I often find myself asking what is the perfect body type. According to RCL blog 2016, “Today’s media is portraying people with a particular body type as being “perfect”, while others are given the connotation of being “ugly”.” Yet in reality the images seen on magazine covers or on T.V. are not realistic. Overall, I chose this subject so I could voice my opinion and fight for what’s right. The Oxford English Dictionary (2016) defines sizeism as “prejudice or discrimination against people on the grounds of their physical size.” It can cause depression, low self-esteem, and feelings of isolation. When asked who is benefiting from this, all you have to do is take a quick look around at our society, and it becomes pretty clear. Our society hates …show more content…
For example, in almost every television show or movie, a character whose “overweight” is portrayed as being hungry and constantly eating, having poor hygiene or in a most cases being the comic relief. The question, who’s benefiting, is answered. Society is. The discrimination of someone’s size helps the companies sell their latest weight loss program. The television show casting the overweight man as the constant eater is using what he eats to sell those food items in stores, the magazines that list weight loss tips from the model posing on the cover are being sold. The constant pressure of trying to meet this standard of “beauty” is never ending; therefore the profits continue to grow. With that being said there is another side of this subject that should be mentioned. One of the biggest problems with sizeism is the negative stigma that is placed around overweight people. I found that many case studies have shown the majority of people being asked had an instinctive first impression about those who are overweight and instantly associate them as lazy, un-healthy, and selfish people. Because of sizeism, today’s society automatically has a low opinion of someone who is fat, even if they have no prior knowledge about this …show more content…
The cycle of socialization “teaches” us how to play our roles in oppression, and how to revere the existing systems that shape our thinking.” (Adams et al., 2013,p. 618). Bobbie further explained that if there are sequence of events that occur during oppression there must then be a sequence towards liberation. Therefore, following Bobbie’s cycle of liberation I feel I have accomplished the first and second steps, which are waking up, and getting ready. Thanks to this assignment I view body shaming/sizeism so much more seriously. Its like Harro says, “once we know something, we can’t not know it anymore” (Adams et al., 2013,p. 620) Next I would be reaching out and practicing the skills I’ve obtained on this subject and begin to build a community of people who feel the same way as I do, so we can work the final end goal of creating a change and maintaining it. Overall, “we are born into a specific set of social identities related to differences, and these social identities predispose us to unequal roles in the dynamic system of oppression.”(Adams et al., 2013,p. 45). But with the cycle of liberation we are able to rise above these set standards and roles and move forward to make a
In “Cruelty, Civility, and Other Weighty Matters” by Ann Marie Paulin, she was trying to get across a very important message: skinny doesn’t mean happy. The main idea was about how our culture in America encourages obesity because of the food choices they offer, how expensive weight loss pills and exercise bikes is, and etc., yet the culture also is prejudice against these same fat people that they encourage. It’s a constant back and forth in America between what is convenient with the little time we have in between everything we have to do each day and working out to be skinny enough for everyone to not judge you. Ms. Paulin wrote this article for literally everyone, this article was for skinny people to show them like hey, you’re not all
Worley is a member of NAAFA and writes about them in her article. She tells us of the time she visited a NAAFA conference, she describes it as “it was like visiting another planet altogether” (163). She describes her experience at a pool party where people were walking around happy and they were not worried that their hefty size would offend someone. She writes of the clothes that were sold there that were made for fat people and she thought they even looked stylish. She tells of a talent show where people get to try the lead role they did not get in high school as a result of the fact that they were not as beautiful as the skinny people. She writes that even though some researchers conclude that body size is genetically decided they still say large individuals should try to lose weight, but it may be futile. She calls them out and says they cannot align their findings with what they believe personally. The author brings in the mental health aspect and talks about the ridicule that is a part of a heavy person 's life regularly. She notes that people will make rude comments, or comment about what they have in their grocery cart at the store. She states that people are not that into getting medical help by reason of a doctor almost always attributing health issues to the fact a person is fat. She talks about how she has tried so many times to lose weight, but she realized that she needed
I found that in all of these reasons, Smith only says that they (the oppositional side) are discriminating against "fat" people, but she refrains from going deeper to present why they do it. Sadly, there are some people do discriminate against the “people of size.” Although just because something is done, like a policy revision or disqualification to a job, due to a person’s weight, one should look deeper into the reason why it is done. Do not always misinterpret this as discrimination, because it could possibly be done to benefit that person in the end. Maybe even ensure his or her safety in a time of crisis.
Gwyn Kirk and Margo Okazawa-Rey (2013) defined internalized oppression as “attitudes and behavior of some oppressed people that reflect the negative, harmful, stereotypical beliefs of the dominant group directed at them” (p. G-3). This was demonstrated in the article by Crenshaw discussing that among others, some women of color have accepted the belief that girls being ignored when it comes to race focused programs is “justified and necessary” (Crenshaw, 2013, p. 28). This illustration of internalized oppression in the article was short yet very powerful. It showed that although women and girls (especially of color) are already deeply oppressed, some of them begin accept the oppression of being ignored and excluded from the numerous programs that are supposed to be for all at-risk youth but specifically focus on
The central problem with fat oppression comes from the way in which we as Americans are taught to look at people. Everywhere we look - TV, movies, magazines and so on - thin people are portrayed as glamorous and cool. The encouragement of dieting is terribly prevalent and the dieting market takes in billions of dollars every year. Our society is obsessed with fat and the loss of it.
