Essay about Fat Is a Feminism Issue

Some liberal feminists believe that sexism causes anorexia and other eating disorders. In other words, gender stereotyping creates an "unequal burden on women" to maintain an ideal feminine appearance or behavior. The fitness and diet industry makes millions of dollars a year selling such an ideal to women. Radical feminists believe that women are being exploited because men profit from the thin ideal. Thus, feminists want to resist the thin ideal. As Susie Orbach mentions in her book Fat is a Feminist Issue, a new ideal

Obesity has played a major role in media over the last decade. With growing concern over the issue, a controversy over whether obesity is a disease itself or not has developed. Obesity, by definition, is a condition that is characterized by excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body, usually indicated by a body mass index of 30 or greater. According to the currently accepted definition of disease, a condition of the body or one of its parts that impairs normal functioning and is typically manifested by distinguishing signs and symptoms, it can be concluded that obesity does not meet the criteria to be classified as a disease.

Girls are not walking barbies, they are people who have emotions.So what do you think about the media and society putting “Too Much Pressure on Girls to Have ‘Perfect’ Bodies?” Girls are human with emotions and they have so much pressure on them to look perfect so that many get stressed out about it. It is not fair for them to be judged about. Girls as young as 7 to 12 years are at risk of negative body images that can lead to eating disorders, drinking, acting out sexually, suicide and bullying. We can help them if we try.Girls should not be pressured into have the perfect body because it stressful all the time for girls not wear something and think that they aren't going to get made fun of for wearing it, also they are depressed for getting made fun of and it's not ok for them to have to go through this.

Over one-half of all Americans are overweight or obese. If you are overweight or obese, carrying this extra weight puts you at risk for developing many diseases. Women generally have more subcutaneous fat than men, but appear to suffer a greater cardiovascular risk from a given degree of fat than women.

Seemingly innocent and simple phrases that comment on one's body type or eating habits can have lasting effects on a person's mind. People frequently use these sneaky euphemisms to purposely be construed as a compliment as a way to tiptoe around what they actually want or mean to say. Whether these commentaries are positive, negative, or even indifferent, it is wildly out of place and often makes people feel they are being evaluated. Due to this, these messages can have drastic consequences to our body image as we begin to accept and internalize them. As we do so, it may cause us to impulsively abandon our own perceptions and instead focus on and adopt those being projected onto us. These outside influences become sources of immense pressure to conform to a societal standard. Especially in adolescence, it is easy to be vulnerable to these forces and embody them within ourselves. As their bodies and minds develop, self-awareness and self-consciousness is at its peak, meaning these multi-faceted aspects of influence carry great

As a woman in society I have always had a hard time dealing with my body image and the pressures to fit in. There are so many burdens within society for women to fit a certain criteria to be accepted. The media has a lot to do with the way women perceive the way they "should" look and act. Friends and family are another source from which this perfect image stems from. It's not healthy for young girls and women to be stick thin and starving themselves just to go along with societal norms and look like everyone else. Women need to learn that it's okay to have they're own look and not be "perfect" because it's impossible and they'll die trying. Instead of worrying about what we look like in the

It was the fat shaming by my mother when I was a child at home. It was the weight bullying, including physical assault, by other kids at school.” (Cuban). Oftentimes, we forget that words have as much weight as they do and how much of an effect they can have on someone. People comment on others’ appearances without truly ever thinking of the consequences that their words can have. Compliments have the potential to fluff a person’s ego for a short time while insults can chip away at a person for days, months, or even years. Brian Cuban was teased about his weight by the people that he was around all the time and by the one person that should have made him feel loved and safe in any situation: his mother. Due to this constant bombardment of ridicule about his weight, Brian’s body image and confidence was corrupted. His positive body image plummeted and never truly recovered and years later, he developed muscle dysmorphia, “a preoccupation or obsession with a small or even non-existent (imagined) bodily ‘defect’ to the level that it results in destructive behaviors such as eating disorders, steroid abuse, plastic surgery abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, and so on.” (Cuban). It was the abuse that Brian faced and the primitive “desire to be accepted by the kids [he] saw every day” (Cuban) that drove him to such a disastrous state of mind. The harsh and cruel words that Brian’s peers and family flung at him on a daily basis weighed so heavily on his heart and brain that he fell into self-destructive tendencies and terribly negative body

