Aspects of Body shaming
You might have come across at least one friend of yours from school or college who had been called nicknames for their appearance not fitting into established beauty standards. Words like fatty, blackie, scrawny or skinny are widely used to fat shame or colour shame people. Do you know this very deed of scoffingly calling names for one’s appearance is called body shaming? Wikipedia defines body shaming as “the act of deriding or mocking a person's physical appearanceâ€.
People who are subjected to constant body shaming can develop low self-esteem or can have a reduced level of confidence. They may feel disinterested to be present in public events or even find it difficult to confess their love to someone. If you look around carefully, you may find at least one person like them around you. He/she/they might have thousands of skills, yet people may tend to define them or sneer at them for their physical appearance. Do you know passing body-shaming comments is a legitimate reason to expel you from your workspace? Even in very close friend circles, people use such words for fun, but they are never funny whether the intention was to hurt the person or not. So how can you avoid such remarks? Learn to accept people for what they are as an individual- their character and behaviour. Befriend people for their personality and be around them for their characteristic traits. It can eventually lead to you acknowledging your friend regardless of how lean or plump they are, whether they are bald or not, or even what shade of colour their skin has. You would never be bothered about their beauty as defined by society. In this way, you can unlearn your mistakes and form new perspectives