Over the past couple of months, I’ve run across three romance comics containing stories about overweight women having trouble finding true love. And I’ve been intrigued by the message they were sending, in that two of the protagonists only arrived at happy endings after reaching a societally approved weight.

But body shaming isn’t limited to the stories. It spills over into text pages, too, as in this example, titled “Nobody Loves a Fat Girl,” from Young Romance #8 (April 1951). I have no idea who wrote this piece under the byline Charmaigne, but whoever it was starts off by making sure the teen reader of the comic is insecure about her appearance.

Oh, you may be just a few pounds overweight now, and your boyfriend might even like you that way … but that’s won’t last!

There’s only a few pounds difference between your pleasingly plump status of today and that of a tubby woman tomorrow.

So if you want to keep your man, you’d better not let yourself go, girls!

The passage that bothered me most came next, in which the reader is basically told only those thin girls are deserving of romance—

Yes, there was a day when the extra large woman was a pretty important commodity and there are still some societies in which she is highly valued, but that isn’t ours. Hundreds of books have been written about underweight, frail, tubercular-looking heroines and they’ve been some of the most romantic creatures in fiction. But do you ever read a romantic story about a portly heroine? No, she just isn’t a young man’s ideal.

So if you’re “portly,” remember—you don’t get to be a romantic creature. Gee, thanks a lot, Charmaigne.

What a horrifying message to be programming into the young girls of 1951!