"You're too skinny. You should eat a cheeseburger"
"You're too fat. You should go on a diet."
"Boys don't like sticks, they like curves."
"I only like men with abs"
"Dadbods are TOTALLY my thing."
Body. Shaming. Must. Stop.
Period.
It's gone beyond what it needs to be and I'm not gonna lie, I was guilty of it too.
When I was in high school, I was jealous of the girls who were smaller than I was. I would get bullied for my size and how I looked and I figured, "ok, the only way for people to like me is to be smaller." So I started working out, eating better (or what I thought was better) and I just became completely obsessive over my weight. I even developed an eating disorder because of it. As I got older, I realized I didn't want my weight to control my life anymore. At first, though, I judged over for not having the same kind of body type as me. If they were bigger than me, I got angry at them for commenting on my weight and made them feel like they weren't living to the standard either. On the other hand, if someone was smaller than me, I would look at them in discuss and just think "Who would ever like a twig?" My silent judging though was just like the verbal body shaming that was happening in society today. It's the kind of thing that leads people to eating disorders, depression, and anger towards one another. We judge people on their weight when in reality we should only be judging ourselves. As a society, we body shame people for what they look like and also what they are able to do and not do. We have strewn around the word "healthy" and what it really means to be healthy. It has gotten so far out of hand that people have gotten violent just because of the way somebodies body looks or differs from their own. It just makes me sick and sad.
Have you ever thought that maybe somebody looks the way they do because they can't help it? What if that girl you just ridiculed for being fat has been working on her body for months. You just silenced her progress. What if that underweight girl has some sort of illness that she can't control? You probably just made her feel even sicker. Or what about that guy who is a little chunky? there might be someone who loves him just the way he is. As a society, we tend to focus on the bigger pictures when it comes to body images instead of thinking about the little bits and pieces that go into it. We are too focused on the entirety of it all that we go from A all the way to Z, ignoring all other letters or steps in between.
Society has these standards for the way that we should look. Don't be fat, but don't be too skinny that you don't have a figure. You have to have abs and be over six foot, but make sure you have a little bit of a dadbod because chicks totally dig that right? Stop. Stop listening to what society says our bodies have to be. If you want to look a certain way, then go for it! Don't listen to what others say about you. You need to focus on YOU, not others. Quite often when we body shame others, it's because we are insecure about our own bodies in one way or another. Now, I'm not suggesting you stop being insecure because that can be impossible for some people. Rather, accept that you are the way you are and if you want to change YOU have to do something about it. Our bodies won't change themselves just by talking about someone else. If YOU are happy the way you are, then why should what anyone else says matter? Body shaming doesn't make you a better person. In that moment, you may feel superior because you are making somebody feel worthless for the way their body looks, but in the end, you end up feeling worthless.
There are really really skinny and really really fat people in this world, and that's okay. There are big busted girls and flat chested girls, and that's okay. There are girls who are over 150 pounds and girls that barely breach 100, and that's okay too. There are also guys who have abs and guys who have a dadbod, and that's completely acceptable! Let's stop body shaming people and making them feel worthless for what their bodies look like and instead, let's start looking at somebodies character.
Body shaming doesn't make you better than anyone else, it just makes you look like a jerk.
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,"-Eleanor Roosevelt
