TYPES OF BODY SHAMMING

Body Shaming Types

From fat-shaming, skinny-shaming to pretty shaming, here are 10 types of body shaming you didn’t know you were committing.

1. Fat Shaming

 This would take the cake for all types of body shaming! It is so common to hear people literally take someone else from a hundred to zero by the way they talk about their weight.

Fat shaming is the norm these days. You get criticized by trolls about your weight. You are fat they say. Babe, OMG, what do you eat! Look at you!

No one wants to know if you have some inner struggles or health issues that might be causing weight gain. As a matter of fact, they don’t care.

Even celebs aren’t left out by the trolls.This is the most debilitating type of body shaming and it is the one on which a lot of studies on body-shaming are hinging.

2. Skinny Shaming

There are women who have what I call super metabolism. No matter what they eat, they never add on weight.

Also. there are women suffering from eating disorders (a range of psychological conditions that result in the development of unhealthy eating habits. They have mental health disorders and typically start with an obsession with food, body weight, or body shape). The most common type of eating disorder is Anorexia Nervosa.

Although eating disorders can affect people of any gender at any life stage, they are most often reported in adolescents and young women. In fact, statistics have it that up to 13% of youth may experience at least one eating disorder by the age of 20.

Imagine persons like this being body shamed! Being body shamed for having a great metabolism and/or suffering from one eating disorder or other.

3. Pretty Shaming

Yes, there is a thing as pretty haming! I was a victim. As a matter of fact, I have been a victim of it all my life and became conscious of the fact I was being body shamed about being pretty in my undergraduate years.

Here are some of the things I have been told over the years….

Oh, I thought you’d be an airhead (this happens when I meet some persons the first time and we are perhaps having a conversation about some subject matter that requires some level of knowledge to be able to converse about it)

Someone saying “what does she know, she’s just interested in fashion” right in front of me to someone else.

And words like, ”she is just pretty, there is nothing there” , ”oh, you are not just a pretty face”.

Back then in the University, when results are posted, everyone would be looking for the person that kept scoring the highest (hint: you usually don’t know each other’s matriculation numbers unless someone tells you theirs) until they discovered it was me and they kept being “surprised” that it was me.

These things happen. Not only to me but to lots of pretty women out there. Men would rather objectify you than acknowledge you for your great personality, intelligence, sense of humor, etc. Even women who feel less pretty than you will rather pretty shame you than pay you a compliment (probably to make themselves feel better about their looks).

Isn’t that sad?

I went for an interview with a multinational company two years ago. All the interviewers were men. A Briton and two Nigerians. I was hopeful because I desperately needed a change of job and I gave it my best. But it wasn’t to be. Do you know why? The feedback I got was that I was too pretty and they didn’t think I could do the job!

Holy of hollies! My work experience, educational and professional qualifications didn’t convince them! They took one look at me and concluded that I was too pretty and I somehow missed the memo that says that pretty babes do not have “brain.

No one really looks past my pretty face and when they do, it is like this huge shock and you know what? It has now become my power. A tool I use to get over being shame

4. Body Hair Shaming

Woman holding a shaving stick to her chinshave .I think in those years of my ignorance, I have body shamed one or two persons having body hairs.

I am absolutely sorry! I can’t even imagine what I may have put the person through.

Eastern Nigerian women are characterized by facial hair and the thing is they are always very beautiful. Very common with the fair-skinned ones. The funny thing is when you look closely, the facial hairs actually enhances their beauty rather than detract from it but they have always been the subject of rabid body-shaming jokes amongst Nigerians.

I think I should pay attention to that and promote awareness about it on my Facebook.

Having facial or body hair shouldn’t make someone be body shamed.

I had this funny encounter with a Spa sales rep on Instagram a few months ago. The long and short of it is that the sales rep made a rabid joke when I was asking about their sugar wax services when I said I haven’t shaved the whole year.

More often than not, body shaming comes in forms of jokes, “hey, Jennifer you mean you haven’t shaved for a year. You are a woman for crying out loud”. I mean! It is all mockery, no matter how people tend to explain comments like these, away.

It doesn’t justify anything. You are only hurting people.

Stop looking at a woman weirdly because they have facial/body hairs. I also think shaving stick companies should stop making us all feel “unsexy” and “uncool” because we have hairs on our bodies with adverts.

5. Food Shaming

There is a thing known as food shaming?Table set with plates of foodSave

Oh yes, there is! While it isn’t directly shaming our bodies, it is about our bodies.Have you ever been rudely told that the amount of food you are eating is way too much? There, you go. That is food shaming.

Imagine running on coffee all day and then you get really hungry and decided to treat yourself to a good meal. A restaurant, at home. Doesn’t matter where and just when you are savouring the food, you hear a voice ”a woman shouldn’t eat that much”. I can imagine the deflation that comes after.

You start questioning yourself, talking down on yourself, berating yourself, hating you for giving in to having a good bountiful meal.

There is this general ideology that a woman isn’t supposed to eat much. Can someone point me to the rule book that says that?

Yes, I know there is a thing as portion control but we shouldn’t have to shame people because they want to eat what you do not think is a good portions.

Conclusion:

 Body Shaming Types/Types Of Body Shaming

At the end of the day, it is your body and no one should have the power to make you feel bad about it. Be bold, be secure in who you are, so much so that when people try to put you down because of your body type, they end up learning lessons as to why they are doing is absolutely wrong. I believe we should all desist from making these types of body shaming mistakes. We need to spread love. The world needs more of it. Join the conversation.