Body Shaming: Part 1

When I decided to make my first blog post about body shaming, I originally titled it “Fat Shaming & What It Means”. I took to news articles and did research about the heinous people who body shame. I watched a video of a woman who spent 30 minutes of her day recording herself tearing down the bodies that weren’t like her own. She then uploaded the video to YouTube and called it “comedy”. I, like most human beings, do not find her saying that fat people give off the aroma of sausages to be very funny. She then goes on to discredit the idea of fat-shaming, saying that it was made up by fat people to excuse their overeating.

I was furious by the hurtful and poorly factuated things that she was saying. So, initially, I was going to write a response to her video, but I decided against it. I figured that it would resonate with more people if it were something they could actually relate to. My good friend, Hannah, gave me the idea to interview people on their experiences with fat-shaming, so I  went to my peers, here at MSA, and asked for their truth. In doing this, I changed the title of my piece again. It is now titled “Body Shaming: Parts 1 & 2”. This because people are not only shamed for being fat but for being skinny, for being tall, for not being. Also, I needed to split it into two parts for the simple fact that the subject is so broad that I felt that it would not have fulfilled its purposes without a second installment. So, I hope that in reading this piece, you will know that you’re not alone and that your body is beautiful.

Body Shaming: Part 1

What Is Body Shaming?

The Oxford dictionary defines body shaming as “the action or practice of humiliating someone by making mocking or critical comments about their body shape or size.”

“Body shaming is when people say horrible things about someone’s body that they can’t necessarily control or don’t reflect them as a person,” says Kathryn Chapin, a visual arts student at MSA.

While these definitions of body shaming are true, I wanted to hear more in-depth opinions on the issue, so I asked another question: “Have you ever been body shamed? If so, how did it make you feel?”

I got responses like: “Ugly”, “Horrible”, and “Awful”.

Brianna Cox, a literary student at MSA, opened up about the first time she’d been shamed for her body— “I remember the first time I felt that I was fat. I was in the third grade and I wore the same outfit every single day: a khaki skirt and a white shirt with ruffles on the sleeves. And I remember a kid saying to me one day, ‘Brianna, you’re bigger than most people.’ And I was like, ‘I didn’t notice.’ But then, I started thinking about it until I just thought about it every day.”

Cox has carried this experience her whole life. One moment or incident is all it takes to change someone’s entire perception of themselves. 

Have you ever looked in the mirror and thought of yourself as too skinny or fat or ugly? If so, do you think that’s body shaming?

Chapin says, “Oh yeah, at least once a day, but I feel like it is a result of body shaming. But it isn’t body shaming itself because I wouldn’t think those things unless I hadn’t been told to think those things, so while it is body shaming, I don’t feel like it is the body shaming that is stereotypically thought of when we think of body shaming.”

However, Cox states, “I definitely have. Although encouraging yourself in a tough way can help you, especially if you’re not the size that you want to be, it is still body shaming when you call yourself fat.”

I pondered Cox’s statement. I thought to myself, I call myself fat too often, yes, but on the BMI scale, I am considered “obese”. I am not the weight that I am supposed to be based on my height, so, therefore,  I am fat. That is just the simple truth.

I wanted more thoughts on this, so I sat down with my friend, Hannah, and she said this, “A lot of people use fat in a negative way. And I feel like we need to get rid of that. I mean, we really do— that whole stigma. It is such a nasty word now, the way that we use it. Everybody uses the word “fat”, but now, people are using it as this ugly word to just describe anyone that they don’t like.”

I really understood what Hannah had to say about that. The word “fat” has such a negative connotation, but the definition of the word is “having a large amount of excess flesh”.  Society has turned this word into this awful thing when it really just means you got some extra skin. I mean, no one really enjoys being called fat, but it is nothing to be ashamed of. Your body is beautiful.

“You can be both [fat and beautiful]. Being fat does not define your worth.” -Hannah Hays, MSA literary.

 

[Part 2 coming soon]