milkycham:

problems with congratulating people on weight loss

• it might have been due to stress, depression or other non-celebratory factors
• it might have been due to an eating disorder. congratulating people with eating disorders on weight loss is like adding petrol to a fire and you can’t tell who’s got one by looking
• it might have been due to financial constraints
• it reiterates patriarchal standards of beauty, esp. when commenting on a girl’s body. it also suggests a certain amount of public ownership of one’s body
• not everyone considers weight loss an achievement or goal
• body comments can make the subject feel awkward regardless of positivity of comment
• weight loss is not inherently a good thing even if the person losing weight is ‘overweight’ or ‘obese’ (quotation marks are due to the total arbitrary nature of bmi calculations)