Shame on Fat Shaming
Those of you who know me, probably knew that I was going to "weigh in" on the current fat shaming story that has been all over the media (pun intended)! Let me fill you in on what happened. An overweight woman was sitting in her seat on a plane and noticed that the guy beside her was texting his friend awful things about her weight. She decided to call him out on it and posted the video showing this. This guy (notice I refuse to use the word "man" to describe him) apologized to her but then made another rude comment to her. The video of this then went viral.
Now that you are caught up, let's talk about fat shaming. I'm happy that this is becoming something that people are starting to fight against but sad to know that it is still very much out there. This guy was so convinced that the woman was not able to do much due to her weight and it's scary to think that ignorant people like that are still around. It means we, as a society, are probably not doing enough to educate people that weight does not define a person. It doesn't define their beauty or capabilities. Believe it or not, it does not even necessarily define that person's health! If you've been reading my posts up until now, you know that a person's weight is determined mostly by their genetics - ie their set point. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that a person can over/under eat all of the time, and develop unhealthy habits and not have effects on their body and weight. What I am saying is that if a person treats their body well by eating a healthy balance of everything in moderation along with exercise and sleep in moderation, their weight will go where it is supposed to be. This is what healthy is.
Somewhere along the way, we got caught up in looking a certain way and being a certain weight and worse than that letting these things define who we are and what we are capable of! How did we let this happen? How can we reverse it?
When you see someone, you are not seeing the whole picture. You don't know what they're going through. You don't know if they're healthy, happy, sad, sick, etc... If we don't know the whole story, how can we be so quick to judge? Unfortunately this happens on both ends of the spectrum. There is a lot of fat shaming going on but there is also a lot of praise for losing weight, dieting, and being "model-skinny". This is bad too because it is praising someone for starving themselves to death in a lot of cases.
I can go on and on about this but let me end with a message. Words are powerful and can stay with people forever so use them carefully. Accepting ourselves and others for who we all are and what we contribute to each other and the world should be our focus.
Thoughts?
