Image by Mia Wise
Tonight’s Victoria’s Secret Fashion reminds us of a few things. First is that these women are incredibly beautiful and graceful. Second is that, for most of us, we will never be able to achieve the perfect bodies that Adriana Lima and Lily Aldridge work super hard to achieve.
Body shaming is an issue that every race, gender and age can relate to. For some it starts as early as elementary school.
“Middle school was the worst for me because that’s when body image is like a big thing. It made me feel so worthless that I was bigger than other girls. Actually, it got to the point where I would often starve myself in the hopes of losing weight and looking more like everyone else. I never ate breakfast or lunch and if I could help it I would try and skip dinner too. It really left me feeling empty and despite that being when I was my smallest I never felt like I was good enough,” said 19 year old Elizabeth McArdle.
Body shaming is not always fat shaming. Naturally skinny people are prone to this issue too. In fact, in 2014 when Meghan Trainor released All About That Bass people were quick to point out that they felt the lyric “Go ‘head and tell them skinny bitches that” was skinny shaming.
“I’ve been body shamed all my life. Growing up it was hard for me to gain weight. A lot of girls growing up would say they were jealous of my size, but then would say I needed to eat a sandwich. To start eating fried chicken and sweet potatoes and cornbread to grow some curves. It really affected my body image and self esteem growing up,” said Andrea Burns.
It’s always easy to think about body shaming as something that you would never do to another person but most of the time people can’t control the urge to compare yourself to another.
“I think people body shame because it’s in our nature to compare ourselves to others. If we see someone who we think has a worse body than we do we will instinctively feel better about ourselves. Of course I’ve body shamed, everyone does. I don’t think we as humans will ever stop body shaming. I think we can make an effort to not do it as often, but it’s such an instinctive reaction I think we all unintentionally do it every day. Obviously, you can make an effort to not say it out loud, but I don’t think it can be stopped from happening within your own thoughts,” said McArdle.
Even if you see someone and have a mean thought about the way they look what’s most important is that you don’t act on it. They will never know what thought passed through your mind but if you say something they might dwell on it forever. In a world where 50% of teenage girls have resorted to unhealthy restricting habits to loose weight, every bit of kindness counts.