Effects Of Social Discrimination And Body Size

Prejudice against fat people is a common thing today because the media tend to advocate incorrect ideas about them. Fat people are seen as losers throughout movies and tv shows. As stated by Ann Marie Paulin, “Fat people are assumed to be lazy, stupid, ugly, lacking in self esteem and pride, devoid of self control...” (245). These assumptions are cultivated by the media to make fat people feel ashamed of themselves. Some people might argue that this is

Children are more likely to be bullied if they are obese rather than a child who is fit and has great physical attributes, the reason for that is simple because of the inability to perform at the same level of a child who is fit. Bullied during physical education causes the victim to be embarrassed about their physical appearance and psychologically, they become too afraid to perform ever again so they rather sit in the sidelines and watch instead. “A year later, kids who are picked on are less active…” (Collins 2014), meaning that once the victim experiences that level of psychological trauma, they automatically fear the possibility of it occurring again, which is why they rather refrain from any activity whether it’s a year later or for the rest of their lives. Children who are obese feel embarrassed to even stick their heads out during physical education because of the fear and insecurity embedded to them through

You know what’s so beautiful about imperfection? It creates a space for everyone to share their uniqueness to our world. In the article, Hello, I Am Fat by author Lindy West discusses the issues of being treated poorly and wrongfully shamed for one’s body appearance. Spreading negatively, shame, or hatred towards individuals who are “fat” can truly affect a person’s life including yours. West felt obligated to explain the importance behind fat acceptance in today’s society to her current boss, Dan. Who believes he’s constructing a better work environment and helping individuals by sharing his rather “tame” statements to the public. Society is often times our worst critic by making us believe that body image and personal health will evaluate a person’s success.

In American culture, the obese body is represented very negatively. One factor that contributes to this negative representation is the abundance of negative reactions that people display towards overweight people. It is a stigma that often taints and belittles the person, leading others to judge the individual negatively, rejecting, hating, or ridiculing him or her. That can often lead the obese person to develop sever psychological problems.

One reason mass media is so effective at portraying unrealistic body types as normal is because the mass media helps to set what is perceived as normal. In an article about the mass media’s role in body image disturbance and eating disorders, J. Kevin Thompson and Leslie Heinberg state, “A sociocultural model emphasizes that the current societal standard for thinness, as well as other difficult-to-achieve standards of beauty

Societal pressure also comes in the form of body shaming, which is defined as the criticism of another person’s body shape or appearance. According to a 2016 study, there is correlation between body shaming, body dissatisfaction, and eating disorders, all of which happen to be most prevalent in young women (Mustapic p. 447). In recent years, body shaming has become a huge problem due to the popularity of social media platforms. Women of all shapes and sizes are ridiculed on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and other sites for not conforming to societal normalities. The 2016 study also assessed eating disorders in relation to age and body mass index (BMI) of participants (Mustapic p. 449). Age did not have much effect on the data, which is unsurprising due to the fact that all participants were close in age. What is more surprising, however, is that BMI also had little effect on the data. One would think that women with greater BMIs would

“What does it feel like to be a fat person in a cultural context in which fat is reviled?” (Lupton, 2013, p. 67).

Body shaming is even more difficult to people that feel insecure about their body every day. “In a society that puts so much emphasis on body image and beauty, it is so easy to get caught up in self -condemnation and body shaming” (Aceves). Society concentrates more on how the person looks physically. Instead of, accepting them on how they are and concentrating on other things. For that reason, people who feel offended thru others want to be accepted by them. They start to stop eating, they become bulimic, anorexic or fall into depression. Just because they want to look at how society wants them to look.

