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No, but are you willing to be empathetic with forum users who are struggling with weight issues and who will feel hurt by a physical condition they share being used as an insult?

I’ve been fortunate to have a life and metabolism that made an athletic build easy to maintain. That is until 3 years ago when injuries, age and lifestyle (stress, rushed meals, lockdowns) led to me losing muscle mass and replacing it with more fat than I’ve ever carried, around +25% body fat. That’s not terrible and I’m not saying I know what people with greater weight challenges feel like, but it was still enough to make me feel sad, frustrated, ashamed, multiple times every single day.

Fat comments don’t hurt me, but now I have a keen awareness of how emotionally difficult and acutely stressful it must be for people who don’t like their weight, and keep hearing comments and insults throughout their lives. I’d go so far as to compare it with the struggles depressed people face, feeling unable to change their painfully unhappy (or worse) lives, and being told they’re the problem and to stop being sad. The fact that many people eat to feel better, similar to how addicts shoot up to escape their lives, makes fat-shaming actively harmful to many people who are already hurt. Is the insult really worth it?