Stop teachers discriminating/ commenting on student’s weight.

How would you feel if someone who had a position of power over you and who you were supposed to trust commented on your weight (and not in a concerned way)? Would you feel attacked? Upset? Angry? 

Well unfortunately this happens way too often in UK schools, teachers comment on their Pupils’ weight and get away with it. It happened to me this morning. 

Today I had a mock, we were to go to the exam hall in our designated form time whilst being escorted by our tutor. My school is very strict on skirt lengths and so we were told that upon reaching the exam hall they would be checked. The point came up that there is no time for that before an exam and my tutor counteracted it saying there should be ‘no time to roll [our] skirts up”. At this point I made the point that many people roll their skirts to make them fit as we “can’t buy new ones months before the end of Year 11”. After this point I was met with a striking comment: “yeah well not everyone is a stick like you Hazel”. I was taken aback to say the least. I have been trying to become more confident and my body and my weight and in a split second a teacher I’m supposed to trust tore me down.

This happens to way too many people, shaming children for how their bodies are is wrong no matter how you try to excuse it; simply imagine if it had been the other way around, a comment about how I’m not skinny enough to fit the skirts etc. These types of comments and discrimination shouldn’t be tolerated from an adult in a position of power by young people, no matter who it’s aimed at. Weight shaming is wrong on all levels and something needs to be done to stop it in schools.

Thank you.