Topic > Body Image and Fat Shaming

When we had a health screening at MUIC as per the freshman college process, I was already anxious about weighing myself in front of other people. The guy who examined me grinned when he saw my weight; he and the lady next to him looked at each other and started giggling. The lady muttered, “I can't believe it,” and assumed that I couldn't understand or hear what they were saying. Why does everyone believe they have the power to make comments about other people's body sizes without thinking twice? Body shaming is a widespread problem nowadays where having a certain body type is the ideal. This issue is particularly close to my heart because I have experienced body shaming and it is essential that people know that their body does not define them. This essay will explore why people feel shame about their bodies, two types of body shaming, and the effects of body shaming. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Body image can be described as the evaluation of both positive and negative emotions about one's body parts and their characteristics alone (Nayir et al., 2016). This includes how a person views themselves compared to society's expectations. Society's expectations, especially on women, to meet such superficial standards are so overwhelming that children begin to listen, embody, and embody at an early age. Furthermore, people who shame others may not know that the media shows the most unreal, edited, and idealized representations of what is beautiful. Furthermore, the mainstream media is generally recognized as a dominant provider of representations and information regarding the actual idealistic body to which women and girls should aspire. To clarify it further, some multinational entertainment companies influence the minds of the public by reconstructing common people's vision and expectations regarding the perfect look. For example, lingerie advertisements like Victoria Secret convince you to believe that women who have narrow waists, big butts, wide hips, and full lips look like angels. Unfortunately, many individuals often mindlessly emulate these models, causing a distortion of their mentality regarding the body. Therefore, there are two types of body shaming; fat shame and thinness shame. Fat-shaming is the act of humiliating someone who is seen as fat by rating the person as “bad” or “failure” based on weight alone (Meulman, 2019). Additionally, some people may suffer from conditions where certain medications, such as those for brain damage and tumors, can cause binge eating and even obesity (Burnett, 2016). Even though these factors of obesity would be less frequent, I think it is wrong to assume that overweight people have absolute control of their behavior. Skinny shaming is the opposite of fat shaming and is a form of examining people for their thin appearance. It's also as harmful as fat shaming, although it's not as big of a deal. Body shaming is usually obvious and intentional, but most of the time people don't realize that it's also offensive. For example, my friend had trouble gaining weight, so everyone made fun of her with hateful statements like "you look like a stick, you have no meat at all." There is an evolving trend of both ridiculing other people's bodies and constantly giving advice on how to hide our flaws, while in reality we fail to understand their inner beauty. Aren't imperfections supposed to be beautiful? As a result, body shaming is undeniably a hot topic nowadays; poses serious risks to the.