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The Impact of Body Shaming and How to Overcome It

Ariane Resnick, CNC is a mental health writer, certified nutritionist, and wellness author who advocates for accessibility and inclusivity.

Ivy Kwong, LMFT, is a psychotherapist specializing in relationships, love and intimacy, trauma and codependency, and AAPI mental health.  

Wavebreakmedia / Getty Images

Body Shaming in Our Culture

Who are the targets of body shaming, why do we need to stop body shaming, how to be more inclusive.

Body shaming is the act of saying something negative about a person's body. It can be about your own body or someone else's. The commentary can be about a person's size, age, hair, clothes, food, hair, or level of perceived attractiveness.

Body shaming can lead to mental health issues including eating disorders , depression, anxiety, low self-esteem , and body dysmorphia, as well as the general feeling of hating one's body .

In our current society, many people think that thin bodies are inherently better and healthier than larger bodies. Historically, however, that hasn't always been the case. If you think of paintings and portraits from before the 1800s era, you can see that plumpness was revered.

Being fat was a sign that a person was wealthy and had access to food, while thinness represented poverty. In her book "Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture," author Amy Erdman Farrell traces the shift from revering heavy bodies to the preference of smaller shapes to mid-nineteenth century England when the first diets books were published.

She noted that the focus on diets, and bodies at large, was centered around women. Author Sabrina Strings says that fatphobia resulted from colonialism and race in her book "Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia."

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the first known use of the term "body shaming" was by journalist Philip Ellis.

Body shaming is most often about body size, but negative comments about any facet of a person's body count as body shaming.

Below are the various reasons why people might be body shamed.

One of the most common reasons people are body shamed is because of their weight. Someone might be body shamed for being "too big" or "too thin."

Saying anything negative about a person being "fat" is body shaming. This is also known as "fat-shaming." Fat-shaming comments are ones like "They'd be pretty if they lost weight," or "I bet they had to buy an extra plane ticket to fit." Men are often body-shamed when people refer to them as having a "dad bod."

People in thinner bodies can also be shamed for their weight. Often called skinny-shaming, it may sound like, "They look like they never eat" or "They look like they have an eating disorder."

Hair grows on the arms, legs, private areas, and underarms of all people, except for those with certain health conditions. However, many people have the idea that women should remove all of their body hair, or they won't be "ladylike."

Examples of body hair shaming are calling a woman with underarm hair "beastly," or telling a woman she needs to shave.

Attractiveness

Known as "pretty-shaming," the bullying or discrimination of people for being attractive, is something that happens regularly. And even more than that, people are bullied for being considered unattractive, which is also known as "lookism." Lookism describes prejudice or discrimination against people who are considered physically unattractive or whose physical appearance is believed to fall short of societal ideas of beauty.

An example of pretty-shaming is how attractive women are less likely to be hired for jobs in which they'd have positions of authority. And an example of lookism would be how unattractive people may receive fewer opportunities.

Food-shaming is generally done in relation to body size. For example, when someone makes a remark about what a person is or isn't eating, that can count as food-shaming. Someone saying, "They look like they don't need to be eating that," is an example of food-shaming.

You can also food-shame yourself. For example, you might say, "I'm so fat, I shouldn't eat this piece of cheesecake."

The 1980s saw the rise of spandex clothing, and there was a popular saying, "Spandex is a privilege, not a right." This meant that people should only wear spandex clothes if they had the "correct" body shape for them. This is a prime example of clothing-shaming.

More recently, the founder of the clothing brand Lululemon was criticized for making fat-shaming comments when he said that some women's bodies "don't work" for the clothes.

Also known as ageism, age-shaming is discrimination or bullying towards people because of their age. This usually focuses on the elderly or the older population.

In relation to body-shaming, an ageist remark may sound like, "They're too old to wear that much makeup." Additionally, news articles that show photos of how "bad" or "old" celebrities look when not wearing makeup are shaming. Making negative comments about someone's wrinkles or loose skin is another form of body-shaming.

Western society has long focused on sleek, shiny, straight hair as the ideal. Thus, hair with curls, kinks, or other textures has been viewed as less attractive. This is known as texture-shaming.

An example of texture shaming is, "They're so brave to wear their hair natural." While that sounds like a compliment, it's actually an insult. That's because it implies that a person's hair is outside what is considered normal and that they are courageous for wearing their hair in its natural state.

Additionally, bald-shaming happens to people of all genders who have receding hairlines or thinning/balding scalps.

Body shaming has myriad negative consequences on mental health. Here are some important ones:

• Adolescents who are body shamed have a significantly elevated risk of depression .
• It may lead to eating disorders.
• Body shaming worsens outcomes for obese women attempting to overcome binge eating.
• Body shaming can cause dissatisfaction with one's body, which then can cause low self-esteem .

Additional mental health concerns associated with body-shaming include:

• Body dysmorphic disorder
• Higher risk of self-harm or suicide
• Poorer quality of life (due to body dissatisfaction)
• Psychological distress

If you are having suicidal thoughts, contact the  National Suicide Prevention Lifeline  at  988  for support and assistance from a trained counselor. If you or a loved one are in immediate danger, call 911.

For more mental health resources, see our  National Helpline Database .

Body shaming may be rampant, but that doesn't mean you should take part in it. Making a point of not being a body shamer is the kinder option for all people, yourself included. Being intentional about not engaging in various types of shaming may lead to better mental wellness.

In addition to not body shaming, it can be helpful to be more body-inclusive. This means encouraging the acceptance and celebration of shape and diversity in appearance, focusing on health instead of size or weight, and appreciating the human body for all that it is and does.

Below are some ways you can stop contributing to body shaming culture.

Stop Talking About Other People's Bodies

It may be socially acceptable for people to mock and body-shame others, but you do not have to accept, participate in, or tolerate such words or actions. You wouldn't want that to be done to you, and now you know that it can cause real problems for those it happens to.

So, when you are tempted to point out a person's body hair or their hair texture, their size, stop yourself. Instead, why not think of something nice to say to the person?

Clearly, they caught your eye, so you could use this as an opportunity to find a positive attribute. "I like your smile" is one idea of a way to compliment another person without speaking negatively about their body.

Try the following steps:

• Notice your thoughts and acknowledge your own conditioning, bias, and/or judgments.
• Make an intentional effort to notice what you like, appreciate, or admire about this person (this may be physical or non-physical traits).
• Practice this with others and yourself to develop and deepen respect, care, and compassion for yourself and others.

Learn About Body Neutrality

Body neutrality is a practice that has many proven mental health benefits . It's the notion of accepting bodies as they are, without casting judgment on them. This can apply to your own body, and to the bodies of others.

Body neutrality encourages a focus on the positive functions that bodies can perform. Learning about it can make you feel better in your own body, improve your relationship with food, and boost your self-esteem.

Change How You Talk About Your Own Body

In a culture where so much emphasis is placed on what is wrong with us and needs improvement, it can feel like a huge challenge to speak positively about our own bodies. Doing so, however, is a healthy thing to do, and it also saves other people from harm.

By practicing speaking positively about ourselves and our bodies, and noticing qualities about ourselves and others that we like and appreciate, we can deepen our care, compassion, and connection with others and with ourselves.

When you make a comment like "I feel so fat today," you're making a judgment about fat people and implying their bodies are less valuable than the bodies of thin people. This can be hurtful for anyone around you, especially those who are larger.

It isn't realistic to only think positive thoughts about yourself, but you can express your feelings in ways that are less harmful to others. For the above example, you could instead confide in a friend and say, "My pants aren't fitting as they usually do, and it's making me feel self-conscious."

Rather than body-shaming, you'll have opened up to a loved one, creating more closeness and trust between the both of you.

If you've gone through the steps to stop body-shaming yourself and other people, that's wonderful! However, there is still more work to do.

