I believe most people can relate that some time in their lives they have struggled with their body image. It’s an unfortunate issue that a lot of people in society have dealt with. People will think they are too fat, too skinny or not muscular enough. Where I have a problem is when we start to assign a certain body shape to our worth.
I can’t tell you how many times I have heard someone call themselves fat and someone will try to correct them and say, “Oh, you’re not fat, you’re beautiful.” At first, it can seem like a compliment. But when you get down to it, these people are essentially saying that fat people do not deserve to be called beautiful. It also starts to equate size to inherent worth. Even if this comment is well-intentioned, it’s really quite insulting and harmful to the fat and plus-size community.
From a formative age, society gives us so many ideas about our bodies. Oftentimes, plus-sized people are not represented in popular media. If they are, they may be only there as comedic relief or as side characters and not have any benefits compared to a skinnier character. Countless times I have seen sitcoms where they pick on the fatter individuals. Plus-size people also aren’t shown enough in magazines and advertisements. Most models have flat stomachs with no cellulite, and sometimes even then, they are edited to look skinnier. A majority of the population will never have this body type, but when we only show these kinds of figures, it can create harmful narratives.
First, many people who are already relatively skinny may think they have to be even skinnier to be desirable. They can become underweight, go through extreme dieting techniques or develop eating disorders because anything is better than being fat. Plus-sized people may also have lower self-esteem because it is constantly pushed that fat is synonymous with ugly. They may also be driven to engage in dieting and eating disorders to become the “desirable” weight.
Secondly, a lot of social media influencers tend to push diet products onto their impressionable followers. When they post their advertisements, they are getting paid to sell what they say will make you happy. It can range from diet teas to protein powders, but social media influencers need to stop saying losing weight and dieting is the only way to happiness. Eating certain foods and exercising a specific way may be useful for some, but it cannot be a one-size-fits-all approach. Happiness looks like different things to different people, and just because some people become happy in the ways society doesn’t expect, doesn’t mean they are ugly or unworthy.
The bottom line is: fat is not the opposite of beautiful. We need to stop telling people that the only way to have any sort of worth is by being skinny. What may seem well-intentioned is actually extremely harmful and can drive people to develop eating disorders or have low self-esteem. Plus-sized individuals deserve to be more than the laughing stock of the media and the example of what not to be. Size will never equate to worth because even if we all ate the same and had the same exercise routine, we would all have different body shapes. And that’s not bad.