Meghan Trainor has won a fourth week at number one in the charts with “All About That Bass“. The song has been playing none stop these past few weeks and it’s meant to promote “positive body images”. The song is said to suggest the idealised “skinny body type” is overrated and everyone’s body shape is perfect. The single has come under a large amount of scrutiny for its “skinny shamming” and I for one am finding it slightly hard to sympathise with these concerns.
We all know the music industry and the media is never seen promoting images and music videos of average women as seen last year with Robin Thicke’s video for “Blurred Lines” and Miley Cyrus in “Wrecking Ball”. So shouldn’t Trainor’s song be a new hope for the music industry?
The song has been criticised as “skinny-shaming” when referring to women as “skinny bitches” in the lyrics and alienating skinny women with “boys like a little more booty to hold at night. You know I won’t be no stick figure silicone Barbie doll”.
Trainor refers to the full context of the lyrics where she says “I’m just playing” and in an interview with “Billboard” she stated “I’m not bashing skinny girls” and that she knows even skinny girls struggle.
The song has been criticised especially for not considering women that are skinny due to eating disorders. In the UK six out of ten women say they cannot stand the way they look and only one in twenty-five is totally happy with their body. One in six women say they regularly skip meals in an attempt to control their weight. During 2012-13, counselling with girls about concerns of eating problems outnumbered counselling with boys by 32:1.
The media and the music industry promote images of the ideal women that is slim and toned. I personally can’t help putting a face when some of my friends who are naturally skinny and eat whatever they want whilst I go to the gym regularly and constantly battle with the fact I can’t eat what I want. The fact some girls are constantly ridiculed for the fact their bodies aren’t completely toned is a disgusting hard ship to face and so are eating disorders caused by the same misconceptions.
The anxiety and insecurity that girls suffer with eating disorders or those who are unhappy with their larger bodies are all fuelled by the same thing: images in the media of a supposed perfect body type. We’re all fighting the same battle. It’s also important for women to feel confident in themselves, for themselves. Trainor’s song was meant to highlight these ideas but may have chosen a few badly worded lines that have been misinterpreted.
If you’re happy with your slimmer or curvy body, the only opinion that matters is your own. I try to go to gym and attempt to avoid eating millions of chocolate bars and I am prone to the odd relapse, but I do all that for myself. Who cares if boys like a little more booty to hold at night? Do what works for you.