I want to share a short story with you all. It is something that happened irl.

A few years ago, I had this friend irl. She wanted to achieve the "perfect" feminine body size/shape that the media has so often shown us to be unrealistically thin and small. And this friend was never fat or anything. One summer, she suddenly became obsessed with dieting and working out, perhaps in excess, to lose weight. She took up biking and running, which was all good and stuff. Her diet though was what became the major problem. She wasn't eating much of anything at all. She had become anorexic. She had to go to a hospital many hours away from where she lived to be treated for it and she spent months there. She rarely got to go home to visit her family or friends, though her family was allowed as visitors. She did not return to school in the fall and she only came back when it was towards the end of the school year. After she came back, she would often have to go to her locker during scheduled times in the day for a scheduled snack break, which consisted of very healthy foods. She was not allowed to eat anything that was not on her scheduled meal plan that they had created for her at the hospital.

The next fall in gym class, part of the curriculum was to test our BMI and stuff like that using three different methods. One of them was really messed up that involved measuring your hips and your waste and then dividing the numbers. Everyone in the class failed, even my friend who probably weighed about 100 pounds. She really let this get to her mind. We all tried to tell her that that test was stupid and that it failed everyone (which it did). Anyway, not terribly long after, she ended up back in the hospital again for her anorexia. This time it was a much shorter stay for her. But over this time, she changed a lot. Who she was as a person I no longer recognized. We ended up arguing a lot and eventually we were no longer friends.

So why did I tell you all this story?

Because I am so sick of seeing people get mad or go off at someone they hate and try to make fun of their weight. You're not funny or cool when you shame someone for their weight and doing so could effect even the thinnest of people and make them feel bad and like they need to lose weight to meet the "perfect societal standard". Even if someone is bigger, what gives you the right to ridicule them? This goes for irl and online. My friend was never told irl that she was fat and she ended up developing an eating disorder because of the media's portrayal of the perfect woman's body.

When someone develops an eating disorder, it can be a battle they face for the rest of their life. There was an old lady who lived on my block irl who had developed anorexia when she was young and just from interacting with her, I could tell it was something that she still struggled with. It effected her up until the day she died.

So before you say something to someone or about someone about their weight, think of how your words can affect them and the others who read what you've said. If someone is already struggling with their body image, what you say could have an effect on whether or not they develop an eating disorder, even if the comment isn't about them.

Body shaming is really damaging especially to younger, more impressionable girls so thank you for making this post.

i relate to this a lot. back in 2015 and 2016 i did everything to achieve a "skinny" body, the type you would usually see on tumblr. fast forward 5 years and i appreciate my looks much more and don't want to change cause of the media.
however too much of anything is bad, including being skinny, so ya pls don't starve yourselves.
anyways being thick is the beauty standard nowadays so don't feel bad about your curves and such.

Remember if you aren't happy with the body you got now... you won't be happy when you get the perfect body. https://forums.damenspike.com/discussion/60706

i love this post