I feel like skinny shaming is spoken about A LOT to detract from fat shaming and to compare it is very unfair, the stigma around obesity is much higher, being underweight has been glamourized in our society whereas being obese is associated with poor character, your feelings about being shamed are 100% valid and it totally does happen, but it feels very much more like punching up rather than fat shaming which is punching down (though both are misogyny based IMO and punching down on women overall if that makes sense). If a fat person loses weight very quickly there is an idea that it's healthy/good because good god even a parasite must be healthier/better than being fat but if an underweight person gained weight very quickly people it would not be met with praise. A lot of fat people would take skinny shaming and being underweight over being fat but how many underweight people would trade places?
Just my own personal experience, feel free to skip:
I have been very very fat and I have been very very thin. At both points in my life, I had an eating disorder. I was treated like a piece of shit on the pavement when I was very fat; people would bark at me in the street, slam doors in my face, whisper behind my back. When I was very thin, it was like being a minor celebrity; shop assistants would compliment my hair or outfit (same hair as when I was very fat!), men would stop in the street and ask for my number, I once had a man stop and take photos of me. Just to reiterate, I had an eating disorder at both ends of the spectrum. However, as an obese person, I was seen as disgusting and as having some sort of moral failing. But as a thin person, I was seen as beautiful and desirable, even though I also had an eating disorder.
My healthiest weight physically was, unsurprisingly, somewhere in the middle, and it was when I was in the best place mentally as well.
Helen definitely overeats, she has always had a problem with it. Until she confronts why that is, she will always struggle with food. I think it's epecially bad at the moment because she is stuck in life, with no career path, is bored, and is stuck in a lustless, loveless relationship.