Skinny shaming: yes, it is a real thing.
A personal perspective on the least accepted form of body shaming
(published on studentbodyuf.com)
When I was 5 years old, I started playing softball. I began traveling all over Florida and outside of the state for tournaments with my travel team.
At the time, when I told people I played softball at an elite level or even when I tell people now, I always got the same thing: “You don’t look like a softball player.” And whenever I got hurt or got hit with a ball, which was pretty much all the time, one of my coaches always said the same thing to me: “You need to put some meat on those bones.”
So, because I’m naturally skinny means that I don’t look like an athlete, and I need to gain weight so I don’t hurt myself. I’ve heard this all my life, starting at a young age.
I am now a junior at the University of Florida, and though I’m no longer the little girl with bruises up and down her legs who hasn’t played softball for the last eight years, I still remember all the little things people constantly said to me.
I am slightly over 5’7” and weigh about 112 lbs. Yes, I eat. Yes, I am extremely skinny, and yes, the comments people make to me about my body do affect me.
The truth is, I’m extremely self-conscious about my figure, or lack thereof.
Skinny Shaming vs. Fat Shaming
Most body image researchers like Thomas Cash say that body image, by nature, exists on a continuum. That means some days we’ll be feeling pretty good about ourselves, and some days not so much. These feelings can be influenced by what people say to us, or about us.
According to feminist researcher Susan Bordo, body image affects all of us, regardless of our ethnicity, gender, social class, age, and other demographics. It’s not the “problem” of privileged, skinny white girls. I know this because the constant food jokes still affect me.
Skinny shaming is not a myth, and it needs to be discussed.
Though I’ve never been overweight, I can completely understand what it’s like to be judged for the body that I was born with. I grew up hearing how thin I am from adults, my friends and pretty much anyone who has ever laid eyes on me. Still, constantly hearing these snide comments doesn’t get any easier as the years pass.
Don’t get me wrong--I am not trying to say that all body shaming is equal and the same, because fat shaming and skinny shaming are very different.
It’s easy to understand why some believe that fat shaming is much worse than thin shaming, and that thin shaming doesn’t even exist. Because to some, being skinny is the ultimate goal. Many people equate being thin with being healthy.
Being skinny is what is accepted and even promoted by society. Common Sense media put together a research brief that found that body image is developed in early childhood and that societal appearance ideals have become increasingly idealistic over time. The brief highlighted a study done by the Geena Davis Institute and the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism on gender in media. It found that female characters in family films, on prime-time television, and on children’s TV shows are nearly twice as likely to have uncharacteristically small waists as compared to their male counterparts.
The brief also referred to a study from 2014 that found more than half of girls age 6 to 8 indicated that their ideal bodies are thinner than their current bodies.
Being thin is what is promoted by the media as being the ideal look. So, starting at a young age, people may believe that making body image comments towards thin people is somehow acceptable.
And therein lies the problem.
The main difference is the perception of acceptance and attitude toward the two types of body shaming. Most people would never walk up to another person and comment about overweight they are, because that’s just rude.
But people are constantly coming up to me telling me how skinny I am, and I absolutely hate it. I live in my sorority house at UF, and upstairs we have something called a “skinny mirror.” For some reason, maybe from the shape or the way it’s hung, this full-length mirror supposedly makes you look slimmer.
I’m the only girl in the house that hates looking in this mirror, because I don’t want to feel like I look thinner than I already am. But when I say this to people, it’s seems like a joke, so I tend to keep it to myself.
“Hannah, you’re so small, it must be nice to only have to complain about being skinny,” my friends say to me jokingly.
I am constantly keeping my feelings to myself because I feel like it’s not acceptable to say them out loud. I’ve always been considered the “lucky” one because I come from a family of long legs and lithe bodies.
There is some disconnect between different types of body shaming, and somehow skinny shaming isn’t frowned upon by society. The real problem is that people who are making these comments don’t understand that what they are saying is negative at all. In most people’s minds, everyone wants to be skinny and everyone wants to have this body that I somehow hate.
So, what gives me the right the complain? When I tell people I hate being this skinny, they look at me like I have three heads.
Skinny Shaming in the Media
We all know fat shaming is wrong. It has been discussed all over the media for years. From Nicole Arbour’s “Dear Fat People” video that went viral to the Lululemon CEO who said their yoga pants aren’t made for fat people, we all have seen the disastrous effects that fat shaming can cause.But what about skinny shaming in the media? It not something as commonly discussed, but it has been gaining some traction with the rise of feminism.
This movement has gotten more popular in the media with the release of Meghan Trainor's song, “All About that Bass” in June 2014, which has gotten a lot of criticism for its lack of body positivity.
The lyrics include, “. . . Boys they like a little more booty to hold at night. You know I won’t be no stick-figure, silicone Barbie doll. So if that’s what you’re into then go ahead and move along.”
This line, among others, was not seen by many women as beneficial to the body positivity movement. Lauren Galley wrote an article about this song for The Huffington Post and put exactly what I feel into perfect words: “Shaming skinny girls while attempting to lift up curvy girls is telling girls that in order to have self-worth they should tear down one another.”
This is not what the body positivity movement is about.
When I decided to write this article, I looked up “skinny shaming” on Google images. Graphics with quotes including “Skinny girls don’t make good mothers. They’re only good for being in Concentration Camps and starving to death” to “Real men like curves. Only dogs go for bones,” filled my screen.
This is not OK. Does tearing down other people and what they look like really make you feel any better? I seriously hope not.
And people think skinny shaming isn’t real.
We all want what we can’t have
Girls with wavy hair want straight hair and girls with straight hair want wavier hair. And naturally skinny girls want to be thicker while naturally thicker girls want to be thinner. It’s a never-ending cycle.This goes for a lot of things in life. To put this into perspective, I grew up with an older sister that is pretty much opposite of me in every way possible. She studied engineering; I’m studying public relations. She is extremely bubbly and will talk to anyone; I’m a little more reserved. She grew up with curves and a booty; I didn’t.
Growing up, I was always jealous of her body and how it made her look so much older than her age. Meanwhile, people still tell me that I look like I’m in middle school when I’m a junior in college. The ironic part about the story is that my sister was always jealous of my thin body, while I was always jealous of her curves.
The media and society in general create an unattainable standard of beauty. Body image researcher Kristen Harrison found that young adults’ perceptions of the ideal female figure suggest that a slim body with comparatively large breasts sets the standard of beauty and perfection.
Some people are born thin. Some people are born with big breasts. We are all born differently with different genes and body types. It’s who we are. Trying to put others down by shaming their body type, whether it’s fat or skinny or any other types of body shaming, is not going to solve anything.
How to fix this problem
There is no immediate solution for body shaming, and it’s just a natural tendency to focus on what you feel to be the negative part of yourself. But what we need to stop doing is pointing out the negatives in other people.
Attacking someone else about his or her body isn’t going to make you feel better. Body shaming is not acceptable, whether it’s fat shaming or skinny shaming.
I shouldn’t have to constantly feel guilty about the way to look because it’s something that is out of my control. We are all born with different bodies and people need to learn to accept that.
So, listen up and hear me out. Stop judging people for their bodies. Nobody is 100 percent happy with what they look like. So the next time you feel like the need to make a snarky comment to someone, stop yourself. Because nothing is worse than an ignorant, rude person.
But if you don’t want to listen to me, take advice from actress Jennifer Aniston: “You’re damned if you’re too thin, and you’re damned if you’re too heavy. According to the press, I’ve been both. It’s impossible to satisfy everyone, and I suggest we stop trying.”
PREACH, GIRL. I couldn’t have said it any better myself.
