With body-shaming being so prevalent in the media nowadays, it should come as no surprise that girls as young as six years old are expressing concerns about their body image and weight. As we usually relate the word “body-shaming” to fat-shaming, the concept of skinny-shaming frequently goes under the radar.
Skinny-shaming can occur just as much — if not more — as fat-shaming because the statements are often perceived as compliments, like “do you even eat?” or “you look so skinny, put some meat on your bones.” Thinness has become normalized and even idealized in today’s society — in large part due to the media. Some celebrities are idolized for their bodies that are thin to an unhealthy degree.
Skinny-shaming often leads to or results from eating disorders. Teasing someone about their weight, even if they are thinner than average, can take a toll on their mental health and lead to body dissatisfaction. People might feel pressured to change their consumption levels to watch their weight and subject themselves to extremely unhealthy eating patterns, resulting in them developing an eating disorder. For example, someone who is subjected to skinny-shaming and wants to gain weight rapidly may get bulimia, a binge-eating disorder that involves a cycle of eating and purging within a short period of time. In another scenario, someone might have become extremely skinny from anorexia, partially or totally abstaining from food with the belief that any food can cause weight gain. To make matters worse, eating disorders are incredibly difficult to recover from, so victims—who are already affected by negative body images — hearing insults like “skin and bones” can cause their mental health, hence eating disorder and physical health, to deteriorate further.
However, if you ask someone if they would rather be “fat” or “skinny”, most people would probably answer with “skinny” as being called “thin” is often thought to be a compliment while the word “fat” has a stigma attached to it despite the improvements in the body positivity movement. The lack of representation in the media and many cultures contributes to the frequent body shaming — to both skinny and fat bodies — that we often see or experience ourselves. Instead of debating about weight, let’s shift the conversation away from our looks and bodies, and put the focus on other qualities that won’t put one’s mental and physical health at risk.
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Published November 12, 2021
Written by Lindsay Wong ~ Edited by Scarlett Chu ~ Graphics created by Fiona Xu
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