As with all instances in life when you see other people causing harm, it's important to speak up—provided it is emotionally and physically safe for you to do so.

If you see someone making a comment to another person about their body, whether about their clothing or age or size, you can gently let them know that it's unkind to talk about other people's bodies. And if it happens regularly with friends or loved ones, you can bring it up in a bigger way, letting them know that their ways of communicating about bodies don't always feel good for you and others.

Body shaming may be prevalent, but you can do the work to stop perpetuating it and to help heal its harmful effects by practicing body positivity with yourself and others.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Body-Shaming .

Braun S, Peus C, Frey, D. Is beauty beastly? Gender-specific effects of leader attractiveness and leadership style on followers’ trust and loyalty .  Zeitschrift für Psychologie. 2012; 220(2), 98–108. https://doi.org/10.1027/2151-2604/a000101

Tietje L, Cresap S. Is Lookism Unjust?: The Ethics of Aesthetics and Public Policy Implications . The Journal of Libertarian Studies . 2010.

Throughline. Lululemon founder to women: Your thighs are too fat .

Brewis AA, Bruening M. Weight shame, social connection, and depressive symptoms in late adolescence .  Int J Environ Res Public Health . 2018;15(5):891.

Vogel L. Fat shaming is making people sicker and heavier .  CMAJ . 2019;191(23):E649. doi:10.1503/cmaj.109-5758

Palmeira L, Pinto-Gouveia J, Cunha M. The role of weight self-stigma on the quality of life of women with overweight and obesity: A multi-group comparison between binge eaters and non-binge eaters .  Appetite . 2016;105:782-789.

van den Berg PA, Mond J, Eisenberg M, Ackard D, Neumark-Sztainer D. The link between body dissatisfaction and self-esteem in adolescents: Similarities across gender, age, weight status, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status .  J Adolesc Health . 2010;47(3):290-296.

Gilbert P, Miles J. Body Shame: Conceptualisation, Research, and Treatment. New York, NY:Brunner-Routledge.

By Ariane Resnick, CNC Ariane Resnick, CNC is a mental health writer, certified nutritionist, and wellness author who advocates for accessibility and inclusivity.

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What is body shaming?

Causes of body shaming, effects of body shaming, how to turn body shaming into body positivity, turn body shaming into body positivity tip 1: cultivate self-love, tip 2: replace negative self-talk, tip 3: manage time spent on social media, tip 4: make friends with food, tip 5: reach out to someone you trust, how to help a loved one with body shaming, body shaming: the effects and how to overcome it.

Hearing negative comments about your appearance can impact your body image and leave you feeling anxious and self-conscious. But there are ways to manage fat shaming or other critical comments, and achieve body acceptance.

Body shaming involves humiliating someone by making inappropriate or negative comments about their body size or shape. As well as “fat shaming,” you may also hear negative comments if you’re underweight or in reference to a specific body part.

This type of criticism can be made to others or yourself. You may feel unhappy with your weight or how your body looks and judge yourself harshly. You may even engage in negative self-talk, such as “I feel so fat today” or “I need to stop stuffing my face with food.”

The act of body shaming can be carried out in person or remotely via the internet and social media and can be done by your parents, siblings, friends, or people you’re not even close to.

Even in a joking manner, remarks about what you eat or how much food you consume constitutes body shaming. Giving someone advice about dieting or praising weight loss is also considered body shaming, whether intentional or not. Often, your friends and family members don’t want to hurt your feelings, but their comments can still be of a critical nature. They may not realize the negative effect that questions like “Have you lost weight?” or “Do you really need to eat all of that?” can have.

While nobody is immune to societal pressures to look a certain way, comments about your body are unnecessary in any context. Whether the body shaming is being done by yourself or others, there are ways to overcome the problem, build body positivity, and learn to look at yourself in a more compassionate and realistic way.

Social media and body shaming

Social media often emphasizes physical appearance and makes it easy to post hurtful comments about others. The overall message is often that you should strive for the perfect body and find ways to hide your flaws. This can have a huge influence on your body image.

Body shaming on digital platforms is related to cyberbullying, but there are ways to fight back against those who body shame online, overcome the pain and anguish they cause, and reclaim your sense of self-worth.

See Cyberbullying: Dealing with Online Bullies .

Our “selfie” culture emphasizes outward beauty and we’re constantly bombarded with images of glamourous celebrities in magazines, advertisements, TV shows, and other types of media.

What you see every day on TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram can understandably make you feel envious of others or focus your thinking on your physical appearance and any perceived flaws. You may struggle to live up to these standards and experience negative feelings and judgements about yourself. This can become destructive when it diminishes your self-worth and body image.

A fixation with how you look can create unrealistic expectations that are impossible to achieve. Even when you know that these idealized images are digitally altered or enhanced, it’s easy to fall into the trap of unfavorably comparing yourself—or others.

Speak to a Licensed Therapist

BetterHelp is an online therapy service that matches you to licensed, accredited therapists who can help with depression, anxiety, relationships, and more. Take the assessment and get matched with a therapist in as little as 48 hours.

Body shaming in teens

Adolescents are particularly vulnerable to body shaming, weight shaming, and appearance-based shaming. In the teen years, your attitudes and beliefs about body image and self-esteem are largely influenced by your family members, peers, and social media. Mothers can often be role models for their daughters, for example. If your mother is continually complaining about her own shape or weight, or pointing out problems in how you look or eat, it’s bound to have an impact on how you view yourself.

As you develop during adolescence, it’s normal to be highly sensitive to comments about body shape, weight, and appearance. Weight-related bullying during adolescence contributes to negative body perceptions and preoccupations with specific body parts. Adolescents who are overweight are particularly vulnerable, and this can often lead to depression .

You might think that only teenage girls are the victims of body shaming, but boys can also be affected. They may be particularly concerned about not being muscular enough in relationship to the popular concept of masculinity.

Even supermodels and prima ballerinas have insecurities and imperfections, but we still tend to perceive them to be the ultimate representations of beauty. If you don’t measure up to these standards, you may feel inadequate and unworthy. And if you experience body shaming by others and take their negative comments to heart, it can lead to unhealthy behaviors and mental health problems, such as:

Having a negative body image is one of the main factors for developing disordered eating or an eating disorder , such as anorexia, bulimia, or binge eating.

You may start a diet that involves restrictive eating in an attempt to change your body shape or size. But such dieting can spiral into harmful behaviors like skipping meals, fasting, vomiting after eating, excessive exercising, or overusing laxatives. Over time, you end up depriving your body and brain of essential nutrients that are necessary for optimal health.

Body shaming comments such as “Did you lose weight? You look so much better,” can be triggering and create more disordered eating habits in an attempt to maintain or lose even more weight.

Experiencing body-shaming can interfere with your self-image and make you feel extremely self-conscious. This can escalate into body dysmorphic disorder , where you become obsessed with a perceived appearance flaw that can create repeated avoidance behaviors.

Your daily life can become consumed with concerns about a small flaw, or one that is not apparent to others. You may constantly look at yourself in the mirror or avoid mirrors altogether, conceal body parts you don’t like, pick at your skin, or frequently ask others if you look okay.

If you are constantly ashamed of your body, it can also impair your performance at school and interfere with your relationships with peers, teachers, and family members. Fears about being judged by others may cause you to limit or avoid social activities.

[Read: Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD)]

Severe symptoms of BDD can result in you dropping out of school because you’re unable to cope with the constant level of distress. You may even develop depression or suicidal thoughts and behaviors .

Excessive Exercising

Being physically active is normally one of the best things you can do for your health and well-being. However, if it becomes an addiction and you engage in compulsive exercising, it can lead to persistent fatigue, injuries, and susceptibility to illness or trigger anxiety, depression, or irritability.

