“I don’t hate you because you’re fat. You’re fat because I hate you,” an iconic “Mean Girls” quote briefly illustrates how fat is often portrayed in society. Movies and television series have a tendency to exclude overweight actors/actresses or use them as a center of ridicule. In doing so, it sends a misguided message to children, teens and adults who now feel the pressure of inadequacy. People have begun to examine the effects of body shaming in America. In the article “Fear of Fatness,” Peggy Orenstein, an award-winning writer, claims that the image of the ideal woman is rather impossible to achieve, and even those who may obtain it, still find flaws within themselves. Orenstein presents the idea that body fat is viewed as a negative …show more content…
Orenstein acknowledges how Ava, though fat, still embraces her life. Ava is beginning to see the reality that fat is criticized; nonetheless, she handles the comments in a healthy manner for her age. Ava is not the only one facing this obstacle. Individuals have started to acknowledge how young girls, in multiple countries, are reacting in damaging ways to the effects of this so-called fat epidemic. Many are questioning where it comes from. Within the school they attend, among friends they associate with, or media they view, Orenstein points out potential sources that may have caused children to feel conflicted about their weight. She emphasizes about the importance of parents praising their children for what they achieve rather than how they look. However, this advice is easier said than done, because as Orenstein addresses, the world often perceives women for their appearance over other characteristics they may embody. We come to wonder how girls went from caring about bettering themselves and their minds, to obsessing over physical appearance. Orenstein emphasizes the importance of this topic with Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s work on comparing the thoughts of girls that lived in separate centuries. In doing so, one can see how drastically thoughts shifted from internal self-worth to external self-image. Orenstein concludes with the idea
In “Fear of Fatness,” Peggy Orenstein uses personal experience and repetitive descriptive language about beauty standards gained from the media versus natural beauty to argue that parents should be the ones to help boost their children’s self-esteem toward their natural beauty instead of media-based beauty. Orenstein faces the problem that young girls, along with their mothers, are afraid of the girls not fitting into the beauty standards put upon them.
In her article “Never Just Pictures,” author Susan Bordo analyzes how deeply teenage girls of today are effectively told how to look by mass media. Girls of the 21st century are constantly struggling with their own confidence and overall happiness simply due to the celebrities they see on TV and in magazines. Today, women are subconsciously told what the ‘perfect body’ is and anything less than that means that they are unwanted and fat. Bordo specifically described the experience of the 19 year-old Clueless actress, Alicia Silverstone, whom the tabloids consistently referred to as ‘fatgirl’ and ‘buttgirl.’ Bordo described that once a young woman is told that she is not worthy or that she is fat, countless psychological issues arise and begin
Last week a comedian named Nicole Arbour released a video on her youtube channel titled “Dear Fat People”. The video has over 4 million views in just over 7 days. According to Boston’s NPR news section it is one of the “top social media scandals of the year”. Nicole Arbour’s youtube channel is most popular for her “video rants” as well as other videos she has made in attempt at comedy. In “Dear Fat People” she talks about a matter of issues she feels “fat people ” should work on. She claims that fat people get special treatment that an average weighted person does not. She gives an example that she felt a common person could relate to. She says that in security lines in airports, people who are fat get to cut the line and security checks them first. This proves to one of her major points in making the video. She says that her video is not shame fat people but to encourage them to lose weight (Schlack). “Fat shaming is not a thing; fat people made that up. That’s the race card, with no race.” She ended her video with some advice saying that if you want to end your weight issues “put down the oreos”. People by nature judge their surroundings. It is something all living organisms do, judging people, food, as well as anything else is vital to survival, but the weight of a person is not a factor in determining the quality of a human being. The media has helped project different stereotypes onto people and it is hard for some people to overcome them. A survey in Teen People Magazine in 2014 showed that over 50% of teenagers assumed that being fat was a sign of laziness, and 45% of the participants also said that “fat people smell bad and do not care about their bodies” (Schlack). It does not just go in way, as skinny shaming has become a problem too. It seems that no matter the body a person can be given, there will always be
Baird begins by acknowledging the media industry deeming “fat” as something to be ashamed of, which highlights the detriment of people’s views on what is deemed beautiful. For example, before eliciting distrust with societal standards in the audience through ironic experiences, she alludes to the media industry instilling repulsion of fatness within society; Baird points out that being described as “fat” lacked offense until the media fabricated it was “supposed to”, news proclaimed obesity as an “epidemic”, and that teenagers watched the show, “America’s Next Top Model” like the “gospel”. Since “fat” transitioned to being an offensive word, Baird compels the audience to empathize with young girls who were insulted as fat, which triggers body image concerns that induce people into developing eating disorders. Due to bringing attention to the media industry, which mainly influences a young girl’s body image, and emphasizing society’s admiration of thinness, Baird ultimately moves the audience into a state of criticism of the media’s favoritism in their contrasting portrayal of
“America’s War on the Overweight” by Kate Dailey and Abby Ellin talks about the issues facing obese and overweight individuals. There have been countless examples of hate towards obese/overweight individuals in America which the article describes in detail. For example, when Regina M. Benjamin was nominated for a MacArthur and got criticism for her weight publicly. Some of the individuals who were criticized are not even overweight, but just normal sized with a bit of belly fat. So why is there animosity towards obese individuals? The article states it is due to self-loathing of a nation which prides itself in Puritanical beliefs. As well as psychological phenomenon known as the fundamental attribution error which makes you underestimate others
Issues of dieting, fat, and slenderness are hot topics in our culture. Bordo addresses them from a postmodern, but historical, feminist perspective. In this essay, she attempts to explain the appeal of slenderness in our society; and also, how the ideology of normal our society holds can be mentally and physically damaging for many people.
