"Body shaming involves criticizing people about their weight, shape or appearance," Dr. Cynthia Dsauza said. Dr. Dsauza and Dr. Jaclyn Cravens are assistant professors in Addictive Disorders and Recovery Studies at Texas Tech.
"Typically we think of body shaming as something that happens towards overweight or obese people, but it can also happen towards people that are thin," Dr. Dsauza said. They say it's happening everywhere.
"It's part of the TV shows we watch, it's all over social media, it's how we talk to our friends and our relatives," Dr. Dsauza said. They say a big culprit is the media.
"TV commentators are going to make statements about 'who let her wear that? that's totally unflattering for her body. She really shouldn't have worn something that tight,'" Dr. Cravens said. When we see and hear these things, Dr. Dsauza said we learn two things.
"We learn, number one, that it's okay to comment on other people's weight and shape," Dr. Dsauza said. Number two, we learn about standards.
"We have a very narrow standard of beauty in our society," Dr. Dsauza said. Not meeting that standard can trigger a range of problems.
"Disordered eating, disordered exercise behaviors, thinking about your body in a very disordered way. It can also impact things like depression and anxiety," Dr. Dsauza said. So, why does body shaming happen?
"People that do it don't realize that their words and comments have such an impact on whoever is hearing those words," Dr. Dsauza said. Cravens added that it's also ingrained in our society.
"Our culture has this very pro-thin, anti-fat ideal. We associate having a smaller body size with success, beauty, popularity. With being a larger size, these individuals are being portrayed as lazy, disgusting and unmotivated," Dr. Cravens said. Dr. Cravens added the first step to addressing the issue is bringing attention to it.
"Letting someone in your family know 'you know, when you made that comment you were really equating who I am as a person because of my body size,'" Dr. Cravens said. She said honest conversation and education can help spark change on a larger scale.
"Barbie announced they're going to be launching a fall line of Barbies that were going to be of different shapes and sizes. This is something that people have been calling for for years. Bringing attention to the fact that Barbie's size and shape is not attainable to any girl. For a girl to look up to Barbie it can be very harmful because they're not seeing a realistic view of who they are, but they see how women should be," Dr. Cravens said.
Dr. Cravens and Dr. Dsauza said getting involved in the positive body image movement can help influence a cultural change. Click here for more information.
