Dear Prudence,
I am a man in my mid-twenties. Over the years I have joined a spiritual community in which we are able to ask someone to be our spiritual mentor. My mentor and I have had a close relationship over many years and developed a friendship as a result. One thing I have always struggled with was my body image. While I was only slightly overweight in middle school, I was constantly made fun of for being fat. This created much anxiety in me. Friends and family would make fun of my weight in public, monitor my food intake, and tell me how what I would eat would make me gain weight. Despite getting into weight training and losing the weight, these comments continued well into my twenties. As a result, I began to develop an unhealthy relationship with food and exercise where I would over-exercise to the point of injury, and have incredible anxiety over having a cookie. I would not go out to eat at restaurants, and I would obsess over how much I ate or how I looked. Last year, I realized how much control this had had over my life and truly began to change my relationship with food. I saw that my view of my body was distorted, especially as I was in very good shape and had weighed the same since high school (165-170 lbs.). Where before eating a piece of bread would cause me to emotionally spiral, I now enjoy all types of food and now go by moderation as opposed to rigid diets. I feel much happier as a result as well because I love food! I still get the occasional comment of being fat by strangers, which I attribute to their own issues now. I feel that I made a lot of progress!
My mentor had been instrumental in helping me with my distorted issues around my body and I was incredibly thankful. Until recently, that is: I was over at his house when his partner asked me a question about pizza. When I enthusiastically shared with him a recommendation, my mentor called out that if I kept eating pizza I was going to get fat when I am older especially because I was short (I’m 5’9”). I was dumbstruck. I said that my eating habits work for me, and I feel as if I have it under control. He began to argue with me. I could feel myself getting angry, and I said that we could agree to disagree about my eating habits and I quickly left. A couple of days later I called him and said that I felt hurt by his comment as this was an issue I still was working through. He got upset with me and said I was overreacting to an offhand comment he had made and that I obviously have not recovered in this area of my life. Afterwards, he said we could not hang out together since I am too sensitive to offhand comments. I ended up ending the mentor relationship later over some of his bigoted viewpoints, however I am still haunted. Was I overreacting to this entire situation? How can I even tell?
— A Weighty Issue