Fat Shaming vs Fat Acceptance

If you have read my blog before then you will know that I have expressed concern over the Big Is Beautiful ideology and its message that basically it is ok to be overweight.

An incident tonight raised my concerns again and made me question the role of the media. An article on Facebook caught my attention tonight because of its title about not losing weight, lose the clothes you hate instead. It was about a young girl who had broke out of an unhealthy cycle of binging and dieting, put 30lbs on and then bought a new wardrobe of clothes. I felt driven to comment. While I understood the choices that this girl made, I was uneasy about the tone and impact of the article. I've done the whole hiding your weight gain under larger size clothes. There is no denying that being overweight is bad for your health and I felt that the article did not stress that at all. In my opinion, it gave the impression that buying new clothes was the simpler option. 

I was immediately slammed by vitriolic comments accusing me of judging the girl and that I should mind my own business. This was even though I clearly stated that I understood that this was the right decision for her and that my issue was with the headline and tone of the article. 

What was interesting was that upon reading through the comments, I noticed that anyone who mentioned weight gain being unhealthy or questioned the tone and impact of the article was immediately shouted down. 

There has been a lot of comments about the media promoting unhealthy body images through the use of skinny models and perhaps the media needs now to make sure that they don't swing too far in the other direction. Articles that may be aimed at promoting being comfortable with your own body still need to ensure that they are also promoting a healthy weight too! The obesity crisis is getting worse not better!

I actually deleted my comment in the end as the replies were becoming more unpleasant. I would never try to fat shame someone, it would be a bit ironic as I personally am still classified as an obese weight. In my opinion though, fat acceptance takes things too far in the other direction as it will impact on health, if not immediately then in the future.

I'd be interested to know your opinions on this. Speak to you soon

Love Erica xxx