Body Shaming – Celebrity Version

One of the things social media and tabloids have become exceptionally good at doing, is criticizing celebrities’ bodies. As Britney put it in her song Piece of Me, “I’m Mrs. she’s too big now she’s too thin”. Going from the standard weight loss/weight gain situation and baby watch, people have become incredibly blunt in expressing their opinion on another person’s body and criticizing it in any possible way they know. Let’s take Kim Kardashian for example. Her latest nude selfie has been stirring the crowds and creating mixed opinons. In response to some people calling her an attention seeker or a “slut”, Kim K posted yet another selfie, this time with actress and model Emily Ratajkowski.

When we’re like…we both have nothing to wear LOL @emrata

A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on Mar 30, 2016 at 11:57am PDT

Putting aside the fact that this was another nude selfie, this picture is a demonstration of self love and how every woman is different yet beautiful in her own way. Here, we have two women with very different bodies: Ratajkowski is quite slim, fit and tall, opposite to Kardashian, whose voluptuous build is shown also by her short figure. However, they are both confident of their own bodies and are not afraid to show it.

Just a couple days ago, Glamour magazine got in trouble for re-running a previous interview they had done the year before with comedienne Amy Schumer, making her a part of their issue about plus size women who they consider inspiring, such as Adele and actress Melissa McCarthy. Schumer was infuriated, as she had not been told she was going to be featured, and felt highly judged by the magazine, vowing of not wanting to have anything to do with it if they considered her to be fat. She later posted a picture of the Glamour issue on Instagram and Twitter, with the following message as a caption:

I think there’s nothing wrong with being plus size. Beautiful healthy women. Plus size is considered size 16 in America. I go between a size 6 and an 8. @glamourmag put me in their plus size only issue without asking or letting me know and it doesn’t feel right to me. Young girls seeing my body type thinking that is plus size? What are your thoughts? Mine are not cool glamour not glamourous

A photo posted by @amyschumer on Apr 5, 2016 at 8:18am PDT

 

Her message caused mixed feelings however, for while some people totally supported her message and complimented her on being brave for fighting the system, the Guardian reported that she was fuelling plus-size prejudice rather than fighting it and that her reaction was purely “self-regarding” and smacked with hypocrisy.  The comedienne later posted yet another video on Instagram, this time of her running on a beach in a bikini:

Thanks for your thoughts to the people who didn’t tell me how I “should feel” Bottom line seems to be that these labels are unnecessary and reserved for women #muchlove

A video posted by @amyschumer on Apr 5, 2016 at 11:17am PDT

Once again, the video sparked mixed feelings. Some women agreed with her, posting comments such as “As a size 10, I completely agree… I think it’s bs that anyone over a 0/2/4 is considered fat. Someone needs to go back in history and see how women looked back then. It was considered beautiful for a woman to have weight on her and have curves (like a woman should have). I grew my own breasts and made my own curves.. #igetitfrommymomma“.  However, Schumer’s message was not considered inspiring at all, as she only told people that she was not to be considered a plus size, and that only sizes over 16 should be considered that. She did not say anything about self love, or that no matter what their size, women are beautiful.

After all of these mixed feelings, the bottom line is that not only as women we should be empowering each other to feel good about ourselves above looking good, but that it’s our duty to teach new generations to love themselves no matter what their size, because what truly matters in on the inside.

Body Shaming and Instagram

While Facebook already had paved the way for body shaming through social media by allowing your “friends” to post whatever comments they wanted on your pictures, Instagram made it worse. Unless you have a private profile, Instagram allows users to view one’s pictures by researching them through the use of hashtags and keywords.

One of the latest trends is publishing before after pictures and fitpics, showing one’s progress in a period of time. This kind of progress could be weight loss or the steps to one’s journey to have a fit body. One blogger, Rebecca Norris, shared her own experience and thoughts on body shaming after posting a #FitPic on Instagram on the Huffington Post, saying: “So, yeah, on that Friday, I felt pretty damn good about the strides I’ve made with my body, mind and spirit. And posted a picture to celebrate that. And in return I received shame”. Norris also expresses her feelings on body shaming through her blog, Brazenfaced.

Rebecca Norris’ original #FitPic

This specific social media has also helped increase the popularity of detox teas, mostly known as “skinny teas”, that are meant to help you lose weight when accompanied by a healthy lifestyle. It gives young girls and boys the idea that there is a quick fix to a healthy lifestyle, something that will give you what you want without having to try too hard. One of them, Bootea, is largely popular and is sold all over the United Kingdom and United States. While it does encourage weight loss towards a healthy lifestyle by also posting progress pictures of people undergoing the detox, it does not promote self love, instead posting pictures showing what young girls should look like instead.

A photo posted by Bootea (@booteauk) on Mar 12, 2016 at 2:09pm PST

Self love has become a movement that people are slowly starting to follow and that is spread also thanks to some Instagram users such as Sophie Gray, mostly known as Way of Gray, who, as a holistic nutritionist and certified personal trainer, advises women all over the world to embark in this journey with her, where the goal isn’t being skinny, it’s about falling in love with your body by being kind to it and filling it with nutritious food.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sophie Gray (@sophiegray)

 

While people think that all that’s important is the number appearing on the scale or your measurements, it is essential that women start empowering each other, learning that what really matters is knowing that, as L’Oreal would put it, “we’re worth it!”.

Body Shaming and Self Love

Body shaming. Discriminating someone for their body type. Judging them. Making accusations.

In the last two decades, body shaming has seen an increase, spreading across young girls and boys and is linked to the increased risk of eating disorders, according to Psychology Today. The article points at bringing awareness to the ‘Healthy at Every Size’ movement, described as a ‘political movement that supports people in adopting health habits for the sake of health and well-being’.

Body shaming is a phenomenom that has been around way before social media however. Remember that kid everybody used to make fun of in school calling him fat? I thought so. What people don’t realize is that body shaming doesn’t only target “fat” people. It targets everyone, from the girl who is way too “skinny” to the girl who has what might appear as huge legs from all the training she does. In part, it’s not our fault, it’s what we’ve been taught from the beginning. As kids, we were given Barbie dolls, with perfect hair, tiny waist and a “thigh gap”. We were told that eating too much food will make you fat and then nobody will like you. We were told that the only thing that mattered was on the outside.

Barbie, but with the ‘average body shape’ for American women (Copyright Nikolay Lamm)

Truth is, there is no actual definition for “beauty”. According to one of the many definitions on the Urban Dictionary, beauty is ‘a corporate invention designed to promote the suffering and insecurity of the masses for the sake of the profit’. Every woman is beautiful in her own way, no matter what her body type. Because, believe it or not, the body is not the only thing we have. We are lucky enough to be the combination of all the different traits in our family history and yet be unique by what we have inside.

As a kid, I remember loads of girls at my school (myself included) being body shamed because we weren’t as thin as the ‘popular girls’. Today, those popular girls are being told “She’s too thin, she should eat something” or “with a body like that, she must be a slut”. With the rise of social media and celebrity culture, body shaming has reached a whole new level, with people attacking perfectly healthy women and making them feel insecure of their bodies.