The Art of Body Shaming, Shame On You! (And shame on me too....)

I am a big girl, I have been a bigger girl almost all my life and I doubt I will ever be below a size 12. I have lived with the fat jokes and teasing for being fat for as long as I can remember. I used to say, "Real women have curves" and "No one wants a boney woman" How wrong I was! I could only see from my side of view where being overweight has been a large source of unhappiness to me, and when I would hear skinny people complain about needing to lose weight, instead of asking what is making them feel that way, I would just scoff and whisper that they have no right to say that. Again, so very, very wrong.

So I was guilty after all these years of being just as cruel as others but I felt justified in how I felt. I didn't see how it was wrong, I mean they always make fun of me and I just know they are thinking about how fat I am right? Yeah, maybe a few but not everyone.

Then I had a realisation, an epiphany if you. People are going to be unhappy with their bodies no matter how they look. There is a small percentage of people who would not change a thing about their appearance and not every part of our appearance is by choice. Just like some people gain weight very easily, some people can't gain weight and lose weight too easy. Just because I would rather be skinnier, does that give me the right to put them down? No it does not!

We seem to forget that the people we talk down to, the ones we either say "Have a cheeseburger" or "Put down your fork and walk a bit" have feelings too and telling them this is NOT going to make them change just because you said so, it is going to hurt them and sometimes make their situation worse. Maybe they will give up and not even try anymore. Maybe they will wait until you are not around and cry.

What needs to change is this idea that you  can guess a person's health by their size. Not all fat people are unhealthy, not all skinny people are healthy. Not all fat people binge eat constantly and not all skinny people eat nothing at all. Unless you are them, you really have no right to say what they do or what they don't do. If you are not their Doctor then you can not say they are not healthy. Until we stop this discrimination nothing will get better.

So I will leave you with this thought, if you want to think about someone, think of how you would feel in their shoes and maybe, just maybe it will help change your way of thinking a little.