Body Acceptance Campaigns, Fitness Trends and Fat Shaming Getting to Our Heads

Comments and even news headlines along with entire articles regarding women’s bodies have always gone too far and gone far too repetitive, annoying really. It’s so confusing to put yourself in that no-culture way of thinking, obsessive about the pettiest body and image issues.

It’s beneficial to hold discussions on fitness and tips on improvement when the people involved in the conversation are open to advice, advice I repeat not insults.

You always hear “full-figured and lovin’ it,” “thick girl do it better!” “She is waaay too skinny!” “Go eat a sandwich” “Uggh why would you model if you know you have a gut?!?” “She doesn’t do anything to her hair, how basic!”

Do you really want to be that person? Your bad sense of humor and sarcasm to cover up your jaded pain set aside? No you don’t. Kindness is something that’s strived for, and if you only have snails and toads coming out of your mouth keep it shut until you have roses to show for.

It’s possible to be vain in a healthy way and obviously succumbing to this body shaming culture is not a good way to have a healthy mind. We don’t have a right to state the perfectly healthy and flawlessly shaped cookie cutter body for everybody even if we are passionate to be fit and spread the word of fitness. Tactfulness may matter but so does brute honesty at times, especially with yourself. Accept what your body’s conditions are both positive and negative, improve on the positive and minimize the negative, work out, eat well do whatever you have to do. Comparing yourself to others, comparing others with others will just waste your time, mind space and honestly make you a more unpleasant and more lost-seeming, embittered person. Not a good thing to be.

Hate and defensiveness is misplaced and thrown all over like the insides of a piñata with fat shaming, skinny shaming, unrealistic muscle form ideals, body motivational campaigns that people blame on starting wars with other body campaigns, apathy for your own health condition while paying attention to this recycled crap too. It’s a weird world where everything is unfair, life is unfair but the world of body shaming and nitpicking is just a weird kind of not fun and not fulfilling.

Also let us stop commenting on other people’s physical appearance to the point of pushing boundaries, we can even be too tactless with our own relatives or friends depending on the person’s sensitivity. Strangers don’t need this kind of scrutiny any more so.

Common sense of the emotion please people! Don’t tell people what they should look like! A lot of us may already be well-practiced in not expressing or even thinking about such kinds of physical judgement. To judge and be wary of people who smell putrid, look extra confused and unpredictable or who just feel plain wrong/harmful is a more valid judgement but let’s not waste our mental space with things like height, skin and hair color and weight. Worry about weight if it concerns your health or a loved one’s though.

If you’re a victim of body shaming as well you shouldn’t get too down in the pits. People just can’t properly detach themselves from the amount of informational feed they receive a day, they have no filters. Don’t let someone’s unwise mouth ruin your day. Some may be jealous of you, some may be interested in a certain standard that they are forcing upon you. This can be due to them thinking they can mold people as they please and are embittered by what they can’t achieve themselves.  Insecurity is the root of all evil, not money.  When a person is not secure with themselves they are not solid, chunks of them metaphorically are scattered around in the form of their tactless words, unwise actions and lack of social responsibility. Succumbing to the body shaming culture is a bright, red sign telling everyone you are insecure and vulnerable.

Form a shield just for yourself and don’t let people touch your personal bubble not just physically but verbally and emotionally as well.

Also very important is to remember to mind your own business as much as possible when it comes to these things.

All this uncalled attention for people’s bodies creates so much imbalance, like how we can overly criticize someone as too thin or not thin enough and then all of a sudden really overweight women are saying they are curvy or thick and proud.

Yes this is wrong too, obviously being overweight is not a good image to push as well and that is different from curvy. Don’t miss the point and just be healthy, everyone’s genetics causes different weight gain but if you are obviously just fat okay, don’t pass that off as a healthy shape. You have rights, you are still a human to be respected and you don’t deserve insults but you do deserve comments on improvement by the people who care for you the most.

Now it’s alright if you ever found yourself in this hot seat, we’re not perfect, no pressure okay? But next step is learning how to not get punctured by these unpleasant social tendencies and this will indirectly influence people around you to at least tone down on body shaming if you’re around. Show that you don’t like it, you will gain respect.

Let’s not insult our own intelligence, we allow ourselves to get affected when some beautiful girl in a poster gets called either fat, thin or strong/buff looking when they don’t quite fit the description. Keep in mind any person of any gender whether on a billboard or not can be victims of body shaming and many people are delusional perfectionists.

The term “real woman” can be used lightly especially in more personal conversations, but these words can be used to hurt. A real woman has a vagina, that’s the truth. Naturally thin women get a lot of flak for not being as curvy as you want them to be, well boohoo go rant about it while they enjoy the rest of their day with their modelling money and not caring about you.

Tradition is one of the causes of this kind of body perfectionist attitude, some families are simply just anal about these matters, but tradition is meant to be broken and nearly everything is a choice. Basic rules of kindness can be twisted in tradition we must admit, being sensitive to everyone by default is always the winning road.

Individuals are called so because they can think for themselves, learn to shut up every now and then and be responsible with your own individuality.

Remember it was mentioned that body shaming is different from genuine concern. It’s not smart to comment on a stranger’s physique because you’re not a machine and probably not an expert that can quickly scan their vital levels, and even if you can it’s best to keep the hole shut.

You can’t always judge who is healthy because the first look is not always an accurate one. Some women have natural thigh gaps even if they gain weight, some will almost never have one. Some guys have very broad shoulders and can hide extra weight easier than a narrow-shouldered man.  Some have thyroid problems but a lot have excuses. But there is no excuse for making quick, undeserved assumptions.

Health matters and what a trusted doctor and your general gut feeling says is what matters most. A person could be 4 sizes bigger than you but outrun you in endurance training, or a really skinny person can lift their own body weight easily. Judgements are lame. Bullying is never okay. Putting other people down causes the cancer called insecurity to grow, spread and mutate.

All this body shaming can get in the way of actually getting healthy, making fun of the unhealthy certainly doesn’t help. Everyone should also learn to accept the way other healthy people look like, some have a little extra cuddly meat that doesn’t hurt the health meter, it just means not everyone can be 0-5% body fat.

Like it or not we have to deal with a lot of responsibilities for ourselves and others, in society. You have to be secure with yourself, step down on judgement and assume the best in people to get the best out of yourself, think about your own bad habits and bouts of laziness when criticizing another.  Bother yourself for becoming more aware of not just being kind and nice but the science of it all.  Everyone has a different bone, muscle and fat densities and distributions but everyone can be healthy and athletic. Starving and deprivation will never work and so does abusive, over-exertion when performing sports or workout-related activity.

Well-meant compliments, encouragement and advice always wins over scrutiny, insults and being a too-hard, uptight party pooper. Ask yourself if you’ve ever found yourself putting other people down to make yourself feel a little better, maybe you didn’t really notice it or mean it but you weren’t being mindful. Imagine someone putting you down and not knowing your health history.

Body shaming is a waste of time and doing it to cheer yourself up in a sick way is a self-image crime. Self-love is the origin of respect and with this we respect others.

 

 

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