If you are exercising compulsively, you may also start to withdraw from social situations as exercise becomes your main focus. Excessive exercising can progress into a syndrome called Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S) which occurs when your calorie intake is not sufficient for the amount of energy you are expending to maintain healthy functioning.

Anxiety and depression

Body shaming can trigger or worsen existing symptoms of anxiety and depression. If you are body-shamed in public or on social media, you may try to avoid going to school or other situations where this shaming might occur. You may withdraw from others and feel isolated and alone .

Hearing critical comments about your appearance can also be humiliating, heighten your insecurities, and damage your self-esteem. Consequently, you may engage in negative self-talk as you internalize these feelings of worthlessness. You may tell yourself things like “I am a bad person” or “I am completely worthless.” This can escalate into extreme loneliness, depression, anxiety, and poor body image.

Physical Health Issues

Fat shaming, in particular, is rampant in our society as obesity is associated with being lazy, unattractive, and lacking willpower to lose weight. In one study, over 70% of adolescents reported being bullied about their weight in the past few years. This can be harmful to your physical as well as psychological health.

Rather than being a motivating factor for losing weight , fat shaming actually has the opposite effect. The stress has been linked to a reduction in physical activity and the consumption of more calories.

[Read: Childhood Obesity and Weight Problems]

Being the target of weight bias and discrimination can also affect your metabolism, lead to further weight gain, and increase your chances of becoming obese. This in turn can elevate the risk factors for high blood pressure , high cholesterol, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, and other physical health problems.

In recent years, there has been an effort to reverse the body shaming emphasis and promote more love and acceptance of how we look. Social media platforms have utilized body positivity hashtags to gain more followers and help address the appearance-based prejudices that have been ingrained in us.

Of course, it will take time to change longstanding ideals of beauty. We have all internalized these messages in different ways based upon our cultural beliefs and norms. As the saying goes, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” and this also holds true for our views about various body shapes and sizes.

How to build body positivity

Body positivity is a continuous journey towards accepting yourself and others. It takes patience and practice to alter longstanding cultural beliefs and learn self-compassion. You can’t control what others say or do, but you can change your all-or-nothing thinking and start to view yourself as a whole person.

Following these basic steps can help you overcome body shaming and build body positivity:

• Cultivate self-love.
• Replace negative self-talk.
• Manage your time spent on social media.
• Make friends with food.
• Reach out to someone you trust for guidance and support.

The first steps to protecting yourself from body shaming are to stop body-shaming yourself and develop self-compassion. Remember that your health status takes priority over your physical appearance, and that should always be your primary concern.

Don’t hide or isolate yourself from others . We all have days when we don’t look or feel our best, but don’t let this destroy your self-esteem or sense of worth. Take a step back and think about the critical inner dialog you are imposing on yourself. Is this really an accurate representation of who you are? Say “no” to yourself when you’re looking in the mirror and feeling disgust for your face or your body.

Treat yourself with kindness and understanding , as you would a best friend. Taking care of yourself is not a selfish act; it’s necessary for your personal well-being. Exercise, eat healthy food, enjoy the company of people who care about you, and spend some time outdoors to refresh your body and your mind.

Manage stress . Experiencing body shaming can be extremely stressful. Relaxation techniques such as exercise, meditation, and deep breathing exercises are all good ways to build resilience and prevent you from feeling overwhelmed by negative experiences.

[Read: Stress Management]

Embrace the power of your body . Our bodies serve us well on a daily basis to function effectively and keep us healthy. Rather than being upset about your appearance, express gratitude for this “sacred vessel” you inhabit. Take notice of simple things you often take for granted, such as breathing, blood pumping to the heart, and your miraculous senses. The most important thing you can do is strive for a healthy body, which is separate from your feelings about your weight and desire for perfection.

While you can’t control what others say about you, you do have the power to focus on the positive aspects of yourself, rather than dwelling on any perceived flaws. Learning to accept your own imperfections will ultimately free you from placing unfair judgments on yourself or others.

Replacing negative self-talk with positive thoughts and affirmations can be useful for making you feel better about yourself and your body.

Shift your focus to the things that you like about yourself . For example, if you have beautiful hair or eyes, this is just as important as the features you dislike or that others try to ridicule. The next time you look in the mirror, notice these positive attributes.

Instead of repeating negative messages, accept yourself without criticism . You can tell yourself: “I accept my body just as it is,” or “My body is strong and healthy.”

Be proud of your individuality . Your value as a human being is worth much more than your physical body. Remembering the positive qualities that you bring to the world is the foundation for attaining body acceptance.

Start off with body neutrality . If you’re not quite ready to embrace body positivity, work towards having body neutrality. That means you are accepting and respectful of your body, without having to either love or hate it. When you practice body neutrality, you place the emphasis on what your body can do, rather than what your body looks like. For example, you can remind yourself: “My legs enable me to walk and run long distances.”

Don’t body shame others

Research shows that when you promote body positivity to others, you also feel more positively about your own body. Surround yourself with people who are courteous and treat others with respect. Avoid bullies who engage in body shaming and talk about the flaws of others.

Establish boundaries with your circle of friends and make it clear that you will not tolerate comments about your body or weight. You can also set an example by standing up for others who are the targets of body shaming.

Spending too much time on social media can add to your anxiety, loneliness, and body dissatisfaction, reinforce unrealistic expectations of yourself, and expose you to body shaming and cyberbullying.

[Read: Social Media and Mental Health]

If you reduce your time on social media, you will be able to participate in other activities that elevate your mood and tap into your creative potential. Try:

Connecting to others in-person . Cutting down or stepping away from social media can give you an opportunity to connect in-person and improve the quality of your social interactions. Communicating face-to-face is nature’s antidote to stress and can be a lot more rewarding than texting or messaging.

Physical activities like walking, running, swimming, dancing, and other fun sports. Being active is important for your overall health and well-being and can help increase your confidence, self-esteem, and sense of accomplishment.

Practicing mindfulness through yoga, meditation, deep breathing, or journaling.

If you are shamed or ashamed about your weight, it’s easy to develop an unhealthy attitude towards food. Mindful eating can help you remember that food is not the enemy and whatever your weight, you can still find enjoyment in eating.

To make friends with food and eat more mindfully:

• Tune out all distractions while you’re eating, such as phones, TV, and other types of multitasking in order to enrich this pleasant experience.
• By concentrating on the present moment and accepting your thoughts and feelings, you can savor each bite, eat slowly, and respond to your body’s needs.
• Planning nutritious meals ahead of time or trying out new recipes are other great ways to make friends with food.

You may feel embarrassed about confiding in someone about the body shaming you’re experiencing, but there’s no reason you have to handle this on your own. Reach out to others for guidance and support and let them know what you have been experiencing.

It’s crucial to find someone you trust and feel comfortable sharing your feelings with. Having a safe outlet to express your emotions can help you cope with the distress and humiliation of being body shamed.

If you need additional assistance in the recovery process, don’t hesitate to schedule an appointment with a licensed mental health counselor or therapist. They can offer unbiased advice to help you feel more empowered and heal from the effects of body shaming.

If a friend or loved one is being body shamed by others, your compassion and understanding can be invaluable.

Let them know you are concerned and how much you care about them. You can say, “I feel worried that you are always talking about your weight,” or “I feel sad when you speak negatively about your appearance.”

Be patient and listen to their concerns . Don’t assume that you know what your loved one needs, but rather ask how you can best support them. They may just want a shoulder to cry on, someone to listen to their worries without judgment.

Try to shift the focus away from your loved one’s body to something else you admire about them. For example, you can remind them about their wonderful sense of humor, how smart they are, their adventurous spirit, or highlight a particular talent they have.

