Sandra sounds like so many of us who are depressed and struggling with our mental health during a pandemic. Eating for comfort is NORMAL. It's also not inherently bad for us.

What's bad is weight stigma, the feeling we have to compulsively exercise to a point where we risk our health to go a gym in the midst of a highly contagious and possibly deadly pandemic.

I feel awful for Sandra. Not because she gained 43 pounds during the pandemic. But because she's undoubtedly beating herself up over that weight gain, instead of attending to her mental health in better ways.

If Sandra's weight required her to be exercising intensively and restricting her food, she wasn't at the right weight for her body to start with... and that's undoubtedly why she's gained weight rapidly since the pandemic. Her body is trying to fight back from a starvation point.

I truly hope you had her consent to share this story (or that she's entirely made up), but regardless this kind of public scrutiny and shaming isn't something ANY OF US need during this troubling, challenging and unprecedented time.

We need to shift the focus. Weight stigma - and that is 100% what you've done to Sandra in this piece - is not healthy. It hurts people very badly. It causes medical bias. It leads to poorer treatment from doctors.

If someone truly cares about a person's health the focus isn't weight based. It's health based. The two are NOT the same.

But it's also important to remember that no one is morally superior for being able to "maintain" their weight or exercise habits in this time of crisis. If you have, and it makes you actually happy (in other words, it's not about punishing your body or engaging in disordered eating behaviors), good for you! That's awesome. It doesn't change the reality that YOU are not everyone.

For some, this trying year has been a time of deep struggle, and yes, sometimes that may mean weight gain OR weight loss. It doesn't mean you need to comment on either, especially if you're not asked for input.

One final note. What you're promoting here is a diet, and like ANY OTHER diet out there, it will likely work short term for most people. Long term, it will fail - NOT due to any failure on the part of the dieter. But because ALL DIETS FAIL long term.

Doctors know this, and some have even started to admit it. Which still doesn't stop them from focusing on weight loss, oddly enough.

Sandra, assuming you are real and happen to read this... please be gentle with yourself right now. Consider researching Health At Every Size and Intuitive Eating. There are alternatives to living this crazy dieting roller coaster.