Beauty Editor's Series Of Tweets Remind Us Weight Is Just A Number

Beauty editor talks body image, weight and size in a series of brilliant tweets

There’s a reason many people aren’t especially eager to reveal their weight. It’s because with that number, comes a lot of assumptions and negative judgments. But the fact is, weight is just that — a number. And as a beauty editor recently pointed out, it doesn’t mean nearly as much as we think.

Sam Escobar, who identifies as nonbinary, they/them, is the beauty editor for Good Housekeeping online. They list their weight of 172 pounds in their Twitter bio for a reason, saying they think it’s “weird” how people have no idea what different weights look like. In an effort to demonstrate their point, they wrote a brief essay on Twitter to explain.

As Escobar explains, the motivation behind sharing their weight, clothing and bra size is to show that it’s nothing to hide, as people blurring those stats only contributes to the false notions behind the numbers. As they point out, “these are just facts, measurements and ratios,” and when they put it that way, it feels a little less stigmatizing, doesn’t it?

After a years-long struggle with arbitrary “goal weight” numbers and an eating disorder, Escobar is hoping to use their position as a beauty editor to put less focus on size and weight. They acknowledge that while they still don’t always like their body, it’s important to think, “hey, why don’t I feel good enough the way I am?”

They bring up an excellent point. Why do we care so much what the number on the scale says? Why do we let it inform our feelings about our bodies? Over my adult life, I’ve had so many conversations with friends about our weights and sizes with many of us providing disclaimers when revealing those numbers. Mentioning that we’re bloated, that we lift a lot of weights, that our breasts make up a lot of those pounds, and on it goes. We disregard how great we might feel and let those numbers dictate our self-worth. Which is obviously ridiculous, but a difficult mind-frame to shed.

Happily, many responded to Escobar’s request for selfies and included their own height, weight and clothing size. Because we might know that one person’s 150 can look entirely different from another, it’s a whole other thing to see it in photos.

The thread has garnered so many responses thanking Escobar for starting this body-positive conversation. After reading it, we may not be ready to shout our weight and size from the rooftops, but it certainly gives us something to think about the next time we chastise ourselves for not “measuring up.” Weight is nothing but a number — literally — and we thank Sam for so eloquently reminding us of that fact.