Edel Coffey: How to be kind and give a compliment without commenting on people's bodies

Picture: Bríd O'Donovan

I was at an event recently and bumped into a friend who I hadn’t seen for a while. She looked great, and had also clearly lost weight. I told her how well she looked and complimented her on the weight loss.

As soon as it was out of my mouth, I wanted to kick myself. Why couldn’t I have stopped at the “you look great” part of the comment? I felt ashamed and regretful because what I know, from experience, is that telling someone that they look great because they have lost weight comes with a whole minefield of tiny cultural inferences that have potentially massive impacts.

It also reinforces the idea that thin equals good; thin equals beautiful; thin equals right. I chastised myself for being so careless and vowed not to comment on people’s bodies in that way again.

The memory returned last week as the singer Ariana Grande took to TikTok to gently ask her fans and people in general to stop commenting on her body. She explained that she was currently healthy and the body that fans were comparing her current look to was actually the result of unhealthy eating and a difficult period in her life.

Grande was relaxed as she said: “I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, no matter what. If you think you’re saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is, healthy or unhealthy, big or small, this or that, sexy or not sexy, we should really work towards not doing that as much.”

She made a great point. Even if we think we are complimenting someone, we may be touching on sensitive areas or reinforcing damaging ideas about our bodies. We are, myself included, still far too comfortable commenting on how people look.

COMPLIMENTING A PERSON - FOR WHO THEY ARE

As the video went viral, other celebrities started to comment, including the model Bella Hadid, who has had difficulties with disordered eating and body dysmorphia. Supporting Grande’s post, Hadid also pointed out that there are lots of ways to compliment a person. She even posted a list of alternative compliments that included things such as “I love how you listen to me without judgment”, “you are the most incredible friend”, and “you make the world a better place”.

I actually loved this list of ‘non-appearance compliments’ because when I think of the people I love, the things that matter to me are not how they look but how they are, and who they are. 

The people I love have changed appearance over the years, but my love for them has not changed. And I am grateful to discover that as my body has changed, the people who love me still love me. 

Because it’s not bodies we love, it’s people. Not their thinness, their fatness, their muscle tone, but simply them. Our total human beauty doesn’t come from our appearances, but from who we are and how we treat people.

From Selena Gomez to Adele to Lizzo, women are always either too thin or too fat but somehow never just right. 

The critical mass of public figures requesting that people stop commenting on their bodies gives me hope that we might be moving towards a more progressive culture.

BRAINWASHING

It will take some doing, considering we have been brainwashed by our culture and media to equate thinness not just with beauty, but with achievement, goodness, moral superiority, amongst other things and where drugs such as Ozempic are being used to achieve thinness.

It’s obvious from what famous women and men have told us that the kind of commentary we tolerate about bodies is extremely damaging. Marking the 25th anniversary of the release of Titanic, Kate Winslet talked about how people spoke about her body as a young actor.

“If I could turn back the clock, I would’ve used my voice in a completely different way. I would have absolutely said to journalists: ‘Don’t you dare treat me like this. I’m a young woman, my body is changing, I’m figuring it out, I’m deeply insecure, I’m terrified, don’t make this any harder than it already is. That’s bullying, you know, and actually borderline abusive,’ I would say.”

She also objected to how pervasive the body judgment is, right down to the words used to women on the red carpet saying “cuts a fine figure” or looks “svelte”.

“Don’t even say it,” she said. “We don’t say that about the men. It’s such an irresponsible thing to do and it feeds directly into young women aspiring to ideas of perfection that don’t exist … Bodies are bodies. Everyone’s beautiful.”

I, for one, will be keeping my body-related comments to myself from now on and living by Winslet’s wise words.