It was nice at first, because, as you said, there was some pride in being recognized as smaller than average.

Then the comments from parents and larger friends always critiquing my diet made me raise my eyebrow. I am a Nutrition PhD student, I think I can feed myself.

Then the constant fatlogic and misinformation made me angry. No, eggs will not kill you. No, just eat with moderation, balance, and variety. No, alcohol actually is a poison that your body just has a really awesome way of detoxing. No mom, you can't cut all carbs out of your life -- that isn't really balance now is it? No hairstylist, GMOs won't kill you either. No, if you are going to give blood that often you need to ingest more iron, dumbass.

Then I let it all go. Others don't understand. They don't want to understand. They don't care about science, logic, or my opinion on my own research. I go about my life until one day I was in a store trying to find clothing in my size. The store clerk said that I need to go shop at Justice across the way. The bra saleswoman told me my boobs are too small. The women in the next dressing room are loudly called out my flaws. 'She's so skinny, I bet she's one of those anorexic sluts," or "skinny people like her look like shit," or "people like her give our kids eating disorders." A couple days later a coworker demeaned me in front of my students. Then I got depressed. What did I do to gain their scorn? Be at the lower end of the healthy BMI range? Maybe I'm just really ugly? Maybe they were jealous -- nah, that is a pretty self-absorbed thought. They were probably just having a bad day. Then I noticed the amount of mean and demeaning comments I receive in general. Why do these people hate me when all I've done is walk into a room? I started apologizing a lot and rarely talked or did things out of turn since my very presense was offensive.

But it kept getting worse. Somedays it felt like I was back in highschool. Luckily, one day I just stopped hearing it and it has been pleasant ever since.