Glamour Magazine: Weight Stereotyping: The Secret Way People Are Judging You Based on Your Body

“Sloppy.” “Lazy.” “Slow.” Franki Northern-King gets the message loud and clear, and constantly. “I’ve been called all those things—and let’s not forget ‘stinky,’” says the 32-year-old business-management student from Huntington, West Virginia. “At 5’3” and 250 pounds, I’m reminded of my weight 50 times a day by store clerks, coworkers, family, boyfriends, you name it,” says Northern-King, who goes to school full-time and works 20 hours a week to earn tuition money. “I feel like people have forgotten how to see the human being.”

Shocking? Maybe. But the judging wouldn’t surprise Elise Maggioncalda, 24, who works at a neuroscience lab in Charleston, South Carolina. She’s experienced it too, even though she’s eight inches taller and 120 pounds lighter. “I’m really aware of being stereotyped as an uptight, controlling, unwomanly, bitchy person,” she says, “and all kinds of people do it, from waitresses commenting on my order to shoppers at the supermarket. I’m not walking around with a scowl on my face, but it’s completely obvious they’re hating on me.”