BODY SHAMING: A Girl’s Nightmare

What it Means

For better understanding, one can simply say that body-shaming a girl is a situation where she is made to feel bad about herself as a result of hurtful things said about her look. This could come from anyone including family members.

A good percentage of girls at some point in their lives have either been told that they are ugly, too fat or too thin and have an awful figure. It hurts badly to hear people use derogatory words to describe a girl. I have my personal stories too and can tell you that it is a girl’s worse nightmare for someone to make her overly conscious or insecure of her look.

It is imperative to know that no two people are the same because they differ in both personalities, and physical features such as skin colour, face or body shape.

Despite this being common knowledge, some people who lack this understanding and follow a toxic beauty standard, set out to make others especially girls feel like their worst selves through body shaming. I regard body shaming as a type of bullying since they have similar signs and effects.

Forms of body shaming.

Body shaming takes different forms but often in verbal, non-verbal or both.

Verbal:

· Jokes: This is the most common way that people verbally body shame girls because it often happens during fun or playtime with a few other friends around. The victim is made the object of ridicule by openly telling her negative things about her look thereby making her feel unwanted.

· Argument: verbal body-shaming also occurs during arguments with peers. They use such opportunities to say hurtful things about the girl’s body just to score a cheap point or win the argument.

Non-Verbal:

· Disassociation: a non-verbal form of body shaming by disassociating with a girl perceived to have physical deficiencies occurs when one refuses to speak to the girl or want to be seen anywhere around her by others.

· Gestures: sometimes, just using certain objects or particular signs to describe a girl’s body, shape, face or skin is a nonverbal form of body-shaming. Like, making imaginary dots on your face to describe the pimples on another girl’s face to others or pointing at a skinny mannequin to describe the girl’s body size without saying a word just to avoid being heard by the victim all contribute to a non-verbal form of body shaming.

Why body shame? Someone close once told me how good he felt each time he mocked me about one part of my body or the other especially my weight. Despite seeing how emotional I get whenever he picks on me for my body size, he never stopped. This made me realise that people have preconceived reasons for body-shaming girls. The reasons include but are not limited to the following:

a. Peer Influence: This category of people engage in body-shaming girls because they see their friends do it and they had to join to keep their friendship or remain relevant in their group.

b. Social Media: Social media platforms are widely dominated by the female gender thereby making them more exposed to certain posts, trends, and lifestyles. This then ‘implants’ the perception of a beauty standard which in recent times is likened to girls having a flat stomach, bleached skin, big breasts, big buttocks, full lips, flawless skin, full eyelashes, and makeup which then brings about body shaming when one girl appears without these physical beauty standards.

c. Popular Preferences: As a girl, it is common to be told that people don’t like girls with a stomach like your own or advised to work on your weight. Just like the first reason, body shaming happens amongst peers because of popular preferences caused by those following certain beauty standards based on their inbuilt ideology of what the perfect body should look like.

d. Insecurities: Many people feel insecure about themselves which makes them passively aggressive and pick on girls to boost their ego and to fix their insecurities.

Effects of body shaming.

Body shaming comes with implications such as: 1. Depression: This is a very common effect as victims of body shaming tend to slide into a state of mild or serious emotional disconnection and depression because of the hurtful words said and things that are done to them. When girls become overly conscious of their looks, it mainly means they are in a poor emotional state and are generally vulnerable to a lot of things that could be life-threatening.

2. Poor Performance: A girl who is body-shamed especially at school will perform poorly in both academic and non-academic activities because she’ll be more concerned about how to make her schoolmates accept her than concentrate on her curriculum and extracurricular activities.

3. Low Self-esteem: Girls are naturally very emotional and body shaming will trigger bad emotions leading to low self-esteem. A girl that is body-shamed will lack the confidence to associate freely with her peers or involve in age-appropriate activities thereby isolating herself. Isolation as a result of body shaming is dangerous and could lead to self-harm or harming others.

4. Irrational Behaviour: making a girl excessively self-conscious or obsessed about her look could make her take irrational decisions or actions such as plastic surgery, drug abuse, or suicide. The desire to fit in may kick in badly that she starts to get influenced to do or say things she normally wouldn’t.

What to do If your child or any girl you know is being body-shamed encourage her to:

· Never allow it to get to her or affect her so much to avoid giving the offenders the luxury of seeing her suffer.

· report the person if she can especially if it’s verbal and she feels bullied.

· See a counsellor if she is affected emotionally or mentally and it is beyond what the initial intervention at home can manage to avoid any negative outcome.

Don’t forget

There is no reason or excuse is acceptable for body-shaming a girl so much that it affects her general wellbeing. As a parent or guardian, you must look out for any sign that indicates that your girl is suffering from the effects of being body shamed. You are also encouraged to talk to her often and encourage her to open up to you as much as she can about her exact feelings to enable you to get relevant help if the need arises.

For me, I choose to look and feel the way I want, I choose to pay more attention to the changes I need to make based on health reasons and not how others want me to look or feel.

So girls, increase your level of confidence in yourself and see if the body-shamers won't back down.

Lastly, let's all promote body positivity always, that girl around you and others need it.