The tides seem to have shifted away from the damaging body-shaming practices of the early aughts. For the most part, supporting characters in your favorite new sitcoms no longer bear the brunt of unamusing “fat” jokes. Celebrities aren’t constantly lambasted in the media for their weight. Diet culture has been brought from a rolling boil to a gentle simmer.

But body talk hasn’t come to a complete halt. It’s just popping up in other, more publicly acceptable, yet just as detrimental, ways. The ruse: compliments.

It’s something Nohemi Lopez, RDN, has noticed repeatedly over the years as a registered dietitian nutritionist, working with folks recovering from eating disorders. Just recently, one client—a woman who’s in the recovery process for anorexia—came home from a supportive long-term treatment program and, about three weeks later, suddenly began to struggle to the point of potential relapse, Lopez says. The trigger? The client had visited her grandmother, who made many “positive” comments that highlighted her “thin” body, according to Lopez.

It took about four weeks of work for Lopez and her client to undo the damage created in just a few days with those types of interactions, she says.

“It doesn’t have to be a negative comment for it to impact,” Lopez says. “The thing is, especially for people with eating disorders, they’re already super hyperfocused on their body. Any comment somebody makes kind of just reminds them that, ‘Oh, wait, people are noticing my body. Maybe I should try to make it look a certain way, so I have this outward approval of other people who are obviously noticing my body.’”

Within the population at large, 57 percent of Gen Z and Millennial individuals report receiving comments about their appearance at least once a week, according to a 2021 survey of 4,000 adults published by Verywell Mind. And 76 percent of people who receive body comments at least once a week worry about their appearance just as frequently, per the survey results.

It’s not surprising that body-related comments—even those meant to be positive or complimentary—are so common, according to Jenna DiLossi, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in cognitive-behavioral treatments for eating disorders and body image concerns.

“We live in such a weight-biased, fatphobic society that it bleeds into our [daily lives],” Dr. DiLossi says. “It’s so a part of our culture that, without even realizing it, people do say things like that.”

To many, tossing out statements like, “You look incredible!” and “You’re so skinny!” to someone who has recently lost weight seems as natural—and equally as kind—as telling them “I love your outfit,” or “You’re so smart,” Dr. DiLossi says. “And they genuinely mean it from a positive place and have no awareness as to how and why that might be harmful.”

Good intentions aside, appearance-related comments have been linked to negative body image, especially in adolescents, which may increase the risk of eating disorders and depression, according to research published in Health Psychology Open¹. This disturbance in self-image can occur whether you’re on the receiving end or simply being exposed to these types of interactions, per the journal. Simply feeling that others are judging your appearance has been linked with a stronger cortisol response and higher self-reported stress, a 2019 Stress Health² study found.

But why can a seemingly innocent comment have such a serious impact?

“We live in such a weight-biased, fatphobic society that it bleeds into our [daily lives].” —Jenna DiLossi, PsyD

The harms of commenting on someone’s body

Unless you exchange every detail of your life with each person you regularly meet, you rarely know the driving force behind a person’s change in weight or size. The woman you see occasionally at cycling classes who looks thinner, for example, may be recovering from a miscarriage, grieving the death of a loved one, or experiencing depression or another mental health concern.

“To have their body be celebrated because this really tragic event happened can feel really invalidating for their experience,” Lopez says.

Even if a person’s body changes are intentional, the exact journey they took to get there often isn’t out in the open. And in some circumstances, it may not be a healthy one. Your colleague may be following a restrictive fad diet, taking appetite-suppressant drugs, or engaging in disordered eating habits to quickly lose a few pounds, Dr. DiLossi says.

“We don’t want to be praising”—and, in turn, potentially reinforcing—“something that actually could be harmful,” she says.

A compliment sends the message that a smaller body is a better body, regardless of the methods used to achieve it. Once the “positive” comments roll in, the recipient might feel compelled to lose even more weight, potentially with those damaging methods that could snowball into more serious concerns like diagnosable eating disorders, Dr. DiLossi says.

This validation of toxic behaviors is a particular concern for folks who live in larger bodies and also have an eating disorder, such as someone who has atypical anorexia, says Avina Khiatani, PhD, a licensed psychologist and assistant professor at Immaculata University with a background in treating eating and body image concerns. These individuals meet all the criteria for anorexia nervosa and may experience extreme, rapid weight loss—which can lead to cardiac problems and bone and muscle loss—but aren’t underweight.

“Anytime someone loses weight in an extreme way or very quickly, it’s super unhealthy, but oftentimes these individuals are praised,” Dr. Khiatani says. “This is especially common when someone who is fat loses weight—their disorder is completely unseen and even treated as healthy, which just keeps it going.”

