“You look fat in that shirt, try something that suits your body”, ” you look so skinny, you need to gain some weight!”, Did you hear those sentences before from someone? And wanted to take an action to stop them?
There’s always some people in our lives who think that they’re delegated to criticize people’s body size or weight.
Body shaming is an offensive act of commenting on someone’s shape or look, have become common nowadays.
It can be face to face comment or in a sarcastic way.
Also, social media has become a new platform to send negative comments to others.
But those kinds of people don’t have the right to comment about anything actually no one has the right to do so.
Some of them think that they’re saying the right thing to you and encouraging you to be better like you don’t have a mirror in your house to see your body shape.
While the truth is that no-one knows what’s going on in your life or how one criticizing word can stick into your head for a long time.
Anyway, It’s considered as a bullying act, there’s statistics indicate that 94% of teenage girls and 64% of teenage boys have been facing this humiliating comments about their body size or weight.
And being verbally attacked for the way they look and it’s incredibly affecting their mental health and decrease self-confidence, also lead to a higher risk of depression.
So, It’s hard to control those kinds of people, while it’s easier to have more confidence and don’t take any negative comments seriously.
Here are some steps you should know to help you to get rid of body shaming:
1- Know your body type
Having knowledge about your body shape and what suits you better will give you more confidence.
A different body has a different metabolism, different rate of muscles growth and reactions from certain kinds of food.
In 1940, William H. Sheldon, an American psychologist introduced the “Samotype” the concept of the type of body, classifying human bodies into 3 types to help nutritionist and doctors to give the patient an effective nutrition plan that suits their bodies.
The three types are:
- Ectomorph: this type of body is thin and slim, has low storage of fats and hard to build muscles.
- Mesomorph: this type is strong with low-fat level and wide shoulder with a narrow waist. It’s easy to build muscles, but doesn’t store fats.
- Endomorph: this type is hard to lose weight also it stores fats more than building muscles with a large bone structure.
Once you know your body strengths and weaknesses, you’re ready to face any challenges and deal with your body in the right way.
Never be ashamed of your body just because you have a different structure than someone else means you’re on the wrong track.
If you loved your body, you’ll treat it better and you will be indifferent about any negative comments faces you.
Further, if you want to make any changes in your shape, make it because you want to, not because people told you to do so.
Moreover, If you want to know more about your body type take the body type test.
2- Media models reality
“To all the girls that think you’re fat because you’re not a size zero, you’re the beautiful one; it’s society who’s ugly.” –Marilyn Monroe.
We used to describe someone with a good body shape with: “She has a model body”.
While the model doesn’t look alike herself. Hundred percent of the model in the magazines and online accounts are retouched or photoshopped.
Therefore, the way of these model’s body shape affect negatively how you can see your body, it has a big impact on women more than men.
“Our results show that seeing slender and bikini-clad models had an immediate and direct impact on how women feel about their own bodies—and that impact was mostly negative,” said lead author David A. FrederickOpens a New Window., an assistant professor of health psychology at the university.
“Our findings highlight the important role of media in shaping women’s feelings about their bodies.”
Most of the women want to have the perfect body shape and the model’s body shape is the most attainable.
On the other side, you’re putting so much pressure on yourself in order to look like a model and at the end, you will feel unsatisfied with your body shape.
Not because you can’t or it’s hard.
NO, it’s impossible to look like photoshopped body shape.
there’s no mould for this perfect body it’s only the media boost their service or products by introducing the ideal body type.
3- Control your thoughts
“Did you catch yourself repeating a negative comment said by someone to you?”
If you kept reading a million articles and pieces of advice about body shaming, you won’t stop judging your body unless you take a decision to control your thoughts.
Any negative self-talk will definitely affect you and the way you deal with your body.
Actually, the best way to accept your body is to stop being ashamed of it and start being satisfied with yourself.
Thus, you should start being aware of your response about any negative talks or any judgmental comment concerning your body.
Those comments might comes from anybody even the closest one, however, you should not take it personally and let them express their opinion but do not look at yourself through their eyes.
There’s also another way that may help you to reduce the unfavourable thoughts, which is to replace your negative thoughts with positive ones.
It might seem a cliche, but in a way or another affect your concepts.
In fact, a small thought like “I hate my stretch marks, I can’t wear a crop top”, can hardly impact your self-acceptance and by the time it’ll become a part of your identity.
While that’s not our goal, we want you to love every part of your body, and the first step to do it is to start talking on how much you love those stretch marks and wearing whatever makes you feel comfortable and confident.
The effect of body shaming:
Any criticism you get concerning your body, appearance or weight basically affect you internally. Either your physical or mental health, such as:
- There’s research clarifies that being under social pressure increase the vulnerability to mental health problems.,like decreasing your performance to solve daily problems.
- Decrease your self-esteem and make you feel that you’re not worthy.
- More likely to obesity, there’s a study shown that people who faced weight discrimination are more likely to be obese than who did not.
- Lead to anxiety, high level of depression and suicidal thoughts.
- Increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, it decreases your metabolism lead to high blood pressure, sugar level and belly fat gain.
- Eating disorder due to social media and images of celebrities with skinny body shape.
- Body Shaming lead makes people less motivated to take care of their bodies.
To sum up
In the end, we are all humans with different types of bodies not a barbie doll with perfect body shape. Even the runaway models aren’t real neither attainable.
The submission to societal standards of beauty will destroy you physically, emotionally and psychologically.
You must be confident about yourself and your body shape.
In order to reach this confidence, you need to know more about your body type to nourish it properly and becoming more comfortable with your body.
Also, as we grow up being the master of your thoughts is important and controlling the little voice inside your head instead of filling it with doubts.
And having a positive body image is essential for mental well-being.
And remember that the ideal body shape doesn’t represent you rather than your kindness, passion and intelligence.
