By Ayyan Shaikh
Welcome to a brown girl’s rant on fatphobia and how it is absolutely stupid to shame people for their appearance.
Fat-phobia is the dislike of fat people and the stigmatization of individuals with bigger bodies. Fat-phobia is so ingrained into our society that the system today is designed to exclude, shame, or oppress people based on their body weight. This might seem normal to you and that’s because it’s everywhere but should it be the way it is? Why do we feel the need to point out something people might be insecure about? If you think you’re doing it because of all the health drawbacks of being overweight, and you want your friend or family member to be healthy then newsflash: they already know it all. They’re either beating themself up over it mentally because they don’t fit the beauty standards or are trying to lose weight using unhealthy ways. Someone pointing it out again to them can worsen their insecurities and thus also affect their mental health. Guilting people into losing their weight by bringing it up, again and again, does nothing but create more problems for them. This may result in eating disorders where they might count every calory they consume, mental health issues, body dysmorphia, and insecurities that might last their whole life.
If you think that people experiencing a major weight loss and fitting into the ideal beauty standard after years of them being shamed for their weight will solve all their insecurities then boy do I have some news for you. Losing weight after being overweight for so long results in the fear of being overweight again and this further results in more mental and physical health issues. When someone does lose weight, then people complimenting them by mentioning how they look so much better now confirms their fears of being the odd one out just because of their weight, and believe me this is anything but a good thing.
Another thing to blame here is the unrealistic beauty standards for both men and women in this society. Don’t be too tall, don’t be too short, don’t be too skinny, don’t be too fat, don’t be too curvy, don’t be too flat, oh you got to have abs, but abs make your belly stick out please be natural, you have too many muscles and it’s scary but also don’t be too thin because it’s not a good look. How about we all mind our own damn business and let people be? Or is that too much to ask for? I’m sure people will find a lot of other stuff to gossip about so how about we don’t mention things-specially physical attributes- that cannot be changed in 20 seconds.
What we also need to notice here is the word ‘fat’. It is an adjective used to describe plus-sized people. Then why is it that people use it as a derogatory term? Why do these words have such negative connotations in our society? Regardless of our intention, and regardless of the context we use this word as almost all overweight people have a bad relationship with this word. And this is not how it should be! Plus-sized people should not have to feel bad about a word used to describe them!
In desi culture, being fat is even worse. I’m not saying that overweight people in other cultures don’t face the same discrimination but desi fat-shaming hits different. Being told to lose weight or no one will marry you despite you being a successful person? Exquisite. Definitely what we all dream about because hey after all that character development and years of education, who doesn’t want to be rejected by an aunty who for sure talks crap about people. Children-specifically young girls- are taught to be self-conscious and told to watch their weight gain repeatedly throughout their childhood and then moms wonder why we hate being called moti. We also need to talk about the extreme methods of weight loss, totkay, aunties recommend us-specifically women(are we surprised)-and how most of them are not good for our health. Laxatives, while they might have their advantages if consumed in a proper amount, mess up the digestive system when they’re used in large amounts to lose weight. It is also suspected that excessive weight loss results in the loss of muscles more than unnecessary fat which is also very concerning.
Generally, I think people should mind their own business and not point out things about other people as long as it does not affect them. ‘You do you and I do me’ is the motto I hope people live by(as long as it’s not affecting the peace of the society) because no, an overweight person is not stealing your oxygen but by constantly fat-shaming them you are stealing their right to be self-confident and love themself the way they are. So hey, who actually needs to change something about themself? And just a hint: it is not the plus-sized person.
(Image from here.)
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