Summer: The Season of Body Shame
The summer of 2002 was the first time that I recall vehemently hating my body. I wore sweatshirts to the beach, avoided wearing shorts, spent hours in dressing rooms only to leave tired and dissatisfied with myself, and tried several diets only to see weight come back. I had been bullied about my weight and used to think there was nothing worse than being fat. This is because society told me so. I am choosing to self-disclose this because I know how common these experiences can be and know that summer sends people fretting about their appearance. Although this is a year-round issue for many, summer has a way of creating extra vulnerability around body image as we typically wear less clothing and can feel that our bodies are on display. Here is what I have learned through research and education: body weight does not define who we are, and furthermore, there is a hidden agenda that perpetuates the myth about beauty. This hidden agenda is used as a political weapon against women and the Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) community.
Let’s face it, body shaming is everywhere, from the doctor’s office to the dinner table. The medical community continues to use the Body Mass Index (BMI) despite the advocacy of dieticians and other experts in the field who claim the dangers of using the BMI as a way to measure health. The BMI was created about 200 years ago and was originally based on white, European male bodies. It does not apply to diverse body types. The BMI leads to weight stigma, discrimination, and often causes overwhelming stress and fear of seeking medical treatment for people living in larger bodies. The BMI also has limitations in predicting mortality, which is the whole premise of the “obesity epidemic.” One 2003 study in the Journal of American Medicine Association states, “Although elevated BMI is the primary index of obesity used in most studies, it is a proxy of adiposity and may not provide the best estimate of the association between obesity and outcomes such as mortality or years of lost life.” In other words, the BMI is BS and does not do a good job of predicting causation of death. Focusing on the BMI also takes the focus off of other factors that drastically impact health, such as stress, food insecurity, economic inequality, poor access to care, and institutionalized racism.
We also experience body shaming in our own homes. I see variations of how this creeps into families, including comments about what someone eats, how they look, and restrictions on eating certain foods. In many families, there is a long line of women who were taught to hate their bodies and passed this down to younger generations. I would argue that body shaming is now at an all time high given social media and other media platforms. Images of what women are supposed to look like flood our daily lives and this is purposeful. There are entire industries that benefit from people hating their bodies, including the diet industry, cosmetic industry, cosmetic surgery industry, and pornography industry. Additionally, our economy and society have historically depended on women feeling like they are worth less than men in order for men to stay in power. In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf writes, “By the time the women’s movement had made inroads into the labor market, both women and men were accustomed to having beauty evaluated as wealth. Both were prepared for the striking development that followed: As women demanded access to power, the power structure used the beauty myth materially to undermine women’s advancement.” I do not see this as a conspiracy, but as a very calculated method to keep women questioning their worth and “in their place”. I do want to point out that body shaming affects men as well, but that it generally affects those who identify as men differently than those who identify as women.
We also need to understand the intersectionality of fat issues, meaning that we must consider all of the areas that oppress people, which can include gender, race, class, sexual orientation, physical ability, age, and more. Bodies that are not white, thin, and able-bodied are devalued and stigmatized in our culture. Current ideas about the ideal body is rooted in historical racism, ableism, sexism, and classism. We see this in television, films, and other forms of media. We must not separate body shaming from social justice as they are intertwined and complex.
It can feel as if we are not safe at the doctor’s office, in our homes, or the various corners of our lives. There is work to be done on both the individual and systemic level. We can all take certain steps to dismantle body shaming in our society. I have several call-to-action items:
Recognize that there is a cultural obsession with weight loss and thinness.
Educate yourself and others with Health At Every Size® Principles.*
Understand the intersectionality of body shaming and overlapping systems of oppression for the BIPOC community.
Refrain from commenting on others’ weight gain, weight loss, or anything about someone else’s body appearance. This places value on body appearance.
Practice self-compassion and compassion for others who are struggling with body image or body shaming.
Refrain from posting before and after pictures that illustrate weight loss (someone likely has a similar “before” body and this action sends the message that the “before” body is a bad body. This seems to be a favorite trend in diet culture).
Advocate for yourself and for others when you see bullying about body weight, size, or shape.
Set boundaries with health providers by informing them that you are not comfortable discussing weight. Choose a different provider if they do not respect your wishes or if they do not align with your needs. The Association for Size Diversity and Health plans to have a listing of Health At Every Size® providers in Fall of 2022.
Set boundaries with anyone who says hurtful words about weight by telling them how you feel AND by following up on your boundary (i.e. if you tell them you are no longer going to talk about weight, then end or redirect the conversation).
Model behavior that shows others that diet culture and body shaming has no place in conversation by redirecting to a different topic.
Get angry and stay angry. Not at yourself, but at the patriarchy and oppression that persists.
My final message to you is to wear that bathing suit or shorts. Try to prioritize finding the joy this world has to offer because life is way too short to miss out on summer fun, or any fun for that matter.
*Health At Every Size® and HAES® are registered trademarks of the Association for Size Diversity and Health and used with permission.