Former Fat Kid Syndrome: something my friend made up to describe people who were obese for a long time, finally got to a healthy weight and starting thinking they’re gods gift as they finally start experiencing romantic attention. It’s a weird mix of very high self esteem underpinned with deep insecurity and feeling like that “fat kid” is still in there with you, but they also seem to be more disgusted by fat people than the average person. I’m sure this is already a thing and not a new phenomenon at all.

My friend and I were discussing this - he lost a ton of weight a couple years ago and when he initially got into good shape he thought he was hot shit. He went from years without any female attention to then having two pretty girls in his friendship group fight over him. It got to his head and he was a bit of a dick (his words not mine - we can laugh about it now).

He mentioned his friend who did the exact same thing - was obese all through school and lost weight at uni. While he was still fat he started talking about how gross fat people, especially women are and he’d never date a one over 125lbs. When he did get into relationships he’d be extremely jealous and paranoid his gf was cheating, while also thinking he could do better than her.

An ex of mine was very overweight when he was a kid - he was nice looking but in his eyes he was model material. Talked about how lazy fat people were and made being a gym bro his whole personality. When he started gaining weight, he got more and more anxious about me cheating despite me never giving him a reason to believe I was.

I don’t know any women who’ve lost a significant amount of weight, so I’ve only ever seen this play out in men.

What are your guys experience?