If your child has been body shamed

It can be extremely hurtful to learn that your child or teenager has been body shamed. But like any bullying or cyberbullying behavior, there are steps you can take to deal with the problem—or even help prevent it before it starts.

Educate your child about body shaming . Let them know that people can sometimes be cruel to each other and how your child should value and respect both themselves and others. Remind them that body shaming in any form is unacceptable.

Talk to your child’s teachers or school administrators if the problem is occurring at school.

Encourage your child to seek new friends if their current ones are engaging in body shaming. Enrolling in sports teams, youth clubs, and after-school activities are great ways for your child to expand their social circle.

Be a good role model . Speak positively about your own body and catch yourself if you say something negative about your own appearance. Try to use body-positive or body-neutral language to set a healthy example.

Reduce the time your child spends on social media . Be aware of what your child is posting and reading about on social media platforms. The more you know about your child’s life online, the sooner you’ll be able to identify and address any body shaming issues.

Reassure your child . Let your child know that you love them unconditionally for both their inner and outer beauty. Refrain from criticizing or teasing a child or teenager about their appearance, even in jest.

Encourage a healthy lifestyle that nurtures your child’s body—but keep the subjects of appearance, weight, and dieting out of the discussion. Focus instead on what your child’s body is capable of. Remind them how well their body serves to help them run, jump, draw, play a musical instrument, or solve puzzles.

Bolster your child’s self-esteem and resilience through exercise and creative endeavors. Having them involved in team sports, volunteer organizations, or group activities can help build self-confidence and improve social skills. Physical activity can also help to relieve anxiety and stress and boost your child’s mood.

Helplines and support

Bullying helplines.

1-800-273-8255 –  Crisis Call Center

0845 22 55 787 –  National Bullying Helpline

1-877-352-4497 –  BullyingCanada

1800 551 800 –  Kids Helpline

1098 –  Childline India

Eating disorder helplines

National Eating Disorders Association  or call 1-800-931-2237 (National Eating Disorders Association)

Beat Eating Disorders  or call 0345 643 1414 (Helpfinder)

Butterfly Foundation for Eating Disorders  or call 1800 33 4673 (National Eating Disorders Collaboration)

Service Provider Directory  or call 1-866-633-4220 (NEDIC)

More Information

• What’s the Difference Between Body Positivity and Body Neutrality? - Embracing both can be healthy. (Cleveland Clinic)
• 8 steps to mindful eating - Change the way you think about food. (Harvard Health Publishingc)
• Words Have Weight: The Many Forms of Body-Shaming - A closer look at body-shaming towards ourselves and others. (Psychology Today)
• Body Image and Self-Esteem - You don’t need a perfect body to have a good body image. (TeensHealth)
• Encouraging a Healthy Body Image - Tips for parents. (KidsHealth)
• Feeding and Eating Disorders. (2013) In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . American Psychiatric Association. Link
• Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders. (2013). In Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders . American Psychiatric Association. Link
• Gam, Rahul, Shivendra Singh, Manish Manar, Sujita Kar, and Abhishek Gupta. “Body Shaming among School-Going Adolescents: Prevalence and Predictors.” International Journal Of Community Medicine And Public Health 7 (March 14, 2020). Link
• Schlüter, Constanze, Gerda Kraag, and Jennifer Schmidt. “Body Shaming: An Exploratory Study on Its Definition and Classification.” International Journal of Bullying Prevention , November 9, 2021. Link
• Voelker, Dana K, Justine J Reel, and Christy Greenleaf. “Weight Status and Body Image Perceptions in Adolescents: Current Perspectives.” Adolescent Health, Medicine and Therapeutics 6 (August 25, 2015): 149–58. Link
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Essay on Body Shaming

Students are often asked to write an essay on Body Shaming in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Body Shaming

Understanding body shaming.

Body shaming is the act of mocking or criticizing someone’s physical appearance. It is often linked to weight, size, or shape but can also include skin color, height, or any other physical attribute.

Consequences of Body Shaming

Body shaming can lead to self-esteem issues, anxiety, and depression. People who are body shamed may feel isolated or unworthy, which can have a devastating impact on their mental health.

Rejecting Body Shaming

Rejecting body shaming involves promoting acceptance of all body types. It’s important to remember that everyone is unique and beautiful in their own way.

Also check:

• Speech on Body Shaming

250 Words Essay on Body Shaming

The pervasive issue of body shaming.

Body shaming, a prevalent social issue, is the act of mocking or criticizing individuals based on their physical appearance. It is a destructive practice that permeates our society, largely propagated by unrealistic body ideals portrayed in the media.

Implications of Body Shaming

Body shaming can have severe psychological implications. It can lead to diminished self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and even trigger eating disorders. Furthermore, body shaming does not only affect the individual’s mental health but also their physical well-being, as it can result in unhealthy lifestyle choices.

The Role of Media

Media plays a significant role in perpetuating body shaming. It projects an unattainable image of perfection, leading individuals to feel inadequate and pressured to conform. This constant comparison with idealized images can fuel self-loathing and body dissatisfaction.

Combatting Body Shaming

Combatting body shaming requires a collective effort. We need to challenge societal norms and promote body positivity, encouraging acceptance of all body types. Education can play a pivotal role in this, teaching individuals from a young age about the diversity of human bodies and the importance of respecting others’ physical appearances.

In conclusion, body shaming is a harmful practice that needs to be addressed. It’s crucial to promote a culture of acceptance and respect, where individuals feel comfortable in their own skin. By fostering body positivity and challenging societal norms, we can strive towards a society free from the detrimental effects of body shaming.

500 Words Essay on Body Shaming

Introduction.

Body shaming, a pervasive form of discrimination, has become a global phenomenon that affects individuals of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. It involves criticizing oneself or others based on real or perceived physical attributes. This essay explores the concept of body shaming, its impact, and potential solutions.

The Concept of Body Shaming

Body shaming is an act of humiliation where individuals are made to feel ashamed or uncomfortable about their bodies. It can manifest in various forms, from subtle comments about one’s weight or appearance to overtly discriminatory actions. The advent of social media has amplified the issue, providing a platform for anonymous users to make derogatory comments with little to no consequences.

Psychological Impact of Body Shaming

The psychological impact of body shaming can be severe, leading to low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and in extreme cases, self-harm or suicide. A study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that adolescents who experienced body shaming were more likely to develop eating disorders and lower self-esteem. This psychological trauma often extends into adulthood, affecting an individual’s personal and professional life.

Societal Consequences

Body shaming not only affects individuals but also has wider societal implications. It reinforces harmful stereotypes and norms about beauty and body image, leading to a culture of discrimination and exclusion. It affects societal cohesion, as it fosters an environment of negativity and judgement, rather than acceptance and inclusivity.

The media plays a significant role in perpetuating body shaming. Advertisements, movies, and TV shows often portray unrealistic beauty standards, contributing to body dissatisfaction. Social media platforms, while providing a space for self-expression, can also be a breeding ground for body shaming, with users often comparing themselves to carefully curated, and often edited, images of others.

Combatting body shaming requires a multi-pronged approach. Education is vital in promoting body positivity and acceptance. Schools, families, and communities need to foster environments where diversity in body shapes and sizes is celebrated. Media literacy education can also help individuals critically analyze media content and resist internalizing harmful beauty standards.

Moreover, policies need to be implemented to discourage body shaming. Social media platforms should have stricter regulations to prevent body shaming and promote respectful interactions. Legal measures could also be considered to penalize those who engage in overt body shaming.

Body shaming is a pressing issue that requires urgent attention. It is a form of discrimination that has far-reaching psychological and societal implications. By fostering a culture of body positivity, implementing effective policies, and promoting media literacy, we can combat body shaming and create a more inclusive and accepting society. The fight against body shaming is not just about promoting body positivity, but also about advocating for respect, equality, and dignity for all, regardless of physical appearance.