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) in line with a growing number of health scholars, government and private philanthropic organizations support the notion, stating that many of today’s complex health problems may profitably be studied and addressed through approaches that emphasize collaboration with communities in exploring and acting on locally identified concerns (Minkler et al, 2003). There is no doubt that success and sustainability of the proposed research study on the prevalence of overweight and obesity among African immigrants in the United States using CBPR approach will likely benefit and depend on the collaboration of non-scientific trained community members. Yet, the argument continues to center on why non-scientifically trained

Girls all over wish they looked like that girl in the magazine or wish they can look like that celebrity, but in reality they should like their own bodies and who they are, and realize that they don't need to be skinny like a twig just for them to feel good about themselves. You see that society is trying to control these people's lives and make them feel bad about their weight by saying “you're too fat” or “you need to go on a diet” or even say “you're too skinny”. But what these people do not realize is that even just those words can hurt

I really didn't notice the way I looked, size and weight wise, until I started middle school. That's when the body shaming began. I would walk down to the cafeteria, filled with some of the most ignorant children, who would say the most ignorant things. I remember one day I was standing next to a little girl similar to my size and a boy came up to us and told us, we looked like twins, fat twins, and from then on we were named the “fat twins”. The body shaming got worse from there. All throughout middle school kids would pick on you if you were too “skinny” or too “fat”. They would also pick on you if you were “too tall” or “too short”, but no one ever knew what the perfect size was.

In the documentary Killing Us Softly, they had a quote from Cindy Crawford that read, “I wish I looked like Cindy Crawford.” Societies idea of beauty sends a message that the thinner you are, the better you look. This has affected women of all ages, sometimes even men. We look at overweight people like they're disgusting, and praise thin people. The magazine cover of Kim Kardashian is a great example, saying that this weight gain is “Pregnant Kim’s nightmare” and comparing her to a killer whale. Fat shaming is a huge problem, just like Laci Green asks, ‘Why is fat such a big deal?” (Green) She also brings up in her video the fact that fat shaming leads to other very serious mental and health problems, such as eating disorders. According to our lecture, as many as 10 million women and 1 million men suffer from anorexia or bulimia.

Why should we as women be shamed into conforming to a size that is pleasing to others? All of us have different body types and builds some of which can never meet these unrealistic expectations set forth by the media. This barrage of perfect images has damaging effects on girls and women’s self-esteem. We should encourage one another to love ourselves and our unique beauty.

America, the pride of its inhabitants, the glory from centuries of sacrifices from soldiers who exhibited patriotism, the center of reforms and movements - and the home of overweight, greedy scavengers. Yes, that’s right, America, the social glory of the obese. With so many social trends, such as fashion and social media, follow strokes and heart attacks from the overwhelmed body. It’s quite sad really, to view the body be attacked not from a virus or a fatal injury but due to itself. The body, no longer properly functioning correctly under its own weight, remains not as just the individual’s weight concern but a national embarrassment. The issue is getting larger, literally.

Additionally, when people feel accepted, they feel better about themselves. Accepting a person because they are plus-size does not necessarily encourage them to live an unhealthy lifestyle. In fact, these women may feel more confident and actually take the initiative to get active, and not because they are chasing the need to feel accepted, but because they are less self-conscious and able to walk out in public without feeling inferior due to lowered self-esteem. As we know, self-esteem influences consumer behavior (Solomon, 2017). Social media is providing a platform for plus-size women to have a voice. There are so many plus-size models and bloggers that have created pages strictly built to encourage and empower women who may feel like they do not fit society’s mode. Social media has brought about a self-acceptance to the masses. It allows consumers to voice their stance, which often times expresses the way many others feel, and set a tone to make changes. For example, a blogger Jes Baker, also known as Militant Baker, posted a letter to Abercrombie & Fitch regarding his “sizeism.” (Katz, 2015). Her voice was heard throughout social media. Hence, social media is impacting beauty

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