Weighty subject matter

Though many consider it the ultimate compliment, Sarah Jessica Parker recently said she doesn't like being skinny. Stop talking about weight altogether, says Helen Coffey

- Helen Coffey

“You’re looking really trim – have you lost weight?”

I overheard a woman saying this to her friend this week as they greeted one another at a cafe. It’s a comment I’ve heard women make hundreds, if not thousands, of times; a comment I myself have made and received hundreds, if not thousands, of times. For as long as I can remember, it’s been the unspoken benchmark when it comes to compliments. Want a woman to feel really good about herself? Forget telling her that her new haircut is sensational, or that you love her shoes, or even that she’s beautiful. Instead, tell her that she looks that most coveted of prizes: thin.

People rarely use the word itself – a thinly veiled insult that likely suggests someone looks ill, the same way that saying someone looks “tired” means they resemble human garbage – trading it instead for its more socially acceptable siblings. Trim, slim, slender, lean, svelte, willowy: we all know what they really mean underneath.

I’ve heard this form of praise so frequently, in fact, that I would normally scarcely notice it being uttered by strangers in a public setting. But it’s not always the flattering trophy of womanhood we think it is, as Sarah Jessica Parker’s recent comments on her body have proven. “A lot of people have… their cross to bear,” Parker told beauty expert Caroline Hirons on her podcast, Glad

We Had This Chat. “I don’t like being thin. And if you met my siblings, it’s the same genetic make-up, and I don’t particularly think or celebrate being thin. I would prefer to have weight but that’s just the way my body works.”