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Body Shaming: an Exploratory Study on its Definition and Classification

• Original Article
• Published: 09 November 2021
• Volume 5 , pages 26–37, ( 2023 )

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• Constanze Schlüter 1 ,
• Gerda Kraag 1 &
• Jennifer Schmidt 2  

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Body shaming (BS) is a popular term for a type of negative social interaction, which frequently occurs in social media. However, there is a lack of a clear scientific definition of BS and data on its relation to other concepts in social aggression research. The present study therefore aimed at providing a definition and classification of BS. In an exploratory online-study, 25 participants (60%) provided personal definitions of BS and rated the fit of a suggested definition. In addition, they reported similarities with and differences to related concepts (appearance teasing, cyberbullying, trolling). We conducted qualitative analyses of the verbal definitions guided by the Grounded Theory approach and quantified the fit to existing concepts in the field of social aggression. The results show that BS is perceived as an unrepeated act in which a person expresses unsolicited, mostly negative opinions/comments about a target’s body, without necessarily intending to harm him/her. Still, the target perceives the comments as negative. BS can range from well-meant advice to malevolent insults and it can occur online and offline. Participants saw similarities between BS and appearance teasing. BS can be a tool for trolling and can evolve to cyberbullying with repetition over time. Altogether, BS is a form of social aggression that has a negative impact on individuals. The definition and classification help to investigate BS and its effects on body image and mental health in future research.

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Appendix 1. Open-ended questions to gain insights in people’s understanding of body shaming

• Q2-Q4 (bold print) were presented in randomized order to avoid effects caused by sequence and/or order. To prevent later editing of statements, participants could not return to previous questions

Appendix 2. Overview on exemplary statements regarding similarities and differences of the targeted concepts (body shaming, appearance teasing, cyberbullying, trolling)

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Schlüter, C., Kraag, G. & Schmidt, J. Body Shaming: an Exploratory Study on its Definition and Classification. Int Journal of Bullying Prevention 5 , 26–37 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-021-00109-3

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Accepted : 18 October 2021

Published : 09 November 2021

Issue Date : March 2023

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s42380-021-00109-3

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What Is Body Shaming and How to Stop It

Rachel MacPherson is a health writer, certified personal trainer, certified strength and conditioning specialist, and exercise nutrition coach based in Halifax.

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What Is Body Shaming?

How body shaming affects you.

• How to More Body-Inclusive

Frequently Asked Questions

Body shaming is not a new concept—whether it's a magazine cover analyzing a celebrity's weight change or a relative making an unsolicited comment around the dinner table, the act of using bodies as a talking point is something many of us have experienced. Thankfully, in recent years, more attention has been brought to the damaging effects of negative thoughts and words surrounding individuals' bodies.

Body shaming can significantly impact your self-esteem, mood, and relationships. Shifting the focus and becoming more positive in how you relate to your body and others' appearances can have a major impact on your own quality of life.

Body shaming involves criticizing your body or others' bodies, out loud or in your thoughts. Often, body shaming is not meant to be directly hurtful, but it is. Stating unwanted and unasked-for negative opinions and comments about a person's body, even if you don't necessarily intend to hurt the person, is still body shaming.

Types of Body Shaming

• Fat shaming : "You shouldn't wear that outfit until you lose weight."
• Skinny shaming : "She really needs to eat a cheeseburger."
• Attractiveness shaming : "What is a girl like her doing with a guy who looks like that?"
• Body hair shaming : "Gross, underarm hair on women is such a turn-off."
• Food shaming : "Are you sure you want dessert? You could stand to go without."
• Gender shaming : "He's a man, he needs to bulk up more."

Body shaming can affect individuals in a variety of ways. Research shows that body shaming can result in mental health concerns such as depression, body dissatisfaction, low self-esteem, anxiety, increased risk of suicidal thoughts, and unhealthy behaviors like eating disorders, overexercising, and exercise avoidance .

Furthermore, when people use body shaming of themselves or others to try and encourage weight loss, it more often backfires, leading to weight gain, unnecessary weight loss, and unhealthy habits. Experts and studies say that experiencing weight bias leads to physiological and behavioral changes linked to poor metabolic health and weight gain. Stress from these negative experiences may have the ability to initiate stress hormones like cortisol and reduce self-control, increasing the risk of binge eating .

With so much focus on physical appearance , other aspects of your life may also suffer. You may hold back from social events, exercise, dating, sex , and other elements of a well-rounded life. Even more importantly, the time spent obsessing over your body means less time for other pursuits, including education, self-improvement, charity work, and fulfilling hobbies.

How to Stop Body Shaming and Be More Body-Inclusive

Body shaming can quickly become a habit , especially when those around you engage in the behavior as well. Like any bad habit, stopping may be challenging but worth it. One significant first step is removing social media that makes you feel physically unworthy.

Research has tied body shaming and poor body image with social media more than any other contributing factor. The more time spent on social media, the worse body shaming and dissatisfaction are likely to be.

Another factor can be disapproving comments from relatives, including parents. Research shows that being raised with disparaging remarks about your physical appearance impacts how you think about your body and has the potential to lead to body shaming and disordered eating patterns. Speaking out and setting clear boundaries around what you will and will not tolerate from others close to you can help end this cycle.

Ultimately, if you are tempted to make a comment about someone else's body, don't. Even praising someone for weight loss or telling someone they look much better wearing a specific type of clothing or makeup can backfire.

These comments insinuate that the person's value has increased due to physical changes, even if you don't know their root cause. For instance, illness can lead to weight loss that wasn't desired or attempted. And suggesting someone looks better a particular way means they look less ideal another way. Remove focus on the physical and place it on accomplishments with more meaning and permanence.

A Word From Verywell

Body shaming is not always so obvious. Small, seemingly harmless comments can make a big impact on a person's self-esteem. It's best to avoid commenting on people's physical appearance in general, and especially in relation to things like weight , attractiveness, gender conformity, and what a person chooses to wear or not.

If you struggle with body image, body shaming, or related issues and feel like you cannot change things, reach out to a therapist who can help you. Discuss how you feel with trusted friends and family members, and remember to set clear boundaries with yourself and others.

If you hear someone body shaming, it may be best to remind them of the harmful effects, such as perpetuating unrealistic expectations and focusing on trivial physical appearance instead of more important aspects of a person. You can try saying something like "I really don't agree with body shaming. Let's not get caught up in appearances, there's more to life than how you look."

Society is highly focused on physical appearance and attributing too much value to how someone looks. If you feel bad about your looks, you are more likely to make purchases that will "fix" it, including weight loss, beauty, and anti-aging products. This is why marketing efforts focus so much on "flaws" that are actually perfectly normal, including weight, cellulite, acne, wrinkles, hair loss, and more. These messages become pervasive and can influence how you think and feel about yourself and others.

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Michael SL, Wentzel K, Elliott MN, et al. Parental and peer factors associated with body image discrepancy among fifth-grade boys and girls . J Youth Adolescence. 2014;43(1):15-29. doi:10.1007%2Fs10964-012-9899-8

Dahill L, Mitchison D, Morrison NMV, et al. Prevalence of parental comments on weight/shape/eating amongst sons and daughters in an adolescent sample . Nutrients. 2021;13(1):158. doi:10.3390%2Fnu13010158

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What is Body Shaming?

