“My wife was healthy, happy and beautiful before, at least to me. Now it feels like she's bought into this idea that thinner is always better”.

Sean Moncrieff, Barbara Scully and Shane Beatty shared adult advice on what to do when you're not happy about your partner's weight. 

This week on So You Think You’re an Adult, one man asked how he can ask his wife to regain weight after her rapid weight loss.

“I've been married to my wife for over a decade. I've always found her incredibly attractive”, he told Moncrieff. 

“She used to have what I'd call a naturally curvy figure,but recently she started taking Ozempic and the weight's just fallen off her.

“I know I'm supposed to say she looks great and everyone else seems to think so.

“Friends compliment her. Social media is full of people praising dramatic weight loss and she seems pleased with the attention. But if I'm being honest, I'm not a fan of it.

“She's now so thin that it's changed our sex life and even our cuddle time on the couch. Sometimes it feels like I'm holding a bag of bones rather than the woman I'm used to. I miss her softness.

“Why does it feel like so many women are chasing thinness at any cost? 

“I would love for her to put on a few kg, but how do I bring it up?”

Adult advice: The return of thinness

Broadcaster Barbara Scully said the adult advice question hit the ‘proverbial nail on the head’ by addressing a general return to thinness in present society. 

“Back in the 90s, we had heroin chic”, she explained.

“There was rightly then a pushback and an acknowledgement that, many of us live in bigger bodies and they're quite healthy

“We had shops where you'd see mannequins that were actually a little bit more curvy than previously.

“It looked like we'd made progress. Then along come these GLP-1s, medications like Ozempic and Mounjaro. 

“It seems like we're gone right back to where we were in the 90s with these women who think that, you know, looking beautiful means being really painfully thin.” 

A store in New York promotes their inventory of plus size fashions. Picture by: Richard B. Levine. 

She questioned when society would stop telling women how they should present themselves to the world and when women would learn to stop associating thinness with health. 

“The bottom line is, unfortunately, is that I believe equality, true equality is about choice”, she said about the man’s query. 

She said that despite his feelings, he had no right to critique his wife’s choices but could try to gently restore her self-esteem. 

“An awful lot of women aren't comfortable with getting older or being bigger, have low self-esteem, feel that their worth is completely tied up in how they look”, she explained. 

“I would encourage her to know how beautiful she is regardless.”

While host Sean Moncrieff argued that the man’s query was infused with sadness, broadcaster Shane Beatty showed disbelief in the man’s sincerity. 

“I don't buy for a second that he cares about societal pressure for women or he's worried about the culture of thinness”, he said. 

“I don't think he cares about that. I'm not sure men really care about the culture of thinness.

They're not thinking about that. 

“I think maybe he's more into being some sort of a control freak who likes to control the way his wife looks and he isn't happy that she went off and did this for herself. 

“You can't tell people what to do with their weight and you can't tell people to stop. It's not like a tap that you switch on and off.”

Main Image: Stubborn couple avoid talking to each other after fight. Picture by: Alamy.