There are a lot of people in our society that struggle with their weight. Whether the number on their clothes says small, medium, large, or deals with a single digit or double. No matter what the number says on the scale, almost everyone struggles when dealing with their number. However, matters only get worse for these individuals when they go out into the world. Some of the individuals that struggle the most are the ones that society likes to refer to as the "plus-sized" individuals.
These are the people that have to go out in their everyday lives and be surrounded by advertisements of society's idea of a "healthy" woman. When they walk into stores, they have to go to a different section of the store just to look for their size rather than just looking and searching through the clothes in every other section. No matter where these individuals go, they are constantly being separated and ostracized purely based on the weight alone. This separation only draws more attention to the bigger problem at hand. Our society does not want to be associated with plus-sized individuals so their result is to ridicule and marginalize these individuals, hoping that by doing so they disappear completely.
One of the biggest examples of this kind of ridicule and abuse is the article written by journalist Tanya Gold in which she remarks that Nike's plus-sized mannequin was "heaving with fat" and "not ready for a run but on the way to a hip replacement". This type of treatment for plus-sized individuals is unacceptable. To ridicule a company that strives to be inclusive and accepting of all body types is similar to walking up to someone of a similar body type to the mannequin in question and call them "heaving with fat". This type of treatment in classifying anything above a size six as "extremely overweight" is what cause eating disorders so early on, especially in growing young women and children. Stop treating individuals who are not what society classifies as "skinny" to be any less healthy than the next person. Healthiness can come in all shapes and sizes, so telling women and men they can only be one type of way to be considered healthy and attractive to everyone else will only cause more problems than results.
Furthermore, there should be more brands like Nike that openly promote body positivity clothing and lines of clothes that work for any body type. Shouldn't individuals unhappy with their weight, or that just want to work out in general, be able to find appropriate and comfortable fitness wear in order to do so accordingly?
In order to stop the isolation of plus-sized individuals, there needs to be a lot of changes made across the board. Instead of separating plus-sized clothing, keep the same brands and style altogether in numerical order. Start showing more advertisements and displays of different body types and races. Visibility and equal representation is the first step in uniting people together.
