congratulations?

There's an interesting post on Big Fat Blog today about whether to congratulate people on weight loss or not. The author says he doesn't do it, that "Offering up a positive retort only serves to reinforce the idea, ultimately, that it is bad to be fat. The simple congratulations - even if stated in a meaningless fashion, even if you really don't care, even if it's awkward to say nothing - means that one supports the status quo."

I think this is a little simplistic. There are different kinds of weight loss. And I don't think it does the fat acceptance movement any good to deny that obesity can be bad for your health--it just makes us look simple-minded and self-deluded. If someone is tired of aching joints, or is at risk for a stroke from high blood pressure, or really needs to get their diabetes under control, who am I to tell them not to lose weight? My concern would be that they do it in a healthy way, not starving themselves or going on dangerous fad diets. If they did that, they would liikely just gain the weight back, possibly with extra.

Someone very close to me recently lost a lot of weight that was slowly (and not-so-slowly) killing him. I'm incredibly proud of him, and I'm glad he did it, so I will be able to enjoy his company for years to come. (Well, that's not to say he couldn't get hit by a train tomorrow. But still.) To me, that's like congratulating someone on their cancer going into remission. It's not like they're dieting to get closer to the stick-thin unrealistic ideal of beauty our society holds up, which is behavior that shouldn't be encouraged.

Where I don't congratulate is when people who are already healthy lose 20 pounds starving themselves on bullshit diets like Master Cleanse. If they fish for compliments, my stock answer is "I thought you looked fine already". And I absolutely refuse to take part in those bizarre, ritualistic self-loathing rounds that so many women indulge in. You know what I mean: someone says "Waaah, I need to lose X number of pounds! I really hate the size of my Y body part(s)!", someone else adds their bit of self-hatred to the pile, and everyone looks at you expectantly? I usually say "I'm perfectly healthy, and I think I look good, so I'm okay"

I've lost a noticable amount of weight in the past year, since selling my car and riding my bicycle/walking a lot more. It annoys me when people compliment me on my "weight loss". To me the more important aspect is how much better I feel--I'm still a size 18-20 and likely will never be smaller, nor do I have any burning desire to be so. However, the way I feel isn't really visible to others, so I try to take their remarks for the compliments they no doubt mean them to be.