Body Shaming : Inappropriate negative statements and attitudes toward another persons weight or size.

“too fat”

“too skinny”

“get on a diet”

“she probably starves herslef”

When you tell someone that there is something wrong with their body and that it needs to be changed, you will leave an impact on a person .That is one thing that is guaranteed. All it depends on is how well the person deals with it.

The problem with body shaming is that people do not recognize it as an actual problem. Up to 24 million people of all ages and genders suffer from different eating disorders in The United States alone. 95% of those suffering from eating disorders are between ages of 12-25. Given these ridiculous statistics, it is a given that the wide spread of body shaming in society is posting an impact on society.

All it takes is one negative comment to get a person thinking negatively and pushing them towards a dark hole of self-hatred. Wether it was a joke, wether it was said by a loved one, the root of self-hatred is an external enviroment. We've all heard it before. The Aunt at the family gathering “You're looking a tad bit plum,dear”. The seemingly joking friend “You're so skinny, if I blew at you, you'd probably fly away”. Nobody recognizes how these little comments here and there lead to a slippery slope that is detrimental towards ones self esteem.

One of the biggest contributors to a pro-body shaming society is, as much as it pains me to say, is  the music industry. Music is something that has become so close to a person it is basically an extension of themselves and their personalities. It places so much impact on our lives. Life is a movie and the music we listen to makes up the soundtrack. What we might not listen to from anyone else, we might listen to if it comes from the main stream media.

All About That Bass. The song of the summer as they call it. Where the singer mentions how “every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top” and later on mentions how she won't be a “stick figure sillicone barbie doll”. Is being “skinny” an acception to being “perfect”? No absolutely not. But let's view this from a teenage girls point of view, a naturally petite young girl with a high metabolism that can't seem to gain weight. This is when she begins to self-doubt. To feel incompetent. As if there is something wrong with her.

And yes it is amazing that curves and the beauty of them are being embraced but should that occur at the cost of petite girls then feeling horrible about themselves?

In July 2014, a lovely young woman, Jess Dutschmann was disgustingly discriminated for her body type at a beauty salon. She was pestured about the her choice in hair cut. In the piece she wrote on xojane she mentioned how they were trying to propagate a sort of rule : “Fat girls don't get pixie cuts.Not that they don't get them, that they don't get to get them”.

A Salon. A place where girls, all girls go to feel beautiful, pampered and confident. We've gotten to a stage where a place as such takes part in this kind of behaviour? It's really that bad?

The answer is yes it really is that bad.  Girls, Boys of all sizes , everywhere are feeling less and less confident about themselves day after day. And our responsibility as the young and progressive youth is to take a stand against it. Because wether you believe it or not this IS a real problem.

Lives have been lost. Teenagers loose their friends.Parents loose their children. All because of ones inability to love themselves.

Taking a stand is simple. Stand up for a friend who is being picked on for their size. Do not support buisnesses that body shame and that only sell to people of an “ideal body type”. These little things will snowball into huge effects.

We are a generation of copy cats. We love trends. In the form of fashion, gadgets and music. And those trends should also be able to exist in this form. In the form of a positive change towards a more accepting and loving community.

Ghandi once said “Be the change you wish to see in the world”

And so the change begins with you.