“We are our own worst critic” is often a phrase we use to describe when we, as individuals, are too hard on ourselves. For most people, it is a natural tendency to always be better, faster and stronger however this craze for becoming better can result in severe mental health consequences, especially when it comes time to our physical appearances. The media has commonly portrayed overweight characters as the running joke of the show, resulting in “fat jokes” and a severe manifestation of self-doubt known as body shaming. Body shaming is known as the action or practice of expressing humiliation about another individual’s body shape or size; a form of bullying that can result in severe emotional trauma, especially at a young age. Body shaming is done by parents, siblings, friends, enemies, and schoolmates and is often portrayed in the media. “Why is she wearing that? It is not flattering at all.” Or “I am so ugly compared to her I will never find a date” are common thoughts and phrases used that are examples of body shaming. Negatively commenting about the size or shape of anyone’s body can be extremely damaging to them potentially leading to low-self esteem, anger, self-harm and even mental health disorders, specifically body dysmorphic disorder.

Body shaming manifests in many ways:

• Criticizing your own appearance, through a judgment or comparison to another person.
• Criticizing another’s appearance in front of them
• Criticizing another’s appearance without their knowledge.

No matter how this manifests, it often leads to comparison and shame, and perpetuates the idea that people should be judged mainly for their physical features.

Sadly, body shaming occurs among both men and women of all different shapes and body sizes. Body shaming has included both criticisms of being  “too fat” , or  “too skinny” , often picking on flaws that completely irrelevant. Many magazines, social media platforms, and advertisements contribute to body shaming in ways that have started to normalize these damaging behaviors. Many TV shows and movies have fallen into this pattern as well, where the “fat” character is often the subject of criticism and comic relief. With the trending behaviors of celebrity fat shaming on social media, it is important to understand the potential consequences that may arise.

Why does body shaming occur?

Growing up in the United States in front of a mirror can ingrain the conventional notions of beauty and can result in deep seeded self esteem issues. Today, individuals are more accepting of being different from others however with the pressure from social media, young individuals are more prone to want to look a certain way. Negative comments and provoking images can drive young girls to engage in unhealthy behaviors in order to change their body type to conform to the norms of society. This may lead to self-injury or cutting, binging and purging behaviors or even full-fledged eating disorders. Individuals with a history of trauma, depression, self-harm, low self-esteem, or borderline personality disorder are more likely to be affected by body shaming and potentially develop an eating disorder or engage in self-harm behavior.

How to overcome body shaming

Like with any other from of bullying, body shaming will always be present unless you stick up for yourself in a positive and healthy way. It is important to practice self-love and try to not let negative comments bother you. Furthermore if you witness body shaming on social media you can report it and flag it for inappropriate content. National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) has stepped up to fight against body shaming on social media and encourages individuals who witness body shaming to notify this organization through Media Watchdog program . Additionally you can create a petition against body shaming, write a body positive post or blog, call out the body-snarkers by taking a screenshot and tagging  @Proud2BmeUS   and engaging with strong and positive like minded women. And, you can always find a loving, encouraging community through ANAD’s support groups  and check out our ANAD Week Guide for body positivity programming. Keep in mind that entering a negative cycle of comments does not do any good in this situation. Take control and stay positive.

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Discussion of Body Shaming Among Teenagers Essay

It should be admitted that modern society is developing rapidly. A person anywhere in the world, having access to the Internet, also has the opportunity to master the experience of various cultures, social groups, professions, and so on. Social networks provide opportunities for communication of a huge number of people of different nationalities, ages, social statuses. Nowadays, social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and many others are international and allow people from different cultures to interact. It seems reasonable to state that under such conditions, the online community puts pressure on those who do not “stay in line” with beauty trends. This results in global issues such as body shaming, which makes this topic relevant to explore and suggest possible solutions. Below, the essence of body shaming among teenagers, as well as appropriate resolution of this issue – body positiveness promotion – will be provided.

Body shaming is negative comments about another person’s appearance. They can lead to depressive symptoms and irreversible consequences. People who are overweight are often subjected to body shaming, but those who look too thin or insufficiently athletic from the point of view of others are also criticized. Body shaming is ubiquitous. With the development of the online space and social networks, people have the opportunity to expand their circle of contacts and hurt unfamiliar teenagers without consequences for themselves (Martínez-González et al. 6629). There are posts and articles, the authors of which openly urge to evaluate whose body shape is better.

The dangers of body shaming go beyond nasty comments and attacks. Many people, even without other people’s words, are critical of their appearance – then third-party comments only reinforce negative experiences. Body shaming can be directed not only outside but also at oneself and can be expressed in dissatisfaction with one’s appearance in comparison with other people and standards (Gam et al. 1327). A person struggling with an eating disorder is influenced by many different factors, including genetic characteristics and the environment. Body shaming is considered part of the equation. The fact is that he increases the feeling of shame for his “wrong” appearance. The latter can already directly affect the choice of diet, right up to the transition to a rigid diet.

Body positive promotion can be a significant variant to address the described issue. This phenomenon may be defined as a movement based on a respectful attitude and acceptance of both your own and someone else’s appearance (Davies et al. 102). The goals of this movement were initially declared as very good: to teach society to communicate on an equal footing with people with all kinds of differences, without looking away and without showing excessive curiosity. All people, regardless of how they look, have an equal footing in basic comfort. The body cannot be the cause of a disrespectful attitude towards a person. Members of the movement help each other to overcome complexes, live in harmony with themselves without looking back at public opinion, fashion, and beauty standards. Body positivity arose as a response to popular culture with commercial beauty, promoting the acceptance of the normality of everyone.

For people with a body mass significantly exceeding the norm, body positivity has become a movement for accepting obesity, regardless of its cause. Today, obese people can wear fashionable clothes, including tight-fitting ones, without hesitation and complexes (Pickett and Cunningham 330). They may require comfortable conditions for themselves in public places: in cinemas and cafes, there should be not only chairs but also sofas for people of a higher weight category and dimensions.

There are a plethora of studies that confirm the significance and appropriacy of body positivity. Moreover, some specific practices allow implementing its core ideas and aspirations to a great degree. For instance, Pickett and Cunningham justify the adequateness of inclusive physical activities spaces (330), and Coyne et al. give a notable example of body positivity music’s effectiveness (11). Such a variety of approaches implies a great range of opportunities to promote body positivity via social media to make teenagers realize its advantages and perceive its principles properly.

However, there is an opinion that is declaring the freedom of the body to be as it is from nature, overweight people completely cease to monitor their diet. They do not make any effort to increase physical activity; they have such fat deposits that threaten physical health and shorten life expectancy. The medical point of view on overweight has not changed; obesity is recognized as a disease and a concomitant aggravating factor in many conditions. The ideology of body positivity manifested itself in obese people in a reluctance to take care of their bodies; any reminders of good nutrition and gyms are perceived as insults (Stamp). Such a point of view contains an exact degree of rationality, but the fact that body shaming also has a negative impact on health is relevant as well. It seems apparent that body shaming has no positive effects, and body positivity – if its message is conveyed properly – is a great foundation for mental and physical healthiness.

To conclude, the above discussion explored the phenomenon of body shaming and its adverse impact. The concept of body positivity was presented as well, and it was pre-assumed that it is an appropriate variant to address body shaming among teenagers. It is proposed to elaborate on the ways body positivity can be promoted properly and expediently.

Works Cited

Coyne, Sarah, et al. “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: The Effect of Lstening to Body Positive Music on Implicit and Explicit Body Esteem.” Psychology of Popular Media , vol. 10, no. 1, 2021, pp. 2–13.

Davies, Bryony, et al. “Add a Comment … How Fitspiration and Body Positive Captions Attached to Social Media Images Influence the Mood and Body Esteem of Young Female Instagram Users.” Body Image, vol. 33, 2020, pp. 101–105.

Gam, Rahul Taye et al. “Body Shaming among School-Going Adolescents: Prevalence and Predictors.” International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health , vol. 7., no. 4, 2020, pp. 1324–1328.

Martínez-González, Marina, et al. “Women Facing Psychological Abuse: How Do They Respond to Maternal Identity Humiliation and Body Shaming?” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2021, vol. 18, no, 12, pp. 6627–6644.

