The image of thin Jack Sprat and his rather cuddlier wife — he could eat no fat, while she could eat no lean — has been around for generations. But in the increasingly sensitive modern world, few couples would enjoy being compared to the pair from the nursery rhyme.
A new term is now being used to celebrate partners of different sizes: ‘mixed-weight’.
Embraced with pride by couples who pose on social media alongside the hashtag #mixedweight, the phrase is meant to remove any embarrasment around size disparity in a loving relationship. But critics have claimed the term is just the latest (slightly more subtle) way to body-shame.
So what do the men and women in these relationships think? Does the weight gap affect their lives? Do they feel judged when they are out together in public, or are they too happy in their own skins to care?
Here, three writers describe the reality of life in a mixed-weight couple . . .
Maggie Alderson, 61, and Pop Popovic, 63, have been together for 25 years, with Pop nicknamed ‘Poldark’ on their local beach
I’M PROUD OF HIS SLIMNESS
Maggie Alderson, 61, is married to sports coach Pop Popovic, 63. They have a daughter, 18, and live in Hastings, East Sussex.
My husband has one of those bodies that when he buys trousers, not only do they fit around the tummy — in a 30in waist size worn mostly by 25-year-olds — but the legs are just the right length.
Even when I was young and wore size 10 (and smaller), I always had to have trousers and hems taken up. And as I’m top-heavy in build, I’ve never been able to wear a whole outfit comfortably in the same size. Currently I jump three sizes, going up like a lift: size 12 hips and bottom. Size 14 waist and gut. Size 16 menopausal boobs.
Adding to our physical differences, Pop has a toned, muscular physique which has earned him the nickname ‘Poldark’ on our local beach, as he emerges from the waves with water running off his six-pack and down his footballer legs. He is 63 years old.
Meanwhile, our daughter calls me ‘the Womble’— and while I’m happy to say that no one except her has ever called out the difference between us quite so harshly, it doesn’t mean they haven’t thought it. Because there is nowhere to hide in swimwear and, while he is a perfect physical specimen, I, with my classic mummy-tummy middle-age spread, am not.
Currently, I am on a tight deadline for my new novel and he is leaving me to it, but even when my chocolate-to-be-applied-as-needed pass expires, he won’t pressure me to lose weight for his sake.
‘When you finish I may push you a bit so you feel good for the book launch, but I’m very happy with your body. You are the mother of my child. What more could I want?’
The difference wasn’t always so stark. When we met 25 years ago in Sydney, he was a recently retired professional footballer and I worked on the Sydney Morning Herald.
My round on the paper was ‘luxury lifestyle’ and involved going to several high-octane cocktail parties a night. As a former editor of Elle magazine, looking well turned-out was part of my job description. And in those days I was relatively fit and knew how to dress for my shape.
Happily for me, it seems the total package was more important to this quintessentially European man than a Sports Illustrated cover-girl body. Although, having spent some of his career playing in California and making close personal acquaintance with professional women volleyball players there, he’d already had his share of that particular American pie.
I have a mum tum, People call him Poldark!
By the time we met, he was 38 and ready for something a bit more grown-up: ‘You had a sophisticated look, you were elegant, with great legs and . . .’ pause for the important bit ‘ . . . high-heeled shoes.’
But now, after 25 years together, with him still looking match-fit and me more like Orinoco than ever thanks to Covid comfort eating, I ask him if I should sign up at a gym now they are open again. Possibly, he says, but only for my health, not for him.
A top sports coach, he works out every day for the love of it and to be a good role model for the people he trains, so I can’t resent him for being the same size he was as a young man. I’m proud of him for it.
Like the late Duke of Edinburgh (who, his tailor said, could still fit into his wedding suit in old age), he earns it. I choose to put my energies and time into pursuits of the brain, earning my living by sitting down and writing, not jumping up and down as he does. But while I’m horrified even by the thought of a sit-up, he gets me exercising, almost without realising I’m doing it. There are the brisker-than-I’d-have-done walks along the seafront, and steeper-routes-than-I’d-have-chosen in the country park.
Nick Curtis, 55, said his wife Ann, 57, (pictured) has always been slim and he tends to gain weight
Perhaps it’s lucky (for my marriage, if not my health) that weight accumulates on me around my middle, not on the legs he first admired.
But when my book is finished, I intend to shed the pounds I gained in lockdown. I want to feel as good in my clothes as he looks in his.
I BLAME PANDEMIC FOR THE CONTRAST
Nick Curtis, 55, lives with wife Ann, 57, in London.
My wife and I are both in our 50s and she is just an inch shorter than me at 5ft 10in, but she has always been slim and I tend to gain weight.
In lockdown our eating and drinking habits have been broadly similar but the difference in our mass and shape has widened (as have I).
Ann is a slim and beautiful 10st, whereas I recently topped 15st — the heaviest I’ve ever been. She takes up two thirds of the space I do. My once-prominent facial features are receding into a pillow of flesh; a ring of surplus flab lifts my shirt-tails out of my jeans. The words I once used to flatter my appearance, such as, ‘prosperous’, don’t cut it any more. At 55, I’m porky.
