Samantha Chaffin
Editor-in-Chief
As popular culture moves more and more toward the concepts of equality and balance, it also moves toward the movement of body acceptance and loving all shapes and sizes of people.
Past years have demonstrated cause for concern regarding underweight individuals and eating disorders, especially in young women, as a result of what many consider to be the effect of the media and the frequent use of Photoshop on printed images.
This was and is a damaging situation that causes countless health issues from anorexia and bulimia to body dysmorphia.
This time period also marked a time where what is often referred to as “fat shaming” was common.
Now, as we work to turn the corner and move past this period where thin individuals were often suffering from eating disorders or other health issues, and larger individuals were shamed and ridiculed, we are over-compensating to make up for our mistakes.
Today, we are not only turning that corner but we are rounding the bend, crossing the bridge, finding our way all the way around the mountain and whatever other ways you can think to say it. We have overshot our goal and landed in a new extreme.
Today, many claim “body acceptance” is the trend and goal, which may be true. However, instead of acceptance, many are really thin or skinny shaming while moving toward the acceptance of larger individuals, whether those individuals are healthy or not.
We listen to popular songs that claim to uplift individuals of all body-types that are, again, masking this overcompensating shift in what is considered the new acceptable prejudice.
Today, it is far more acceptable to call people “skinny bitches,” to quote Meghan Trainor, than to say someone is overweight. Is this really any better than the fat-shaming era we are trying to move away from?
Our problems with body shaming came about as a result of underlying problems such as obesity and eating or other health disorders.
The problem is that weight is not a singular factor that can decide whether someone is healthy or not, contrary to what many in today’s culture seem to believe.
Sweeping these weight-related problems under the rug is not the answer, but neither is sliding back and forth drastically on a scale of extremes dictating what the right body should look like.
There is no one “right” body, there is only your right body.
We often say things like “that’s just unhealthy” at the sight of thin people, or “they’re so unfit” when we see larger people. Even worse is these things are often said without any actual knowledge of an individual’s level of health or fitness outside of their body shape or size.
We live in a culture where we are so obsessed with appearance that we are dictating what others should look like, whether we know their level or personal expectations of health or not.
All we have done is transfer the target of our personal body attacks to a different demographic. We have to do better than this.
