Even though our society has witnessed many movements like Anti-fat movement or Body positivity movement which really helped a lot in reducing body shaming but it is still very common in every household and community and therefore, can have a grave impact on our mental health. Though this form of shame has evolved from derogatory comments to subtle sarcasm or even satire for some, it has only become scarring and more problematic.
We can trace the roots of body shaming to the emergence of the idea of an ‘ideal body type’ which became the parameter for everybody’s body to be judged and therefore, people started being “too fat“ or “as thin as a stick” or “too short to be seen”. Mostly this body shaming increases or becomes extremely evident when a child progresses to teenage and is expected to fit the social image of a perfect body and behave accordingly.
Body shaming is a major issue we are facing specially in a country like India. Most of the children are either scarred because of what they have to face and face issues of body image throughout the life or the never ending abuse at times also leads to suicidal thoughts or suicide itself.
In order to deal with this and yet manage to keep one’s mental health intact the person can do the following things:
- Accepting yourself and embracing your flaws
- Not speaking negatively about anybody or being involved in such discussions
- Being confident between people and individually as well about yourself
- Ending toxic relationships that pull one down
- Opening up about one’s struggles
Personally battling with body image issues and body shaming, I have learnt the key to having peace within is to making peace with oneself. It doesn’t matter if one is thin or thick, it is important to be fit and happy.
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