Why Body Shaming isn’t acceptable anymore?
Sitting quietly in the classroom of my new school, I had never felt more out of place in my whole life. Suddenly someone turned to say something to me as I stood in the doorway. “Aye, Moti”, said a guy as he turned to me, implying I needed to get out of his way. At the moment, I was offended by it, and I remember that night at home, I spent hours thinking of the perfect comeback to say to him. The next day as I entered the classroom with my arsenal of comebacks, the guy introduced me to his friends, and I was a part of his circle. Apparently, we were friends now. My lonely, desperate 13-year-old self could not help but be elated at the time. I was introduced to a new concept: Bullying someone is the best way to make friends. I was startled and curious at the same time. But it was best to sway with the crowd because I was new amongst them.
I continued to face bullying and be fat-shamed for the next months crying myself to sleep almost every night. I tried virtually every YouTube hack, quick fix and ways to lose weight within a week or even a day, sometimes right before my height and weight checking day in school. In Retrospect, I was so young that I did not even fathom the toll it took on my mental health to be fat-shamed by my peers because it happened to me all the time. Motto or Moti was my nickname at home too. I was accustomed to hearing all of it, which normalised fat-shaming for me. Inadvertently what it did was blur the lines between when people I loved and cared about did it and when it was just harming me. Physically and mentally, I was never in a worse position when I finally decided to get medical help to lose weight.
When I was 14, I wanted to change myself when I realised nothing around me seemed to change. After losing weight around 20 kgs, it should seem everything was fixed, but it wasn’t; I still didn’t look at myself and loved how I looked. When I realised that I was perceived as prettier when I lost weight, I started associating fat with ugly. The fear of gaining all that weight back settled before the happiness of being a healthy weight ever could, and I began to starve myself. I either ate too much or too little. The journey of actually loving my body started with the acceptance that my self-esteem should not be dictated by how I look. Confidence should not come by how fat or how skinny you are. Around me, here in India, I notice this is not talked about but joked about more, disregarding how big of an impact a simple joke can make on somebody’s life. I’ve heard friends around me starving themselves skipping meals only for the hope to lose two or three kgs to fit into what society thinks is the right size. Just like me, there are millions of teenagers facing the issue of body shaming as bullying and body-shaming know no borders.
A study from the University of Louisville shows that skipping meals can actually slow down your metabolism. It makes you gain more than usual weight when you resume your regular diet. This could falsely trick you into believing that you need to starve yourself for the rest of your life. It gives you headaches and makes you feel tired and sluggish all the time. Another study from Piedmont cautions how starving can interrupt your ability to think straight. As teenagers, we’re constantly mentally challenged in our academic environments. A brain that functions healthily is our most significant need. An article from Healthline highlights the harmful effects of fat-shaming from eating disorders, depression to as dire as the risk of suicide.
To understand the issue closely and get a diversified view, I circulated a questionnaire among my peers. 75% of the respondents belonged to the age group of 15 to 19, targeting the teenage group
When asked, “Have you ever been body shamed in school?” 50% of the respondents answered “Yes,” and 19.2 % responded with “maybe”. This indicates 70% of people have faced body shaming in some shape or form in school. It was disheartening to know that an environment intended to fight stereotypes was fostering them instead. Despite most students being Body-shamed, there are no active clubs or help desks in most schools to address the seriousness of this issue.
When asked if the respondents believed social media partly responsible for self-starvation. 53.4% of the respondents answered in affirmative. Pictures of models and fitness influencers advocating body positivity send a message that skipping meals to reach an ideal body type was desirable. However, in reality, the definition of “Ideal” varies from person to person. What might be an ideal weight for someone might not be for you. Being of a healthy weight encompasses many factors like height, age, gender etc. The nutritional intake required for an individual is dependent on these factors as a whole.
The next question was, “Do you feel yourself associating your beauty with how fat or skinny you are?” 45.9 per cent of the respondents said that they sometimes associate beauty with how fat or skinny they are. In contrast, 32.4 per cent of the people said that they always associate beauty with the physical appearance of their body. It is common to believe that your beauty depends on your physical attributes, especially your size. Quoting an article from Self magazine, “You’re not fat, you’re beautiful. As if I couldn’t be both. As if impossibly beautiful fat women like Lizzo, Aidy Bryant, Queen Latifah, and Beth Ditto hadn’t long since shown us the power of fat beauty”.
When you face bullying or fat-shaming, our first instinct is to believe that we are going through this alone, that we are the only ones being discriminated against. We are all we have but the more alone you are, the more surprised you will be when you find out that it might be your battle, but it is everyone’s war. There are millions of teenagers battling the issue of body shaming; whether it comes from a toxic household or the wrong friend group, it is widespread. It is easy to believe that losing weight will solve all our problems. It is even more frustrating to hear from our parents that body shaming or lookism isn’t a real problem. When nothing around you seems to change, it is easy to believe something is wrong with you. Still, if you don’t love yourself the way you are right now, it will be impossible to love yourself even after you reach what you think is an ideal weight, and that’s just it there is no perfect weight. It is an endless cycle with shifting goalposts.
So when will you be happy? The answer is simple. It is right here, now! Acceptance of yourself is one of the biggest battles out there. A simple Mantra to conquer it is to realise that there is only one of you in this world, and you were put here to be you. So don’t let anyone’s opinions about your body let you down or make you change yourself without your choice.
There is always a choice, and it’s yours.
Author: Suhani Kapoor, is a TFG student and has started Vishwas Foundation. In 2021 she worked on gender justice through Global Challenges and Social Justice Program. She recently won the Young Achiever’s Award for her social impact work.
