Sajila Nudrat | Health Editor
Featured Image: No one should be bullied for their weight, but promoting unhealthy lifestyles can have fatal consequences. | Courtesy of Pixabay
The last decade has been marred by change all over the world. The climate has gotten warmer, cell phones have gotten smarter, and society has become more informed—sort of.
It’s been a rough couple of years to say the least, and right now it seems that the common citizen is stuck in a limbo of ‘what to think’ and ‘what to say.’ One of the hot topics that are generating a lot of interest (and opinions) nowadays is body image.
It’s an individual’s perception of their own body—how they see themselves, which can be based on standards set by society. This view of a person’s body is often affected by their surroundings; their friends, family, and social media hold an ever constant presence in their lives. Body image is closely linked to self-esteem, and low self-esteem can quickly devolve into different disorders, or other issues pertaining to one’s body, and sense of self.
In Canada, 13 per cent of males say they are satisfied with the way they look, as compared to the nine per cent of females who are happy with their appearance. Body confidence is something that a majority of people struggle with, and the phenomenon seems to be growing.
Due to this, body positivity is a message people have adopted as an antidote to society’s unrealistic expectations of the human body—which is naturally flawed. The movement empowers people into rejecting impossible beauty ideals, like having flawless skin void of stretch marks and blemishes.
While the body positivity campaign is intended to help people feel more secure and happy with themselves, it can lead to some dangerous and detrimental connotations. As the movement shifts towards accepting and celebrating different shapes and sizes, things can, and do, go wrong.
The ‘fat-acceptance movement’ aims to normalize obesity, fronted by plus-size models and social-media influencers. Comedian Sofie Haggen accused Cancer Research of bullying heavy-set people, after the charity launched a campaign to create awareness about the link between cancer and obesity. Some influences have compared the valid concerns of health officials to hate crimes.
While no one should be bullied or subjected to abuse on the basis of their physical appearance under any circumstances; it’s important to make a distinction between health awareness and contempt. Cancer Research wasn’t criticizing a specific person, rather they were stating a fact—obesity is now the second leading cause of lifestyle-related cancers.
While judging and berating a person for how they look isn’t a constructive approach to improving a person’s health, neither is the suggestion that a size 30 is just as healthy as a size 12. This isn’t body positivity, it’s a potentially fatal form of enabling.
Public health campaigns aren’t designed to praise and applaud people, they’re put in place to raise awareness about health risks. Smoking, for instance, is an addiction that many people struggle to control; while it’s recognized that some smokers can outlive those who don’t, at the end of the day, the risks (including premature death) associated with tobacco are high. This is why smoking isn’t celebrated with viral social media campaigns about smoker’s pride. So what makes obesity any different?
Informed adults are free to make their own decisions, and while their bodies are their own business—actively promoting unhealthy lifestyle choices, and denying health risks publicly isn’t promoting body positivity—it’s promoting ignorance, and ignorance isn’t always bliss.
