“Have you lost weight? …, “You look like you’ve gained weight in all the right places…”, “Do you want to eat all of that?” , “You’re so lucky you can just eat and eat.” etc, are some familiar questions associated with body shaming. Body shaming is a familiar issue in the society that you keep coming across every day, It happens to both the famous and infamous, rich and the poor, educated and non-educated, etc. Body shaming is the act of deriding or mocking a person’s physical appearance.
The scope of body shaming is wide and can include fat-shaming, shaming for thinness, or shaming of hairiness. It can also include shaming of tattoos and piercings or diseases that leave a physical mark such as HIV. There’s a chance that you reading this article might have been body-shamed either directly or indirectly, but one thing we want you to know is that you are in charge of being body-shamed or not. One primary reason for telling you that is reading this is that you own your body, and nobody shaming words should be hurled at you on your watch.
Both males and females can be body shamed. A recent poll by FitRated found that body shaming affects pretty much everyone — and that it can come from some surprising sources like from your mum, a toxic relationship that you have been in, etc. Body shaming has a lot of effects especially on the mental health of an individual which in turn can affect the physical health of the individual. It leads to depression, negative emotional effects, including a reduction in self-esteem, and other issues such as eating disorders, anxiety, body image disturbance, and body dysmorphic disorder especially when the body-shaming becomes extensive.
Social media is all gloom and doom. Body shaming, or making disparaging comments about the appearance or size of another person’s body, is a prevalent kind of cyberbullying. This type of cyberbullying can occur on any social media platform. While it is perfectly acceptable and even typical for people to experience self-doubt or humiliation from time to time, body shaming may turn these sentiments into a constant and overwhelming experience. You should never allow social media to control how you feel about your body and then try to feel in another certain way to be like probably someone that you admire in your social space. Never forget that social media is not real life and it should be treated as such. You are unique even in the way your body has been fashioned by your creator. You need to be in control of how your feel about your body because it greatly affects your self-esteem and confidence and you need these two every good day.
How then do you overcome body shaming by being in control?. You can overcome body shaming by practicing affirmations, what you say to yourself can affect how you feel, so start practicing positive affirmations from today if you have not been doing so. Also, you can explore and thank the skin that you are in. Look at your various body parts, warts and all. Those feet may have callouses and dry patches—but they have carried you far! Thank them. Review your entire body with gratitude. You can equally make friends with food. You are in charge of your relationship with food and your body now. Celebrate that freedom. Especially if you were abused as a child or made to feel ashamed of your weight or restricted what you ate, try to find foods that you like that are also good for you.
You deserve to be loved and accepted for the way you look without any objection. We believe that now you understand that you are in control of being body-shamed or not and not social media in any way. We pray you took a step today to take control of how you are being treated based on your body and never allow the world to dictate to you how you are meant to feel about yourself. Just stay true to yourself, eat well, rest well and be in charge.
AASA PRESS UI 