Fat shaming has been a hot topic lately and I’m so glad that we are finally addressing it. As women, we all know that whatever we look like, we’ll never be perfect. We’ll always be too skinny or too fat or too something or other in the eyes of other people.
You only have to flick through a trashy celeb magazine or two to find them slating a female celebrities’ body — usually under the guise of being worried for her wellbeing “frighteningly skinny” or worry about her making a fool of herself, such as the mock concern over Kim Kardashian’s tiny pregnancy outfits. Which brings up another point — why shouldn’t pregnant women (or anyone else) wear something teeny tiny if they want to?
But it’s not just in the magazines and on TV — it spills out into real life, too.
I really dislike eating anything that’s considered unhealthy in public. I’m by no means obese, but I have some sizeable curves and, as such, I have a paranoia that whenever I buy a cookie or a coke, people’s inner monologues will be telling me to put it down and munch on an apple instead.
But I have found out that I am not as paranoid as I thought. Yesterday I got disgusted when a high profile trainer, I know in Bangkok, wrote as his status something along the lines of “Dear woman in Starbucks, you REALLY don’t need that brownie. I am willing you with my mind to put it back”. I scrolled down the comments thinking there must be at least a little outrage at his judgmental comments but, alas no; just the usual mindless “lol”.
My problem with this status is that he has no idea about the circumstances of this woman. Perhaps she has a thyroid problem which makes it near impossible to lose weight. Perhaps she’s been on a strict diet and exercise regime and is celebrating with a brownie after losing 45 kilograms. Perhaps she’s had a day from hell and the brownie is the only thing that can brighten it up. Or perhaps she just wanted a brownie without the judgment of some condescending loser who thinks being lean should be first and foremost on all our minds. Who knows? My thoughts are: her body, her business. If he was her trainer, perhaps he would be right to be worrying about it but because he’s not, he doesn’t.
Thankfully, she’ll never know there are a bunch of people out there laughing at her eating a brownie when she’s clearly far too fat to be able to contemplate enjoying a treat in public (please note heavy sarcasm), but other people reading — myself included — may be left wondering if they’re skinny enough to be allowed a brownie without being publicly shamed for it.
But aside from being judgmental and rude, fat shaming actually doesn’t work. It’s been proven. It doesn’t take much more than vaguely considering the effects of making people feel bad about themselves to realise that it’s a really ineffective way to motivate people which, as a trainer, I’m sure he’d want to do.
I don’t know if you have ever had someone tell you that you are doing something all wrong or that you are disgusting but, for most of us, that doesn’t incite us to work super hard and prove them wrong. It might for a short time but, there’s often a little voice in our head telling us “he’s right, you know. You are useless”.
Psychology plays such a big part in everything we do. I don’t know if I will ever shake the feeling of being the last one to be picked in gym class or always coming last in cross country. No matter how fit I get, I’ll always feel as sporty as a hippo. If, before I started eating better and working out, a stranger had told me to step away from the cakes, I would have been destroyed.
I hope that if he ever does tell someone not to eat their brownie, they should take that brownie and shove it in his smug face and then purchase another one to eat themselves. Though hopefully the informative article I just posted on his Facebook page about the fact that fat shaming often has the effect of weight gain rather than loss will mean he’ll never do it again.
