Would you know all of this without me telling you? No. Would you know all of this just by looking at me? Hell no. To look at me, you'd probably think I'm lazy and that I don't care what I put in my body, because, as I stated, I'm fairly obese. The thing about that is that a lot of people would assume that because I'm obese I'm lazy and, therefore, they can say what they want about me and my body.
This is where things are about to get hairy. Society has become obsessed with body image, because the media has become obsessed with it. They have made half-hearted attempts at "body acceptance" and have touched on the subjects of fat shaming, bullying, and body negativity. Unfortunately, it's all been from the perspective of healthy, thin people who look and sound patronizing when they say "we should all love our bodies no matter the size and not judge each other". Yeah, that's great to say if you're a freakin' size 2 and spent ninety percent of your life making fun of the fat kids behind their backs.
Then there's the people who say that we shouldn't practice body acceptance because that makes "fat people think it's okay to be overweight." Newsflash, it is okay to be overweight. Why do I say that? Because it isn't anyone else's business if I'm overweight. It's my problem to take care of and the only person who is allowed to judge my body is me.
While most people think that fat shaming is simply making people feel bad about being overweight, it's more than that. It's this attitude that me being overweight is somehow offensive to someone else, as if they have a body made of pure gold and mine is somehow tarnishing it by association. It's ridiculous and gives these people a swollen head to think that their opinion should matter to anyone other than themselves.
Bullying is what happens when people who believe in fat shaming have children. No, I joke, but seriously . . .this happens far too often, not just to children but to adults. Jokes at an overweight person's expense is bullying. Making people feel less than socially acceptable is bullying. Whispering behind someone's back is bullying. Bullying makes people fall into depressions and has many negative repercussions, such as self-harm, substance abuse, and suicide. Bullying is something parents need to get a grip on before it goes too far. People never really grow out of bullying. They just move on from bullying to, well, fat shaming.
Body negativity is the fact that it's not just obese people that get bullied and shamed and picked on. People have a bad tendency to look at a person who is skinny and automatically assume that that person is anorexic or bulimic. They see a fit woman working out and think she's obsessed or showing off. They see a fit man and assume he's a douchebag concerned with is own body image and ego. A lot of it is media induced, where any skinny woman (whether naturally or from a lot of hard work) is either admired or criticized for her size. Some of it is envy and petty jealousy. Such as, thinking there's no way a person looks that good naturally since I don't so obviously they're starving themselves or throwing up their food. This kind of body negativity needs to stop. We should all be ashamed of ourselves for acting this way, not for what we see in the mirror.
Here's the thing: why do we care? Why do any of us care what anyone who we're not a). banging or b). raising looks like? The only thing we should care about is our health and how we see ourselves. Oh, and that's another thing. When people claim fake concern about people's health during their fat shaming . . .mental health has a whole hell of a lot to do with physical health. Making people feel like shit and then claiming that it's just because you're concerned is a great way to cause someone to either want to punch you in the face (me. I would hard-core punch you in the face.) or get severely depressed. You're not concerned. You're not worried. You're an asshole. Don't be an asshole, learn to respect others, and worry about your own body, instead of anyone else's.