I’ve always known that she is more attractive than me and my weight gain has made this difference starker. But I do know we both feel fortunate to have found each other after various romantic disasters. And everyone says the recipe for a happy marriage is where each party thinks they are the lucky one.
My weight makes her look better than ever
We have been together 26 years, married for 22. When we met in 1995 I was probably the slimmest I’d been since I was 13, while Ann had, and has, supermodel dimensions: a slender waist, long legs.
If I look back over old photos, I can see that my weight has fluctuated over the years — by the time we married in 1999 I already looked well-insulated. Three or four times since then I have lost significant amounts of weight through exercise and diet. The first of these efforts was made after we initially put on an extra layer together. Ann, when she realised, made us follow a drastic Weight Watchers programme and has barely gained a pound since then. I can’t say the same. Genetics may play a part. Metaphorically, her family are whippets while mine are Teletubbies. And character is important too. I am more innately greedy, while Ann arguably burns off more calories through stress. But mostly I blame the bloody pandemic and bloody lockdown.
When I turned 54 on March 21 last year, I was going to the gym two or three days a week, swimming a kilometre afterwards, and fitting in an hour of Pilates and an hour of yoga too. I’d cycle between eight and 12 miles a day to work.
Nick said Ann is gently encouraging when he expresses a wish to lose his new bulkiness (stock image)
Lockdown reduced all that to an hour on Zoom with my trainer, Sid, each week, and either a walk with Ann or a solo bike ride for the 60 bleak daily minutes we were allowed to leave the house.
Of course, we were drinking and comfort-eating a bit too much but in the summer we tried to put a stop to that. Being less busy than Ann, I started planning a daily menu of low-calorie meals. We’d do a set of Canadian Air Force exercises — press-ups, star jumps, jogging on the spot — each morning, followed by a short routine with sets of dumbbells.
Then in September my father died of a non-Covid infection. That meant a month of hospital sandwiches and exhausted takeaways, then a hangover of grief and tedious admin that I deadened with wine. And then it was Ann’s birthday, then Christmas, then cold, carb-loading January.
We both went down with unpleasant, debilitating bouts of Covid — but not the kind that kills your appetite or sense of taste. Then it was my birthday.
Although I was only just getting back into the cycling and the weights, my arms and legs didn’t look bad. But the vast, amorphous blob in between . . . oh dear.
Thankfully, Ann is gentle when my new bulkiness gets me down, and gently encouraging when I express a wish to lose it.
So it’s back to low-calorie meals for me, and the acknowledgment that I am neither as metabolically blessed or as disciplined as Ann.
I’m dragging myself back to the gym and the pool. Oh, and I’m going to the barber’s soon. I have very thick hair. That must account for at least a couple of pounds . . .
HIS THINNESS MEANS I HATE MY FAT MORE
Marion McGilvary, 62, has four grown-up children and lives with her partner George, 57, in Oxford.
Marion McGilvary, 62, (pictured left) said the gulf between her weight and her partner George’s (pictured right) has widened in the past six years
While we have always been a ‘mixed-weight’ couple, in the past six years I’ve grown very fat and the gulf between my weight and my partner’s has widened. Not only did I gain a ‘corona stone’ over the past year, but another seven pounds either side. So I’m now 15st.
My other half, meanwhile, is 6ft, slim, and hasn’t gained an ounce in the past decade.
Shortly after we met, I lost 2st and was my ideal weight. Feeling wonderful, I once made the mistake of asking if he liked me better slim. He reluctantly nodded in agreement. Those words haunt me now I’m five stone heavier than I was then.
My Jack Sprat actually does eat the fat but never puts on weight, while I attempt to eat lean and, unfairly, my self-sabotaging metabolism piles it on like calorific sunscreen, slathering on extra pounds.
The sad truth is that he just doesn’t really care about food, provided it’s meat-free. On the other hand, I adore it. While he has never dared comment on my weight, over the past year, as I grew ever bigger, I did notice a bit of side-eye from my beloved as I helped myself to another slice of pie. I would get angry and yell ‘Don’t monitor my food’. Do I wish I was one of those skinny vegetarians who live on organic kale smoothies and water? I’d be lying if I said no. It’s galling to be fat while he stays the same slim chap he always was. His thinness only makes me hate my fat more. He walks. I waddle. When I was thinner, I walked too. Ten miles together every weekend. I also danced salsa and tango every week, and did yoga.
Covid put paid to dancing; and jumping up and down in a Zoom class in the three feet between the telly and the sofa only ended one way — with me sitting down with the remote control. On our weekend walks, I puffed along behind while he strode ahead. And as the physical gulf between us grew ever bigger, I’d lie awake worrying about my weight — until last month I snapped.
I’m now on several diets. Weight Watchers, intermittent fasting and keto. In four weeks I’ve lost the first of my corona stones. Joy! The unexpected side-effect is that we now eat totally different meals. My partner has gone back to his happy bachelor habit of eating the same four meals on a rota and enjoying stodgy puddings alone. So much for togetherness. Still, hopefully we’ll at least be closer in weight soon.