It’s estimated that nearly 1/3 of people suffer from obesity in North America. Rather than being a part of the solution, the media has a portrayal of what one should and should not look like, what is beautiful and what is not, typically possessing unrealistic standards and showing those that are overweight, as weak-willed individuals, who generally are blue collared individuals. This paper shall discuss obese individuals and how they are portrayed on television or on online streaming programming. Secondly, this paper shall discuss why this group has such a negative portrayal. Third, this paper will discuss what social pressures and production forces shape these portrayals. Finally, this paper will incorporate a media theory and explain what effects it has on the audiences and how obese individuals are typically treated in society.
According to the media article, Whose Fault is our Fat? Obesity solely stems from Americans not participating in enough physical activity. On the other hand, Family Stressors and Child Obesity, attributes the stem of childhood obesity to stressors, particularly family stressors. Another possible explanation for obesity, other than Americans not getting enough physical activity or stressors, comes from the movie, watched in lecture, The Weight of the Nation. This movie makes the connection of rates of obesity to living in poverty areas. The movie also firmly believes that Americans are turning to quick, processed, and readily made meals, instead of healthy food options.
How many times a week do you go out to McDonald 's or Taco Bell for dinner? If you go more than once or twice a week then you really need to look at your diet and how healthy your lifestyle is. America is having a huge obesity crisis, too many Americans just don’t care about how much they weigh or unhealthy their lifestyle is. From the advertisement of the fast food companies, to people not being able to afford healthier foods, and people just being plain lazy, America has an increasing population of morbidly obese people.
know over the past couple of years America has become one one of the most obese countries in the world and to be quite honest the reason for it are right in front of us. If you go out to McDonalds everything is so ridiculously cheap. From snack cakes to 12 pack sodas being less than 5.00 you can easily say that there is a problem in how we are going about this obesity problem in the United States today. To be honest how many of us can honestly say that we have never indulged in some type of our favorite food that was extremely cheap these days? I can answer that for you not very man at all. Upon further research I noticed that in 2012 a study showed that obesity rated have increased at a constant level and have stayed there for about a couple of years but even that is still unacceptable. The reason why that is unacceptable is because about 40 percent of all Americans are obese to this day that is twice the amount that is was about 30 years ago and it is still growing in outrageous numbers. Not only has that but the number of children being obese nearly tripled in that time frame to about 17 percent. So in all honesty, do you believe that we are doing enough to bring these ridiculous numbers? Do you believe America is doing enough to bring these numbers down? I will answer that for you a big fat NO because making food that is unhealthy for you extremely cheap and giving your kids anything they want to eat no matter what it is apparently is not working at all and it needs to
In the United States, a crisis is breaking out known as the Obesity epidemic. For the first time in history, it is possible for the children of this generation to have a lower life expectancy than their parents. Millions of Americans are exposed to ads that are luring them into eating the cheap, fast food of billion dollar companies such as McDonald’s. Obesity has established itself as the fastest growing disease in the nation and continues to make an impact on the general population. The issue of Obesity is directly related to todays technology through television, cell phones, video games and all of sorts of new gadgets.
In this article, “You Can’t Undo Body Shame By shaming Other Bodies”, Rachel Cohen-Rothenberg states her opinion on body shaming. She uses a very passionate tone to describe how society’s outlook on the word “healthy” is used to judge a person’s size. Rachel’s main argument is that “Judging people by size is being displaced in favor of judging according to health”… (2). This argues that using a person's health to describe a person's body is not good judgement because, according to Rachel, health has nothing to do with a person needs to be able to accept their body to love themselves. Also, if a person is fat, they would feel bad about their body being that way. This supports the Rachel’s claim because with health being thrown around, it’s hard
In “What’s Wrong with Fat-Shaming?” by Lesley Kinzel and “Solve America’s Obesity Problem with Shame,” by Chris Friend share two different ideas about shaming against obesity. Body-shaming happens to everyone at some point in their lifetime, it sometimes includes inappropriate negative statements and attitudes towards a person weight or size. Fat-shaming is a term made by obese people to avoid their responsibility in taking care of their body. These people make themselves victims in society by pretending they are being discriminating like an ethnic group.
According to a research, sociocultural appearance ideals are displayed in the media in two ways. First, these ideals are promoted through the use of images portraying the ideal standard that individuals should have tried their best to maintain. Second, appearance ideals are strengthen through stigmatizing images of overweight and obese individuals (Himes & Thompson, 2007),. In a qualitative analysis of weight stigma in television and film between 1984 and 2004, Himes and Thompson (2007) found that the majority of weight bias occurred as verbal comments or insult directed toward another person, and that these comments were normally directed toward female actors by male actors. Further, they found that weight stigmatized television and film also rated with high popularity and high ratings, which may indicate that audiences find these portrayals of weight bias to be acceptable, or are willing to buy the idea of
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.