They call me fat girl !
my body my death penalty.
“I am FAT” word ‘fat’ sounds like a nasty word, the society has turned its definition and synonym it with word ‘ugly’ and ‘disable’. Being judge as lazy, unintelligent, and unattractive even discriminated by health care, school, and workplace. Fat people are not lazy. Some of my thinner friend never go to gym and do exercised, but my fat friend go to gym and exercised 4 to 5 times a week. Lazy are lazy, it does not define by body size. This case is very concerning not only for plus size people but also for us, people who next to us including our child.
“Being judge as lazy, unintelligent, and unattractive even discriminated by health care, school, and workplace.”
Apparently, when somebody says “You are tall!” compare to “You are fat!” is automatically change its perception and how people are labelized by their size is very crucial. Some people are categorized as big size since they were born but some of them are caused by medicine that they took. Evette Dionne a writter of an article titled The Fragility of Body Positivity on bitch media shared her story when she got an asthma attack and paired with pneumonia, she had to take a steroid that would strengthen her lungs. However, it has a side effect which is weight gain. Her body gets bigger and too large for children’s doctor’s charts. She mention, she never see herself reflected on tv shows, movies, or music videos. She was being a joke by her friends also being the centre of attention.
A new study published in the International Journal of Fashion Design, Technology, and Education reveals that the average size of American women is now 16 to 18. Furthermore, as reported by market researcher NPD Group, sales of women’s plus-size fashion rose 6 percent to $21.4 billion in 2016, double the rate of overall apparel sales. and predicted in 2020, revenue in sales of women’s plus size fashion could hit $24 billion, it is a big market income in a fashion industry.
However, many retail store does not offer good selections for plus-sized women. No access to cute clothes, and hard to find size of their favorite jeans as their thinner friends are examples of discrimination towards plus size people. Even in some retail stores who bring size XXS do not have XL size in their stores. Nonetheless, our culture that idolizes thinness and as if forgetting existence of people with size is critical issue in fashion industry. This is generation of body diversity, the current is changing, Those unacceptable judgment and discrimination for women towards plus-size people should change.
Many of us scared to gain weight and we started to wish to be thinner and fit into pair of size zero jeans even as we know our skeletons alone are more like size six. However, we will do whatever it takes so our wish come true. Started by controlling food, do some hard exercise, and taking some diet pills. It leads from dieting culture to eating disorders. Eating disorders is a psychological disorders that disturbed by eating behaviour, this illness may take people’s life. Another term called as ‘Fat-phobia’ which is fear and dislike of bigger bodies or fat bodies. Fat-phobia comes from people who wants to be “fit in” the society, which being “perfect” enough for the industry that defines perfection.
Have you ever heard a message says “All women are beautiful flaws in all” or “Love yourself at any size” ?
well, those are nice messages that everyone can say, but women are suffering not only because of the unattainable ways of beauty being defined, they are suffering because they are defined by beauty. How beauty defined women creates loss of self-esteem and confident. Despite, Dove’s Global report on attitudes towards beauty survey
Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful (up from 2% in 2004)
80% of women agree that every woman has something about her that is beautiful, but do not see their own beauty
More than half of women globally (54%) agree that when it comes to how they look, they are their own worst beauty critic.
This appearance anxiety provoke to Self-objectification. Besides, According to Sagepub Psychology of Women Quarterly mentions if women are in a state of self-objectification they perform worse on math, interaction motivation, and reading comprehension tasks. This self-objectification bring disadvantages to our self, so we should stop this behaviour and start to love how we picture ourselves and be our own role model.
In addition, people with size are intensely ostracized in all forms of media as though the social platform feels like a death penalty for them. For instance, bullying, being ignored by the group, given the silent treatment, being made fun of, sexually assaulted, photoshop advertisement, anxiety when putting some seamless clothes or being isolated, those problems happen between students and it is a major problem for student’s psychology. It leads from low self-esteem to suicidal thoughts.
An illustration according to Lindsay kite one of body activist, on her TED talk she mentioned true story of 13 years old girl used to cut herself because she got bullied everyday about her appearance, and being told if no one will ever like her because of her shape. Study by University College London examined nearly 3,000 British adults, finding that “weight discrimination does not encourage weight loss, it may even exacerbate weight gain. Stress responses to discrimination can increase appetite, particularly for unhealthy, energy-dense food.” Bullying may take someone’s life, it is a must for us to prevent this before our child become a victim.
Jennifer Livingston, a news anchor at WKBT in La Crosse, fight against weight discrimination. Livingston received a harsh e-mail from a viewer who called her “fat” and a “bad role model” for young girls. it is an example of what people thought if plus size people should not work as news reporter or to work in front of public media. However, as reported by PMC US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, Size discrimination in the workplace has increased by 66% over the past 3 decades. Moreover, according to study from LinkedIn, plus-size workers paid less than their thinner colleagues. A survey says “4,000 adults full-time employment, UK workers who are classed as obese according to their BMI earn $2,512 less per year”. Plus size bloggers like Stephanie Yeboah said in a press release “I want everybody to feel confident in their bodies and believe that nothing can hold them back if they want that job, promotion or pay rise. If you’re putting in the hard work, you should be rewarded regardless of how you look.” Discrimination towards plus size people in a workplace is very unfair. Workers should be judged by how they do their work not by how they look.
Additionally, As reported by the University of Washington surveyed over 2,000 medical practitioners, revealed that doctors have similar levels of anti-fat bias as the general public. According to medical express psychology mentions “A doctor or nurse experiences a judgemental response of disgust, anger or blame because of their size, this jeopardizes their care.” An image above is an example of how being discriminate through the lens of a doctor’s weight bias could be lethal. Fat patients often suffer dangerous delays in getting a proper diagnosis because doctors are so quick to blame any and all symptoms on being overweight. As stated in CBC News Ellen Maud Bennett a cancer patient using her obituary to make a final plea to stop so-called fat shaming by members of the medical profession and has gained wide support on Twitter, one of user wrote “I was told I just had to lose weight for over a decade before I was finally diagnosed at 43 with a degenerative genetic condition (EDS). The medical community sucks for heavy women. Add in being a minority and it gets even worse”. Every person has the same right, so does people with plus size.
However being overweight is not okay, but the point is to honour your body type. Embrace it! Own it! and Be Healthy!. Although, bullying among students, discrimination through social media, workplace and medical care, affects people’s psychology and bring dreadful effect into their life. Hence, We can stop “judging a book by its cover” and begin to look deeper and we need to work to redefine the global vision of beauty. A recent study shows that the more we are exposed to body positivity the more we tolerate, accept, and even prefer different body types. “The more we see a kind of body, the more we like that kind of body”. Making sure women are valued as more than bodies to view is our mission we should done by now, and it starts from you!
“Embrace it! Own it! and Be Healthy! Stop “judging a book by its cover”, redefine the global vision of beauty and Making sure women are valued as more than bodies to view.”
