This is Thin Privilege

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Gluten Free

Recently I have started a gluten free diet because I have a suspected gluten-intolerance (not the same as Celiac FYI) but it’s not 100% proven because I would have to pay a specialist a ridiculous amount of money to be allergy tested ($800 AU). My GP said that he believed I probably had a gluten intolerance and to adopt a gluten free diet for the foreseeable future as I told him that already doing so had helped with my symptoms considerably. Unfortunately, blood tests cannot diagnose an allergy to gluten, it will only detect Celiac Disease.

Anyway, so I haven’t been eating gluten for quite some time now and it’s made me feel so much better, a big indicator that this was what made me feel tired and gave me stomach cramps that were so bad I had to stay at home from University. But now of course, I have to ask when I go out to eat if certain things are gluten free and I have to explain to people that I don’t eat gluten.

And the number one response? Not ‘oh, are you Celiac? Are you allergic to wheat?’ or something like that. No, nearly every single time the reaction is 'is it because you’re on one of those diets or something?’ or 'are you doing it to lose weight?’.

And I have to wonder; would I get these questions if I wasn’t fat? I am small fat, what you would probably call an in-between person (about 50% of the time I fit into the top end of straight-size clothing, depending on the store) but I am also a big person. I’m tall with wide shoulders and hips. I doubt that I would if I looked like the other two people I know who have the same condition, both of whom are below 5'5" and are size 8-10 (I don’t know what that is in US sizes, sorry!)

Another thing that has annoyed me too is looking up gluten free recipes and being bombarded with “GREAT WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT” and “LOW FAT AND GREAT FOR YOU!” as the number one selling points of these products or recipes. Why should laying off gluten immediately be about being thin and therefore some sort of 'good person’?

Thin privilege is being able to have special dietary requirements and not have people assume this is because you are trying to lose weight.

Oh, and I haven’t lost any weight since the change in my diet. Funny, that.

Notes

  1. sailorzeo said: Same here. I told my family I was going gluten-free, and when I saw them six months later, first words out of my aunt’s mouth were, “You don’t look like you’ve lost any weight on that diet.” Never mind the improvement to my mental health.
  2. moonlight-raven said: I go through the same thing. Since I gave up gluten all my bad stomach symptoms have disappeared but since I’m a bigger person people assume its to lose weight. I know how tiring it is explaining to people you have an allergy.
  3. redonkbadonk reblogged this from redonkbadonk and added:
    Also FUCK YOU to that person that replied to this saying we are taking this “too personally”. FUCK OFF and stop policing...
  4. killerzebras said: I straight up say “I can’t have dairy, it makes me sick”, which stops most of those conversations before they start. I still have to deal with the “OMG I could neeeeever give up (food item)!!!” people, but nothing’s perfect.