Credit: SWNS / Issy Montgomery
A woman who lost 11 stone after two weight loss surgeries says she has 'skinny privilege' now she is smaller - and strangers treat her differently.
Issy Montgomery, 24, had always been “big” but found herself piling on the weight during lockdown and was soon tipping the scales at 24st 11lbs and bursting out of a size 32.
She had always struggled with yo-yo dieting and couldn’t find anything that worked for her when it came to keeping the weight off.
Issy changed up her diet and looked into weight loss surgery and had a gastric sleeve in September 2022 on the NHS.
A woman who lost 11 stone after two weight loss surgeries says she has 'skinny privilege' now she is smaller - and strangers treat her differently.
Issy Montgomery, 24, had always been “big” but found herself piling on the weight during lockdown and was soon tipping the scales at 24st 11lbs and bursting out of a size 32.
She had always struggled with yo-yo dieting and couldn’t find anything that worked for her when it came to keeping the weight off.
Issy changed up her diet and looked into weight loss surgery and had a gastric sleeve in September 2022 on the NHS.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00 It makes me quite angry to think that I was treated so differently back then.
00:04 When I say about skinny privilege or pretty privilege, that is not everyone falling at
00:27 your feet, not everyone suddenly fancying the pants off you and wanting to date you and things like
00:33 that. It's, for me, my experience of it is like really basic human things that people probably
00:39 don't even really think about. Things, literally things like someone holding the door open for you
00:45 in a corridor or someone smiling at you from across the street, things like that. You know,
00:52 walking into like a break room at work and people actually talking to you and wanting to have a
00:57 conversation with you. Real basic things that maybe, and I'm not saying for everyone, but maybe
01:04 for people that haven't been big that is just normal for them. But when you've been big,
01:09 you realise that you don't get that same experience, you don't get treated the same.
01:15 And I find it quite sad because when I first started losing the weight, I'm not going to lie,
01:21 I'm not overly happy to share it, but I always said I'd be truthful. It was a bit of motivation
01:28 for me because I've never had that before. So then all of a sudden I was like, "Oh, people are
01:33 being nice to me. I quite like this feeling. This is lovely." And so it drives you to do more.
01:57 But I've been at the weight that I'm at, so I'm around 15 stone now and I keep fluctuating a
02:03 little bit, but I've lost nearly 10 stone. And because I've been here for quite a while,
02:08 I've reflected back on the journey a little bit more. And it makes me quite angry to think that
02:15 I was treated so differently back then to what I am now, because I am still the same person.
02:21 I'm no different. I still treat people the same. When I was bigger, I always treat people with
02:27 kindness and respect. I was always super friendly to people. And I just think, "Why didn't I get the
02:34 same back just because I was bigger?" I'm still the exact same person. And I embarked on this
02:41 journey for my health. I could barely walk without being out of breath. My legs hurt after walking up
02:47 the stairs, things like that. But equally, I know that there's people that are bigger that are
02:53 comfortable with that and happy with that. And I'm not going to tell anyone how to live their life,
02:57 but it makes me quite sad to think that they probably live their life without getting
03:01 some of the basic respect and decency that a thinner person would. So for me, my experience,
03:07 it's really real. And it's quite hard to deal with sometimes mentally, to be fair.
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