Body positivity

– Start Apologizing to your body

“Weight used to be an issue; I was always fat as a child. Everyone used to tell me, you’ve got such a pretty face, why don’t you lose some weight? Over the years, I’ve realized that my body is of a certain type, and I have learned to accept it.” – Vidya Balan

Nowadays, every single moment in social media and daily lives we come across people who are getting mouth watered over the so-called “slim socially accceptable bodies”. Everyone has to be look like some kind of celebrities with calculated body parts and has to look like them. “Getting fit” and “Engulfing in slim bodies” both are different, both in terms of physical health as well as mental health.

Even though we had identified huge shift on body shaming, still people are running after useless and harmful diets, just for the sake of good comments from the “third person”. “Body Positivity” is not only in the terms of being slim or fat; it also includes different kinds of body parts and also without body parts as well.

From the well-known movements, the one thing that we started to encounter is, promoting “Plus size” outfits by different brands. We had started to see acceptance of Plus sized protagonists in films, advertisements and other well-known streams as well.
Body positivity, or the anti-body shaming sentiment, is not a trajectory but it is the mouthpiece of numerous unheard women. The women who are articulating up now were earlier living in a dilemma, deeming horrible and pathetic about them every single moment and dealing with turmoil in their lives.

There are somany effects of body shaming identified and a lot more unidentified such as

• Social Or External Cognitive Component: This condition is the thought of an individual who judges another individual as a person who is not good or low.
• Emotional Component: Emotions or feelings that usually occur are feelings of shame such as anger and anxiety about oneself.
• Behavioural Component: When there are feelings or emotions such as shame, they tend to avoid the surrounding environment.
• Lack of self-confidence (Ramadhany, H. N. S., & Putri, K. Y. S. (2021). The Effect of Body Shaming on Instagram on Student’s Confidence. HUMANISMA: Journal of Gender Studies, 5(2), 184-192.).

“I started to go for a diet and stopped to eat at night”
“I can skip breakfast, because it’s not important.”
“Can i lose weight within 2 weeks?”
“I am not able to wear Jeans, because I am fat”.
There are so many excuses that we used to make to hate our body and to give a tough time to our body. There are three main effects of body shaming that affects mental health includes:

1. It can lead to depression
We will literally start to hate ourselves, and results in an individual to start hating his/her own body. This provokes them to hurt themselves, giving rise to suicidal thoughts.

2. Eating disorders are another setback
Body shaming a person for their weight increases their risk of eating disorders like bulimia and anorexia. Body-shaming is a major psychological block in holding a healthy weight. May be an obese person will start to eat more because of consciousness and vice versa that could create more problems in the future.

3. Anxiety and lack of confidence is a common symptom
Facing Body shaming over a long time develops a sense of self-pity, leading to lack of confidence. They witness themselves as undeserving of happiness and respect, resulting in social withdrawal or complete separateness. If not treated in time, these people develop serious anxiety issues and even experiences panic attacks.

Start to replace negative thoughts about yourself, with beautiful colours and positive energy. Everyone, society will always have an opinion on how you look. You have to look past these opinions to arise as a winner and learn to love yourself while you’re at it!

Your Mental Health matters more that your belly size or skin colour!!