The media has distorted people’s views on the way they look at their own body image. The media has shown what their ideal body type is, while leaving people to feel as if the average weight is not good enough. (Cardosi, 2006) We live in a world where people feel as if having zero body fat is the idea body type to have. Pictures of models for clothing stores, bathing suits, lingerie etc. all exhibit to this to be true. Body image is perceived to be negatively influenced by the media and the way that the media displays their models. Parents, teachers, adolescence and even children all find themselves to be comparing themselves based on what the media exposes. (Levine & Murnen, 2009)

Another problem mentally and physically is eating disorders. An eating disorder is a psychological disorder characterized by serious eating problems (Google) ; there are three types of eating disorders Anorexia nervosa, Bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorders. An article written by Mayo Clinic talks about causes of an eating disorder and one of these causes is society, as you read on the Mayo talks about how the “modern Western cultural environment often cultivates and reinforces a desire for thinness. Success and worth are often equated with being thin in popular culture. Peer pressure and what people see in the media may fuel this desire to be thin, particularly among young girls.” (Mayo Clinic Staff ,Eating Disorders,MayoClinic.com) With that information shared to us by the Mayo Clinic shows that the Media plays a huge role in eating disorders. According to the American Psychological Association when you have an eating disorder you suffer from low self-esteem, feeling of helplessness, and intense dissatisfaction with the way they look. The article also talks about how eating disorders mostly affect teenage girls and woman.

It is funny how so many girls and women today are led to believe that the only way to feel attractive and be beautiful is to have their bodies consist of nothing but skin and bones. Women are dieting more today then they have ever been before. They are striving for an unattainable body figure that is portrayed by the media as being the ideal standard for today's women. It gets worse. Not only are women dieting unlike ever before, but they will ruthlessly harm their bodies in order to achieve these inaccessible standards. This ruthless harm that haunts so many women today just so happens to be what we call eating disorders. Anorexia and bulimia are the primary diseases that go in the category of eating

Thicker women face discrimination and pressures from society and their peers to lose weight because their bodies types are perceived as unhealthy this is the relative idea Beth MacInnis shared in “Fat Oppression”  in Consuming Passions. MacInnis discusses the health risk associated with weight loss and the misconception thicker women are unhealthy because of their body sizes. She points out that having a bigger body other than being thin the ideal beauty standard is seen as being unhealthy but for those women to lose weights by means that are risky and are shown to be unhealthy in her research. In simpler terms MacInnis is pointing out the hypocrisy in the idea that not being thin is unhealthy but for women that aren’t skinny face actual unhealthy and unethical means to lose weight.

Weight discrimination feels as bad as racial or religious persecution, but is not considered a protected class under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Rebecca Puhl, research scientist and lead author at Yale University states, “These results show the need to treat weight discrimination as a legitimate form of prejudice, comparable to other characteristics like race or gender that already receive legal protection”. Puhl’s co-author, Tatiana Andreyava , also of Yale, indicates that weight bias is more widespread than other well known types of discrimination. “However, despite its high prevalence, it continues to remain socially acceptable” (Obesity 2009).

Weight discrimination “generally refers to negative weight-related attitudes toward an overweight or obese individual” (Puhl 1). Obesity numbers started to skyrocket in the 1990s and weight discrimination started to become a problem about five years later. Obese individuals are susceptible to weight discrimination at health care facilities, school, work, and even in personal relationships. Studies have found that the chances of experiencing weight discrimination increase the more an individual weighs. “In our study, 10 percent of overweight women reported weight discrimination, 20 percent of obese women reported weight discrimination and 45 percent of very obese women reported weight discrimination. men were lower, with 3 percent of overweight, 6 percent of obese and 28 percent of very obese men reporting weight discrimination. This finding also tells us that women begin experiencing weight discrimination at lower levels of body weight than men” (Puhl 2). For women weight discrimination is more common than race discrimination.

Body-Shaming is known as criticizing or humiliating someone by making impolite comments on an individual's body shape or size. Body-shaming is a subject that has been recently brought to light with the use of social media; many celebrities have talked about body-shaming along with quite a few other individuals who have even went out to do social experiments. Generations and generations have passed and as the years go by, the problems only seems to get worse. Comments like “you should put more meat on your bones” and “you should go on a diet” are both equally demeaning and overused. It shouldn’t matter what someone’s body size or shape is to anyone as long as that person is happy and content with himself or herself. Almost everyone has