllGo – An App For Plus Size People/Pexels (not the actual photo)
According to Alberga, studies show that exposure to weight bias triggers physiological and behavioral changes linked to poor metabolic health and increased weight gain. “You actually experience a form of stress,” she said. Cortisol spikes, self-control drops, and the risk of binge eating increases.
In fact, the more people are exposed to weight bias and discrimination, the more likely they are to gain additional pounds and become obese, even if they are thin to begin with.
Alberga explained that fat-shaming is also linked to depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, eating disorders, and exercise avoidance. Emerging research suggests that the severity of harm increases when people internalize weight bias and turn it on themselves.
More Americans than ever are dealing with the health consequences of obesity as rates of the disease in the United States (and other parts of the world) reach an all-time high.
Over half (52 percent) of Americans believe people with obesity are “fat-shamed” all or most of the time, and 34 percent say that they themselves or someone they know have experienced it firsthand. Among those with obesity, that number rises to 43 percent.
Even if you have good intentions, pointing fingers and playing the blame game doesn’t help anyone. It just makes matters worse.
“The only thing I can add since a lot of people [who read my story] were trying to accuse me of being mean to [someone] with dementia is that she had no signs of mental illness,” the Redditor said. “She was dressed in a lovely outfit and had a very clean, newer car. (She was putting her groceries into her vehicle before she began to follow me.)”
Consequence-Prize asked around and said, “A few people I’m familiar with know her through their church and confirmed she has always been like that; she believes she has a right to people’s private life so she can tell them how to fix it. She is just one of those people.”
People have been very supportive of the pregnant woman
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For the second time this week, another personal anecdote as an excuse to drag a whole generation. No, l'm not a boomer, but l'm done with these generalisations.
Yep. We go from "I've never once had a situation like that" to "boomers suck." All of them, because of one situation with one person.
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Has anyone even stopped to consider that this could have been an early sign of dementia or Alzheimer's instead of just immediately assuming all boomers are rude a******s? Early signs of these diseases are often examples just like this.
My mother always had her "comments" on everyone, but usually kept it to herself, only 'reporting it' once home. As she began suffering from dementia, her 'filters' went away and she was saying out loud, in public, that this person was fat, or ugly, or she didn't like the hairstyle/color, telling [race] to go back to his/her country, etc. My brother, who had the 'pleasure' to go to doctor's appointment with her, kept shushing her, but she would answer "why should I keep it down? If I'm thinking that, then it's true!". She even tapped the shoulders of strangers to tell them that she liked/disliked something about them. About 3 years of dementia before she passed away at 98-11/12 y/o.
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Just after high school, I worked at a nursing home. I was fat, but nothing like I am now. One of the clients, who had dementia, liked to sit on the porch. I'd usually see her there as I came to work in the afternoon. Every time I came in, she'd pat my belly and ask when I was due. I usually had an extra five or ten minutes, so I'd sit down and tell her all about the baby I wasn't having. Shed even ask questions that showed she understood what I was saying. The next day, when I'd come in, same thing. She was, at that point, as innocent as a child, and it was nice having her engage in a conversation.
That’s a sweet story! My mother used to work in a nursing home, but the only story she ever told me was, when she was taking this old lady to have a bath and the old lady wasn’t apparently too keen, this old man thought my mom was ‘bothering his wife’ (the old man and old woman weren’t married), so he punched my mother… and he apparently used to do some boxing. He stopped after one punch when my mother called for help because he became scared he’d get into trouble; poor bloke was just a bit confused.
Load More Replies...
For the second time this week, another personal anecdote as an excuse to drag a whole generation. No, l'm not a boomer, but l'm done with these generalisations.
Yep. We go from "I've never once had a situation like that" to "boomers suck." All of them, because of one situation with one person.
Load More Replies... Has anyone even stopped to consider that this could have been an early sign of dementia or Alzheimer's instead of just immediately assuming all boomers are rude a******s? Early signs of these diseases are often examples just like this.
My mother always had her "comments" on everyone, but usually kept it to herself, only 'reporting it' once home. As she began suffering from dementia, her 'filters' went away and she was saying out loud, in public, that this person was fat, or ugly, or she didn't like the hairstyle/color, telling [race] to go back to his/her country, etc. My brother, who had the 'pleasure' to go to doctor's appointment with her, kept shushing her, but she would answer "why should I keep it down? If I'm thinking that, then it's true!". She even tapped the shoulders of strangers to tell them that she liked/disliked something about them. About 3 years of dementia before she passed away at 98-11/12 y/o.
Load More Replies... Just after high school, I worked at a nursing home. I was fat, but nothing like I am now. One of the clients, who had dementia, liked to sit on the porch. I'd usually see her there as I came to work in the afternoon. Every time I came in, she'd pat my belly and ask when I was due. I usually had an extra five or ten minutes, so I'd sit down and tell her all about the baby I wasn't having. Shed even ask questions that showed she understood what I was saying. The next day, when I'd come in, same thing. She was, at that point, as innocent as a child, and it was nice having her engage in a conversation.
That’s a sweet story! My mother used to work in a nursing home, but the only story she ever told me was, when she was taking this old lady to have a bath and the old lady wasn’t apparently too keen, this old man thought my mom was ‘bothering his wife’ (the old man and old woman weren’t married), so he punched my mother… and he apparently used to do some boxing. He stopped after one punch when my mother called for help because he became scared he’d get into trouble; poor bloke was just a bit confused.
Load More Replies...
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