Interest in the social aspects of obesity is nothing new. Jeffrey Sobal has written extensively about the social and psychological consequences of obesity , including the stigmatisation and discrimination of obese and even overweight individuals (Sobal 2004).
In order to take a sociological viewpoint into account when one examines obesity, first it is important to understand how obesity is recognized in current society. According to today’s news articles and magazines and advertisements and other mass media about health and healthy life, one can easily realize that a great number of people have an eagerness to be healthy. Also, one can assume through these mass media about health that everyone wants to be attractive, and they are even prone to transform their own behaviors to gain attractiveness. This is because most people live a life where social interaction is frequently required and must engage themselves into social interaction every day of their life. Therefore, based on these ideas and proofs throughout this mass media, obesity is regarded as one of the characteristics that is disgraceful and undesirable in society.
As can be seen, the victories for individuals who are in a certain group or society are so difficult to achieve because there are a lot of stereotypes and limits that others put in place that prevent certain individuals from achieving and pushing through diversity. During High school, I remember being treated harshly when I became pregnant at the age of 16; during the 90’s this was not precisely common for most High school students.
Moon, Amy. "A Culture Obsessed with Thinness Propagates Misconceptions About Obesity." SF Gate (8 Apr. 2008). Rpt. in How Should Obesity be Treated? Ed. Stefan Kiesbye. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. At Issue. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 14 Apr. 2011.
More specifically, he maintains that it upsets them because they feel like failures. Schwartz even uses the phrase “failures in all of life” (180) because he wants his audience to realize the deep disappointment overweight people suffer when they feel they cannot live up to societal expectations. The author attempts to make readers feel complicit in this when he suggests the overweight “will come to agree with everyone else that they are failures in all of life” (180). He asserts that Americans make obese people feel useless because of their size. Schwartz hopes to convince the public that fat people are made to feel worse about themselves because of the way society treats
Discrimination has seen larger individuals being frequently ascribed more severe diagnoses and worse prognoses, even when presenting with identical pathological profiles (Davis-Coelho, Waltz & Davis-Coelho, 2000). As stated by activist Marilyn Wann, “the only thing that anyone can diagnose with certainty by looking at a fat person, is their own level of stereotype and prejudice toward fat people” (Rothblum & Solovay, 2009, xiv). The impact of fat shaming also extends to the behaviours of fat people themselves, with research finding that they are more hesitant to seek medical attention as a result. Fat females are a third less likely to undergo breast examinations, gynaecological examinations or Papanicolaou smears, and 12% of women have also admitted cancelling appointments due to fears of size judgement (Puhl & Brownell,
I was aware of these oppressions and have often times struggled with what I can do individually to work towards alleviating these oppressions. The Next Steps portion of the chapter on racism really outlined methods of actions that could be applied to all forms of oppression. One method entitled “FLEXing Cross- cultural Communications,” outlines productive communication, depersonalization, and open- mindedness when it comes to understanding and practicing competency. This model serves as a tool to motivate action to those form other cultures in ways that in the end everyone can
People react differently depending on their own traits. Studies have shown that women identify the media as the major source of the perceived social pressure to maintain a thin body image. Male body image suffers as well. When men are exposed to unrealistic male bodies, they can suffer from the same symptoms as females. People should not let the media negatively influence their bodies. The public needs to view the media for what it’s worth…pure entertainment. Media’s depiction of a “normal” body type portrays a standard of beauty that is unattainable. Both women and men are suffering from trying to reach these unattainable goals and are suffering from low self-esteem, depression and eating disorders. This is a huge epidemic and hopefully one day it will change. The media needs to promote healthy lifestyles and show men and women of all shapes and sizes that they can feel good about themselves. The “real size” people in the world, will then be able to stop feeling pressured by the media to obtain a certain standard body
In the media there are people who view women a certain way, and if we don't hold to the standard that we are not as good as other women who are the size the media says we have to be. In an article it said that "Large women in America are to all intents and purposes invisible in today's thinness-obsessed culture. A big women is neither seen nor heard, and is defined purely in terms of her weight and other people's prejudice." (Goodman par 1) This is a hard thing for women that a heavier to understand because they want the person to think that they are heard. This plays into the way that they think and the way that women look at their bodies. You can see this happening with different types of televisions shows, which put on the show thinner women. "Practically the only television programming that addresses her directly consists of weight-loss ads, the message: lose weight. You're not real women unless you're thin (Goodman)". It is hard to think that this statement could be true, but
As people, we naturally “size people up,” or rather determine their value and treat them