When the changes are created via healthful, sustainable practices, commentary and praise still over-inflate the importance of physical appearance, according to the experts.

“Compliment or not, when we receive comments, it can add pressure,” Dr. Khiatani says. “It can start to make us believe that this is the only thing that matters—more than anything else—when we receive comments on our appearance. I think it can very easily and sometimes subtly build into something where we start to believe, as individuals in a society, that this is the main thing that’s important.”

In her practice, Dr. DiLossi has had patients express fears of gaining weight after receiving praise for their smaller size. Especially if the commentator is a parent or similar figure you look up to, you might worry about not meeting a standard they’ve set or not feeling “good enough” for that person if your body were to change, Dr. Khiatani adds.

“That can create anxiety or frustration, or maybe even a need to keep proving ourselves in that way, especially with compliments,” she says. “I hear that a lot, where someone might be complimented on something and they feel the need to keep up with that compliment, even if it might not be realistic or feasible.”

Anyone can be impacted by body talk. But folks with eating disorders and survivors of assault—the latter of whom may already feel devalued in their bodies—are most at risk of experiencing the negative effects. The same goes for individuals with larger bodies or those who are a part of marginalized communities who are used to being seen but not heard, Dr. Khiatani says. This is, in part, because beauty standards are based heavily on a white, thin, young ideal, she says.

“You’re more likely to experience discrimination or [be] sensationalized in a way that can be really objectifying or marginalizing,” she adds. “So, like, someone might be called exotic…That word is often used to describe, like, historic works of art in a museum—that’s not a person, that’s a thing. I think sometimes those comments can lead to people feeling really objectified rather than empowered.”

You don’t need to be the direct recipient to internalize these messages, either. You might start to critique your own body if you overhear a fellow gym-goer get told, “You look great! You’re so tiny now”—and you’re about the same size as they were pre-weight loss. The same idea applies if you catch a family member saying, “My sister wasn’t able to get that weight off for a long time—she looks so healthy now.” These types of interactions can especially sway an impressionable child’s or teen’s outlook on their body, Dr. DiLossi says.

“As a kid hearing that—even though no one is directly commenting on [them] at all—the message being sent is that this is an important thing about people,” Dr. DiLossi says. “They’re hearing the message very directly that the smaller, thinner, [post-]weight-loss body is preferred and it is so unfortunate and sad and a shame when people gain weight, or gain weight back, or can’t lose weight. That is really, really shaping to a kid’s belief system.”

“Compliment or not, when we receive comments, it can add pressure. It can start to make us believe that this is the only thing that matters—more than anything else—when we receive comments on our appearance.” —Avina Khiatani, PhD

How to celebrate someone without emphasizing their body

Of course, some people may not feel bothered about getting “lovingly” called “Skinny Minnie” or being told they look like they’ve bounced back well after giving birth. But before opening your mouth, the experts suggest asking yourself a few questions: Are you making this statement for them or for yourself? Do you want to say it because you respect them—or because you’ve evaluated them and want them to know? What are you hoping to make this person feel, and is there a way to do that without relating it to their body?

Think about how you’d describe and praise the Mona Lisa, Dr. Khiatani advises. You wouldn’t say, “Wow, the Mona Lisa looks great. She’s beautiful.”

“We’re not evaluating [the Mona Lisa] in that way—even if we’re an art critic, we’re talking about the brush stroke or the style,” Dr. Khiatani explains. “Most of the time [when] you see a beautiful painting, people are going to describe the feeling that they get when they view it more than anything else. We’re people—not works of art—but that could be a good jumping-off point, to think of someone’s appearance as a work of art that you can respect.”

You might tell your co-worker that her sense of style gives off so much confidence. You might shout out your locker buddy at the fitness studio by saying you saw how heavy they’ve been lifting lately and you admire their strength progress. You could mention to your sister that she seems more self-assured, less stressed, and happier since she joined a walking group for new moms. Praise people for reaching the goals they’ve set. Remind people there’s more to them than how their body looks, Dr. Khiatani says.

Impact always weighs more heavily than intent. That’s why Lopez encourages people to step out of their shoes for a moment and be open to the idea that what they’d accept as a compliment may feel like a dig to someone else. If you simply can’t come to terms with that, consider this: What’s the harm in saying nothing at all?

“Our society is so fatphobic and weight-biased, and I think everybody in our culture would just be happier, healthier people if we were just more weight-neutral,” Dr. DiLossi adds. “Obviously, we have a lot of work to do [to achieve that]…but I think something small that we all could do on a day-to-day is: If and when we notice that somebody has lost weight—even if we think in our head, ‘Oh, they do look better’—just don’t comment on it at all.”