Body Shaming

Body shaming is the act of mocking someone’s physical appearance. This includes fat- shaming, height- shaming, shaming for thinness; also sometimes people are body-shamed for having less hair or hair colour , lack of masculinity ( in males) and lack of femininity ( in females).

If a person whether a male or a female is overweight or obese then they are body-shamed for their fats present in the body. Sometimes this segment becomes a little controversial that if the person is suffering from obesity then why don’t they do regular exercise and follow regular diet; which is quite right to say. But there are also some people who have some kind of problem because of which no matter what the do or follow strict diet a little bit of eating can also make them fat. It is seen that sometimes the overweight people eat less than the normal people and till now nothing such conclusion has been made to this situation.

Suppose if a fat girl wears a tight fitting dress which projects her belly fat as if coming out of the body, people stars mocking her and saying abusive things for that. They starts telling her ugly and all these things makes her insecure about her physical appearance and sometimes this may lead to a serious condition of depression. The people who laughed at her said abusive words to her , could have gently told her not to wear such tight fitting clothes instead wear some losses beautiful clothes so that she can look more pretty.

Not only the obese people, the thin people are also body- shamed. They are said that “you are so thin that you will get carried away with the air”. People tell them that they don’t have any stamina or strength because they are so thin and don’t have much muscles. Instead of saying things like them they could have said that eat some protein rich foods and do some exercises for building up muscles.

If a boy is a little short then he is treated very ill in the society. Our society has the notion that boys should be tall enough to fit in the category of so called “perfect”. No matter what is their age people always calls them as “little”, “dwarf”. This effects a lot to the mental state of the boy and his self- esteem is totally destroyed. Sometimes if a boy is too tall then also people mocks him by making him as “pillar”. Instead of saying these kind of things people should encourage them as the way they are.

If a girl has some masculine features in her body let’s say for example, has some thin facial hairs or hairs around the upper lip then they are mocked by their friends as a boy. On the other hand if a boy don’t have much facial hair then they are laughed at and regarded as a girl.

Our society has a pre occupied notion that a perfect body for a girl is that the girl has to be slim, she should not have any masculine features and she should not be much tall. While for the boys, they should be tall and should have much facial and hair growth in their body.

This lowers the self esteem of such people who are the victims of body shaming. Instead of shaming them for their physical appearances we should stand with them and encourage them to be with themselves in the way they are!