Pickett, Andrew, and George Cunningham. “Creating Inclusive Physical Activity Spaces: The Case of Body-Positive Yoga.” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport , vol. 88, no. 3., 2016, pp. 329–338.

Stamp, Nikki. “Does the Body Positivity Movement Actually Promote Better Health?” The Sydney Morning Herald , 2019.

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IvyPanda. (2022, July 19). Discussion of Body Shaming Among Teenagers. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-body-shaming-among-teenagers/

"Discussion of Body Shaming Among Teenagers." IvyPanda , 19 July 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-body-shaming-among-teenagers/.

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IvyPanda . 2022. "Discussion of Body Shaming Among Teenagers." July 19, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-body-shaming-among-teenagers/.

1. IvyPanda . "Discussion of Body Shaming Among Teenagers." July 19, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-body-shaming-among-teenagers/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Discussion of Body Shaming Among Teenagers." July 19, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/discussion-of-body-shaming-among-teenagers/.

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Home » Mental Health » Bullying and Body Shaming at Schools, Its Effects and Prevention

Bullying and Body Shaming at Schools, Its Effects and Prevention

Ms. Sadaf Zaidi

Published On March 7, 2022 3 min read

Each schoolyear is an opportunity for kids to make new friends, learn new things – grow, and enjoy along the way. For some, every passing year means adding on to the fantastic memories and experiences of the previous year but for others each day becomes a dreadful nightmare.

Why, you ask? The relentless and unremitting culture of bullying and body shaming makes it hard for them to crawl out of bed and drag themselves to school. Bullying and body shaming can adversely affect the mental health and wellbeing of children and youth. They experience bouts of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem that eventually engulfs their life.

It is neither a unique problem nor is it uncommon. If anything, it has become an epidemic. But the imperative question that we must ask ourselves – Does it have to be that uncommon? I believe, no. Then why is it so?

Table of Contents

Types of Bullying

Before we hop on to the preventive endeavors, let’s first explore the various forms of bullying and body shaming children are subjected to and delve into its consequences.

Physical Bullying

The most common and easily identifiable form of bullying that involves physical action like kicking, hitting, punching, slapping, shoving, etc. in a bid to gain power and claim authority over their victims.

Verbal Bullying

Here, the bully resorts to using derogatory words, mean and belittling statements, and name calling.

Emotional Bullying

Often referred to as social bullying, attempts to damage the social standing of the victim. Spreading rumors, maneuvering situations, making the victim feel lonely.

This tactic is common among the teens and tweens, primarily among girls hence the phrase “mean girls,” to become popular and improve their own social standing by ultimately shattering the victims’ confidence.

Cyber Bullying

When the bully uses some form of technology to harass or target the victim like making online threats, making hurtful images viral or sending hateful messages. The bully also hides behind the guise of anonymity, which poses lesser risk of being caught.

Sexual Bullying

Actions that intend to humiliate and harm a person sexually. For instance, passing obscene comments, vulgar gestures, sharing unsolicited inappropriate jokes, touching inappropriately; and commenting on someone’s physical appearance and shortcomings and making judgments about one’s character i.e., slut-shaming.

Prejudicial Bullying

Done one the basis of one’s race, religion, and sexual orientation, which may encourage hate crime.

Body Shaming

It is defined as making negative and crude comments about someone’s weight or size. Though it is something mostly overweight people are subjected to, but the skinny ones aren’t left in peace either. But nobody deserves to be fat-shamed or skinny-shamed for living the life they want to.

People will always have something to say, no matter how imperfect or perfect you are. So, it’s always better to promote body positivity. Accept yourself the way you are and stop hiding. Treat yourself with kindness and love and be grateful. Most of all, take charge of your socials and unfollow any profile that meddles with your peace and cut all toxic people.

Pro tip: Do not compare yourself with the people in the magazines and covers, that’s all camera trick and photoshop, there!

The physical impacts of bullying include mild to serious wounds, bruises, fractures and sometimes death, which can either be a homicide or suicide. Whereas some effects go beyond the physical turmoil. It subtly strips off a child of their confidence and self-respect.

Bullying does not only affect the victims’ mood or erodes their sense of self, but it makes them self-critical to the point of affecting their identity. It effects a child’s physical and mental health in a such a way that they might end up contemplating ending their life to put a stop to the constant shaming.

The perpetual consequence of it all leads to the feeling of isolation, humiliation and powerlessness coupled with anger that can have adverse effects on your physical and mental health. The worst part of emotional bullying is that the most likely solution people come up with is to “ignore it.”

Its impact is such that the bystanders to bullying also experience mental health issues.

What Can We Do?

As UNICEF terms it as a global challenge that requires global measures. We need to pitch in all, big and small measures at individual and mass level.

Individual Level

• It is very important to imbibe it in your children that they see people around them as they are and learn to appreciate the reality of them – Seeing people as one. No matter what the race, religion, or sexual orientation.
• Take the concerns of children seriously and never trivialize their problems with the advice to ignore it. Don’t dismiss your child’s feelings.
• Encourage your child to build a supportive group of friends.
• Break the chain – the likelihood of passing the violence on to the next generation is how we breed a whole new cohort of bullies without even realizing.
• Educate yourself – Familiarize yourself with laws that surround bullying in your country
• Teach your children that there is absolutely no shame in asking for help and guidance.
• In case of cyber bullying, can contact the cybercrime unit and they would take care of the rest.
• Contact the counsellor at your school.
• Contact the police if nothing else works.
• Government should come up with substantive and effective laws to protect children and their dignity.
• Encourage teachers at school to adopt non-violent strategies.
• Ensure the introduction of positive discipline and methodology in the education system.
• Devise coping strategies to help a child recover after getting through the torment of bullying.
• Awareness programs at schools and guiding them where to look for help in case they are being bullied.

Bullying must not be written off as something that every child goes through as a phase. Be involved in your child’s life and stay updated. Build friendship so they feel comfortable communicating. It is imperative to take something as impactful as bullying seriously and building focus strategies to help prevent the nuisance can serve as one of the many steps that can ensure a better, safer environment of our kids.

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A Year on Ozempic Taught Me We’re Thinking About Obesity All Wrong

By Johann Hari

Mr. Hari is a British journalist and the author of “Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits — and Disturbing Risks — of the New Weight Loss Drugs.”

Ever since I was a teenager, I have dreamed of shedding a lot of weight. So when I shrank from 203 pounds to 161 in a year, I was baffled by my feelings. I was taking Ozempic, and I was haunted by the sense that I was cheating and doing something immoral.

I’m not the only one. In the United States (where I now split my time), over 70 percent of people are overweight or obese, and according to one poll, 47 percent of respondents said they were willing to pay to take the new weight-loss drugs. It’s not hard to see why. They cause users to lose an average of 10 to 20 percent of their body weight, and clinical trials suggest that the next generation of drugs (probably available soon) leads to a 24 percent loss, on average. Yet as more and more people take drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro, we get more confused as a culture, bombarding anyone in the public eye who takes them with brutal shaming.

This is happening because we are trapped in a set of old stories about what obesity is and the morally acceptable ways to overcome it. But the fact that so many of us are turning to the new weight-loss drugs can be an opportunity to find a way out of that trap of shame and stigma — and to a more truthful story.

In my lifetime, obesity has exploded, from being rare to almost being the norm. I was born in 1979, and by the time I was 21, obesity rates in the United States had more than doubled . They have skyrocketed since. The obvious question is, why? And how do these new weight-loss drugs work? The answer to both lies in one word: satiety. It’s a concept that we don’t use much in everyday life but that we’ve all experienced at some point. It describes the sensation of having had enough and not wanting any more.

