You know, fuck body shamers. These people who seem to have a problem being in the mere pressence of someone who's overweight. They say such stupid, harmful, shit under the guise of trying to be "helpful". A couple of years ago, a concern troll wrote an extremely condescending letter to an overweight news anchor.
Hi Jennifer,
It’s unusual that I see your morning show, but I did so for a very short time today. I was surprised indeed to witness that your physical condition hasn’t improved for many years. Sure you don’t consider yourself a suitable example for this community’s young people, girls in particular. Obesity is one of the worst choices a person can make and one of the most dangerous habits to maintain. I leave you this note hoping that you’ll reconsider your responsibility as a local public personality to present and promote a healthy lifestyle.
The anchor in question,
called the guy out on air. While a lot of people applauded her, there were others who actually sided with the troll. I read several comments from "apologists" of body shaming basically implying that overweight people should be treated as second class citizens to "set an example" or some bullshit. The douchebag in the letter was trying to guilt the reporter into losing weight, acting as if it was somehow affecting others.
Now, I understand obesity is a problem, but so are eating disorders, and shaming people into behaving a certain way has got to cause more harm than the behavior you're trying to curb. This idea that people need to be flawless if they have any kind of influence is so ridiculous that I don't even know what to say.
And I haven’t even started on the actresses who are considered “fat” by Hollywood standards. Bodybuilding.com a site that frequently shows up in google searches, is terrible with this. IMDB is also pretty bad too. Apologists for body shaming make some bullshit about how the standards for what is considered fat these days are much higher, but I call bullshit. If anything, we are more picky about people’s body size. There is also the argument with regard to actresses that they put themselves in the spotlight and open themselves up to scrutiny. Again, I say bullshit. Of course they are going to be scrutinized, but that doesn’t make the body police right. And lastly, there’s the passive aggressive types who say that they think such and such could be a role model if they’d just shed the pounds (and a lot of the time, they aren’t even close to fat).
To stop myself from rambling, let me just say I’m sick of this shit. I’m not a little guy myself so I know what it’s like to be self conscious. But it seems like the females have it even worse, especially if they are actresses.
And to end this with an example,
here’s a daily fail article describing older ads that set these unrealistic standards. But if you want some examples of douchiness, read the “worst rated” comments.
