How to Overcome Body-shaming

Some of the best ways to deal with and overcome body-shaming from your relatives have been discussed here.

Does this not make you want to slog and tire out trying to get that slender frame? This is whatfat-shamingdoes to you. It makes you feel depressed with your own body and causes you to yearn for that “perfect frame”. In this article today, you will learn about how to deal with such criticism and overcome them to improve your self-belief.

What Is Body-shaming?

Body-shaming is “the action of humiliating people by making mocking or critical remarks about their body shape or size.”

Making opinions about someone based on their body weight is something many people do without thinking twice. However, that practice is an act of body-shaming. If the person being spoken about can’t hear you, it is still body-shaming and develops unhealthy cruelty that has deeply wounded our culture. The result of calling someone fat or laughing at someone’s body, remarking on how someone should lose weight or putting them down for their weight causes major damage to the person receiving this abuse.

Body-shaming could lead to severe insecurities, eating disorders, unhealthy comparison to ideals, competition between people, mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, and eating disorders. The extreme cases can lead to substance abuse, self-harm, and even suicide.

Body-shaming creates a cycle of unhealthy habits that a person can become trapped in, whether they are the body shamer or the target. Anyone who believes that someone is less valuable because of their external appearance . It can easily become obsessed with physical appearance to the point where they do begin to spend large amounts of money to alter their looks with costly surgery. It also can lead to basing one’s relationships on looks alone.

The types of insecurities that body-shaming breeds create power struggles that pit men against men, women against women, and creates self-hatred as well. The destructive effects of body-shaming result in guilt, codependency, and a complete diversion of the meaning of life, which is to be kind and help each other.

When people participate in body-shaming, they are denying someone the right to be happy. Also, they are showing their insecurities, especially if the body-shaming is done to oneself.

Express your feelings appropriately

Not every person making a crude comment about your body intends to hurt you. At every stage of our life, we have been taught to strive towards achieving a certain body-shape while viewing fatness negatively. Hence, some crude remarks might also be a result of such thought patterns.

It is important to explain your views and thoughts about their remarks and taunts respectfully. Make them understand that their remarks cause a great deal of pain to you and that they should stop. On many occasions, this is enough to get your family and friends to stop body-shaming you. How to give compliments?

Self-care routine

To counter the negative effects of body-shaming, you need to develop your thought patterns and appreciate your body. This will help you avoid feeling underwhelmed due to the negativity spread by the body-shapes of others.

This can be achieved through proper self-care routines and indulging in fat acceptance content. Even regular self-administered compliments in front of a mirror can be of immense help in maintaining a positive mindset about your own body.

Educate

This way is not only very effective in helping you overcome the negativity of body-shaming, but is also a rather difficult one. Instead of learning to ignore the criticism and taunts made by your family and friends, why not educate them to see the positives of varying body sizes and shapes.

For example, a fat pole dancer packs a punch; it gets the audience cheering for more.

This will help them to appreciate all body shapes and sizes, and avoid making any derogatory comments in the future.

Understand the root cause

Many people indulge in body-shaming tactics due to the bitterness of their pasts. Mothers often tell their sons and daughters to get in shape. As a result, their children do not have to deal with the mental suffering and hardships that they had to face.

Hence, you need to understand where these thoughts are coming from and deal with them positively. You need to be sympathetic to their thoughts and feelings while trying to change their outlook towards body fat.

Patience

Like most other aspects of life, a little patience can work wonders here too. Hence, it is important to avoid radical retorts to a family member who makes a derogatory comment about your body.

Instead, you need to be patient and deal with their fatphobia patiently, explaining to them about the positivity of your body shape and size. This will help them understand and appreciate your viewpoint as well.

Don’t feed the trolls

Sometimes, all your efforts to educate and enlighten your family and friends about the positivity of different body shapes and sizes and fall on deaf ears. No matter how much you strive to explain things to them, everything is going to roll downhill.

In such circumstances, turning a deaf ear to their derogatory comments will do you a world of good. At the end of the day, thinking about what they have to say to you might not be worth your time at all.

Getting upset is normal

No matter how much you try, it may not be possible for you to show a straight face all the time. Sometimes, the derogatory taunts may come from a person very close to your heart. And, that might hurt you. In these situations, you must know that it is fine to be upset.

Do not bottle up your feelings and emotions or they might burst awkwardly at some point. Instead, acknowledge the fact that your feelings have been hurt and work on a way to repair them using your very own positivity.

Bank on your support system

There must be at least one member in the family or your friends-circle with whom you can rely upon every time for moral support and strength. Reach out to your support system and talk about your feelings and emotions. This will help relieve you of your baggage and make you hear light.

Practice self-belief

Simply saying positive things about your own body may not be enough to help you overcome the effects of anorexia. You should believe everything you say. That is easier said than done. You must learn to believe in and appreciate your own body. If you keep saying positive things about your own body. Then, comparing and regretting the next instance you see a fitter body-shape, you do not believe yourself.

Seek professional help

If you know that your mental condition and body image has been tarnished beyond repair due to years of constant body-shaming from loved ones, get professional help. A little expert help could help you repair the damage and get your confidence back. It may also help you set upon a healthier mental path.