“You’re so fat.” “You’ve lost so much weight.” “You would have prettier if you changed a few things.” These are statements that would sound simple but holds so much power in changing the way a person feels about themselves.
Body shaming is any form of negative judgement directed at a person’s appearance, whether it’s their weight, height, skin tone, stretch marks, or even how their body “should” look to others, it comes in many forms:
- Fat-shaming: Calling someone “too fat”, or “unhealthy based on their size.”
- Thin-shaming: Mocking a person for being “too skinny” or looking “sick”
- Skin-tone shaming: Insults based on being “too dark” or “too brown”.
- Unwanted comments on puberty: Telling a teen that they’re developing too fast
- Disability or body difference mocking: Making fun of scars, birthmarks, or physical conditions.
These are some of the forms, but there are a lot more of these forms. Body shaming isn’t “just a joke” or “just an opinion”. It can lead to:
- Low self-esteem
- Eating disorders
- Depression and anxiety
- Social withdrawal and isolation or even sometimes withdrawal thoughts.
Instagram filters, TikTok trends, and “glow up” videos or basically social media often create a false idea of what a “perfect” body should look like. But here’s the secret influencers don’t always say: most of it is fake, or edited.
You weren’t born to be a copy of someone else. Your body isn’t a project for strangers to vote on.
Body Positivity Revolution
The body positivity movement encourages people to love and accept their bodies in all shapes, sizes, and colors. But we need more than hashtags, we need real change:
Call it out: If someone makes a harmful comment, speak up (respectfully but firmly).
Unlearn the hate: Reflect on your own biases. Have you judged someone’s body before?
Change the conversation: Compliment people for their energy, their kindness, their talents not just their looks.
Watch your language: Avoid “jokes” or negative opinions about someone’s appearance. You never know their silent struggles.
Protect the next generation: Let kids grow up hearing they are enough, just as they are.
Your Body is Not a Problem to Fix
Whether you’re tall, short, curvy, thin, light-skinned, dark-skinned, flat-chested, thick-thighed, acne-scarred, or stretch-marked, your body is not broken. The problem is the lens society sees it through.
You are not too much. You are not too little.
Final Word
To anyone who has ever felt like their body was wrong: you’re not the problem, the culture and society is. And we can change that, together. By refusing to body shame others. By being kinder to ourselves. And by creating a world where everybody is worthy.
Because beauty isn’t a size, it’s a mindset.
Brenna AKARABO
RADIOTV10