The primary reason we have gained weight at a pace unprecedented in human history is that our diets have radically changed in ways that have deeply undermined our ability to feel sated. My father grew up in a village in the Swiss mountains, where he ate fresh, whole foods that had been cooked from scratch and prepared on the day they were eaten. But in the 30 years between his childhood and mine, in the suburbs of London, the nature of food transformed across the Western world. He was horrified to see that almost everything I ate was reheated and heavily processed. The evidence is clear that the kind of food my father grew up eating quickly makes you feel full. But the kind of food I grew up eating, much of which is made in factories, often with artificial chemicals, left me feeling empty and as if I had a hole in my stomach. In a recent study of what American children eat, ultraprocessed food was found to make up 67 percent of their daily diet. This kind of food makes you want to eat more and more. Satiety comes late, if at all.

One scientific experiment — which I have nicknamed Cheesecake Park — seemed to me to crystallize this effect. Paul Kenny, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, grew up in Ireland. After he moved in 2000 to the United States, when he was in his 20s, he gained 30 pounds in two years. He began to wonder if the American diet has some kind of strange effect on our brains and our cravings, so he designed an experiment to test it. He and his colleague Paul Johnson raised a group of rats in a cage and gave them an abundant supply of healthy, balanced rat chow made out of the kind of food rats had been eating for a very long time. The rats would eat it when they were hungry, and then they seemed to feel sated and stopped. They did not become fat.

But then Dr. Kenny and his colleague exposed the rats to an American diet: fried bacon, Snickers bars, cheesecake and other treats. They went crazy for it. The rats would hurl themselves into the cheesecake, gorge themselves and emerge with their faces and whiskers totally slicked with it. They quickly lost almost all interest in the healthy food, and the restraint they used to show around healthy food disappeared. Within six weeks, their obesity rates soared.

After this change, Dr. Kenny and his colleague tweaked the experiment again (in a way that seems cruel to me, a former KFC addict). They took all the processed food away and gave the rats their old healthy diet. Dr. Kenny was confident that they would eat more of it, proving that processed food had expanded their appetites. But something stranger happened. It was as though the rats no longer recognized healthy food as food at all, and they barely ate it. Only when they were starving did they reluctantly start to consume it again.

Though Dr. Kenny’s study was in rats, we can see forms of this behavior everywhere. We are all living in Cheesecake Park — and the satiety-stealing effect of industrially assembled food is evidently what has created the need for these medications. Drugs like Ozempic work precisely by making us feel full. Carel le Roux, a scientist whose research was important to the development of these drugs, says they boost what he and others once called “satiety hormones.”

Once you understand this context, it becomes clear that processed and ultraprocessed food create a raging hole of hunger, and these treatments can repair that hole. Michael Lowe, a professor of psychology at Drexel University who has studied hunger for 40 years, told me the drugs are “an artificial solution to an artificial problem.”

Yet we have reacted to this crisis largely caused by the food industry as if it were caused only by individual moral dereliction. I felt like a failure for being fat and was furious with myself for it. Why do we turn our anger inward and not outward at the main cause of the crisis? And by extension, why do we seek to shame people taking Ozempic but not those who, say, take drugs to lower their blood pressure?

The answer, I think, lies in two very old notions. The first is the belief that obesity is a sin. When Pope Gregory I laid out the seven deadly sins in the sixth century, one of them was gluttony, usually illustrated with grotesque-seeming images of overweight people. Sin requires punishment before you can get to redemption. Think about the competition show “The Biggest Loser,” on which obese people starve and perform extreme forms of exercise in visible agony in order to demonstrate their repentance.

The second idea is that we are all in a competition when it comes to weight. Ours is a society full of people fighting against the forces in our food that are making us fatter. It is often painful to do this: You have to tolerate hunger or engage in extreme forms of exercise. It feels like a contest in which each thin person creates additional pressure on others to do the same. Looked at in this way, people on Ozempic can resemble athletes like the cyclist Lance Armstrong who used performance-enhancing drugs. Those who manage their weight without drugs might think, “I worked hard for this, and you get it for as little as a weekly jab?”

We can’t find our way to a sane, nontoxic conversation about obesity or Ozempic until we bring these rarely spoken thoughts into the open and reckon with them. You’re not a sinner for gaining weight. You’re a typical product of a dysfunctional environment that makes it very hard to feel full. If you are angry about these drugs, remember the competition isn’t between you and your neighbor who’s on weight-loss drugs. It’s between you and a food industry constantly designing new ways to undermine your satiety. If anyone is the cheat here, it’s that industry. We should be united in a struggle against it and its products, not against desperate people trying to find a way out of this trap.

There are extraordinary benefits as well as disturbing risks associated with weight-loss drugs. Reducing or reversing obesity hugely boosts health, on average: We know from years of studying bariatric surgery that it slashes the risks of cancer, heart disease and diabetes-related death. Early indications are that the new anti-obesity drugs are moving people in a similar radically healthier direction, massively reducing the risk of heart attack or stroke. But these drugs may increase the risk for thyroid cancer. I am worried they diminish muscle mass and fear they may supercharge eating disorders. This is a complex picture in which the evidence has to be weighed very carefully.

But we can’t do that if we remain lost in stories inherited from premodern popes or in a senseless competition that leaves us all, in the end, losers. Do we want these weight loss drugs to be another opportunity to tear one another down? Or do we want to realize that the food industry has profoundly altered the appetites of us all — leaving us trapped in the same cage, scrambling to find a way out?

Johann Hari is a British journalist and the author of “Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits — and Disturbing Risks — of the New Weight Loss Drugs,” among other books.

Source photographs by seamartini, The Washington Post, and Zana Munteanu via Getty Images.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Public Shaming — The Notion Of Body-Shaming And Its Causes

The Notion of Body-shaming and Its Causes

• Categories: Public Shaming

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Words: 2422 |

13 min read

Published: Mar 14, 2019

Words: 2422 | Pages: 5 | 13 min read

• biological and physical effects,
• emotional effects,
• cognitive effects,
• behavior effects.

Conclusion: One Size Does Not Fit All!

Works cited.

• Chrisler, J. C. (2017). Sizeism: A growing form of discrimination. In The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Multicultural Counseling Psychology (pp. 195-210). Oxford University Press.
• Haspel, R. L. (2018). The science behind obesity: What does the weight of evidence say? Environmental Health Perspectives, 126(2), 022001.
• Munro, L. (2018). Everyday indignities: Using the microaggressions framework to understand weight stigma. Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 46(2), 500-507.
• Black, M. C., & Peacock, N. (2011). Female body image and intimate partner violence. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 26(17), 3601-3618.
• Palmer-Mehta, V., & Shuler, S. (2017). Body positivity and postpartum bodies on Facebook: An analysis of A Beautiful Body Project. Women's Studies in Communication, 40(4), 360-379.
• Cameron, K. (2016). Challenging size matters messages: An exploration of the experiences of critical obesity scholars in higher education. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 46(2), 119-138.
• Puhl, R. M., & Heuer, C. A. (2010). Obesity stigma: Important considerations for public health. American Journal of Public Health, 100(6), 1019-1028.
• Phelan, S. M., Burgess, D. J., Yeazel, M. W., Hellerstedt, W. L., Griffin, J. M., & van Ryn, M. (2015). Impact of weight bias and stigma on quality of care and outcomes for patients with obesity. Obesity Reviews, 16(4), 319-326.
• Major, B., Hunger, J. M., Bunyan, D. P., & Miller, C. T. (2014). The ironic effects of weight stigma. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 51, 74-80.
• Puhl, R. M., Peterson, J. L., & Luedicke, J. (2013). Motivating or stigmatizing? Public perceptions of weight-related language used by health providers. International Journal of Obesity, 37(4), 612-619.

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