Over the last year, it’s likely fair to say that a lot more people than usual have had a firsthand lesson as to how much the body’s shape and weight can fluctuate as we live our lives.
But one thing we often hear from body positivity advocates is how much we’re conditioned to worry when we’re on the larger side of that spectrum. And that can have a subtle yet important effect on how we treat other people.
Indeed, people from all walks of life have reported how differently others treated them after they lost or gained weight and it’s sometimes had a significant effect on their mental health.
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But one woman’s story reveals both how unconsciously those attitudes can present themselves and the serious effects they can have.
On October 20, Katiria Duque of Houston, Texas uploaded a TikTok in which she described how her life changed after losing 150 pounds in 2019.
She said she had committed to doing this for personal reasons. She wanted to live with more energy, but she was also concerned about her health after her doctor told her she was at risk of diabetes.
But once her weight decreased, she noticed that strangers wanted to befriend her, the men who once ignored her were suddenly interested in buying her drinks, and she was even getting better job opportunities.
But while that likely sounds familiar to anyone who’s had a similar experience, Duque’s weight loss even affected her relationship with her family.
She noticed that they were more excited to see her and doted on her in a way they didn’t before. But there was one aspect of this treatment that stuck out in Duque’s mind the most because it made her cry.
As she put it, “For the first time ever, my grandma took a picture of me.”
Apparently, the thought of doing so for any reason had never occurred to her before.
Sadly, she said that this change “messed her up” in the sense that she started maintaining her weight for other people rather than herself.
Unfortunately, this led her to develop an eating disorder in which she would eat as little as possible and spend as much time as she could exercising.
In her words, “I was scared that if I gained the weight back, that everyone would hate me again.”
Nonetheless, she eventually took steps to overcome her disorder and start eating what she considered regular foods again.
However, since she gained all her previous weight back by doing this, she’s spent the last two years avoiding every event with her family and friends because she was worried about how they’d react to this change.
But while her story was heartbreaking for many of the 2.5 million people who watched it, that’s also not where it ends.
In a follow-up TikTok available here, she mentioned that soon after her grandma took the photo of her, she pointed out that she had never done so before.
This compelled her grandma to apologize as she hadn’t realized how much the way she was raised had influenced her. She then affirmed that she has always loved her and always will no matter how she looks.
Furthermore, the encouragement of Duque’s viewers helped her build up the courage to break this cycle of hiding herself and she ended up going to a wedding that all of her family attended.
As her video of this event shows, it seems she had a much better time than she expected to.
