THE EFFECTS OF BODY SHAMING AND BODY OBJECTIFICATION

A girl with short hair walks down the corridor. As she turns into her class she hears an insult being called out behind her. “Gay,” a group of girls shout.

Today, body shaming has become a regular occurrence. Body shaming and sexualising people regardless of gender is a very dangerous thing. 5/7 of students of both genders in 8SMd have felt the need at some point in their lives to change themselves due to others opinions about their bodies.

There are many generalisations about body shaming. Often, people feel as though body shaming only happens to girls which is a stereotype in itself. It can happen to anyone, owing to the stereotype of the ‘perfect look’ as propagated by social media.

After carrying out a survey I learnt that 10 out of 14 people in 8SMd, are insecure about so many different parts of their bodies and just how they look. An anonymous source in this class has said, “ There have been multiple occasions where I have wanted to change what I have looked like to try and fit in with different people in different schools.” This evidence is significant because it shows that objectification does not just happen to adults and it does not just happen on social media. This represents that it can happen in school, at home and that people of all ages are affected by body shaming.

Girls and boys go to unreasonable extents to look like models or celebrities. “In the United States alone 1.5% of women / 4.7 million women and 0.5% of men / 1.5 million men are threatened by Bulimia, an eating disorder which is usually diagnosed in young adults.” says the Mirror-Mirror.org website. It has been diagnosed in people as young as 6 years old and can be diagnosed in adults too. The idea of a perfect body has unfortunately become a mindset deeply entrenched in society. This gets reflected in ads, social media, TV shows and movies. And sadly, this is the thinking that has seeped into children as young as 6 years old who in the process can become Bulimic.

Dress codes can be a massive problematic contribution to objectification. In August, 2015 Stephanie Hughes of Versailles, Kentucky was sent home from school for exposing too much of her collarbone. “Woodford County High School and the principal have been enforcing a dress code where girls can not show even their collar bones because it may distract their male classmates,” wrote Stacie Dunn, Stephanie’s Mum, on Facebook.Because school is a very influential place, dress codes have started to make girls and boys more conscious of what they are wearing and what they look like. This has made it much more visible that objectification can come from anywhere, even your teachers and fellow classmates.

Rhea Goyal, an 8th grade student has shared an experience saying that, “Because I am quite skinny people usually view me as somebody who cannot play sports because I do not look like I have a lot of muscle mass.” Unfortunately this is a stereotype that is placed on a lot of people due to their body image. Because of magazines and TV, we view athletes as big built and strong, yet because the stereotypes have so much power over us we never tend to overlook that materialistic mindset.

Media has played a pivotal role in creating unreal images of ideal beauty. For a long time now the ideal body for a women has been an hourglass figure. In order to be beautiful you have to have translucent skin and be extremely skinny to the point where it usually is impossible to have a figure like that. For a man it is all about a macho image and a six-pack body. As media evolved and social media became popular, people started to try and get justification about their looks through likes and comments on their pictures. Throughout this evolution we just started getting more and more materialistic about the subject of beauty.

A girl with short hair walks past a slightly overweight girl in the corridor and calls out, “Lose some weight!”

Words are powerful. Stereotypes are powerful. The sooner we stop body and objectification, the sooner we will start to realise that people are more than just bodies. As BeautyRedefined.org rightfully says, “See more. Be more.”

By: Rhea Shrivastava