So, since I started college I have gained some weight. I’m sure I’m not the only one trying to work off the freshmen 15. However, even though I did gain some weight I am healthy. I don’t have high blood pressure, diabetes, I exercise, eat healthy, etc. I might not be as tiny as I was in high school— but lets be realistic, who is? Not a lot of us.
College comes with a lot of stress and takes up a majority of my time. So eating completely healthy, working out five times a week, and cutting out carbs, sugar and calories can be difficult sometimes. That doesn’t however make me fat. I recently was told that this younger girl that I know from my hometown was body shaming me.
She said that I gained a lot of weight and got fat. Now this shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. Not so much that she called me fat, but more so that the first thing that came out of her mouth when she heard my name was something mean and disrespectful. Body shaming is cruel. What constitutes skinny and what constitutes fat?
Because apparently there is no in between for some. That is what really ticks me off. That we should have the body of a Victoria’s Secret angel and have those exact measurements. Anything above that is fat— according to most of society.
Another thing that really ticks me off. The people body shaming women and making them feel little is other women. Why can’t women just respect each other? I don’t understand where this all comes from. So many people put a label to the number on the scale. 120 pounds or less is skinny, anything above that is fat.
We forget that biologically this doesn’t mean its a healthy weight for every person. A tall young woman would probably fit the image of ‘skinny’ and not be around that number. A short person like me, a whopping five feet and two inches tall, I weigh 140 pounds. So what?
I don’t think I’m fat. I might be a bit curvy, but that does not make me fat. That doesn’t make it okay for others to put me down and make me feel ashamed because of the skin that I’m in because I don’t fit their image.
That doesn’t mean that I am not beautiful. That doesn’t meant that because of the way my body looks and curves makes me who I am. That doesn’t mean that I deserve to be treated like I am less than anybody else.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t deserve happiness and love. That doesn’t mean anything. I am good enough the way I am. However, the way that people perceive a certain body type makes you feel all of those things.
This just means that you’re different. Realistically we are all different. Not one body is exactly the same. I don’t care what anybody says, there is nothing wrong with me. Not the stretch marks, the cellulite, the tummy, my size, my curves.
There is nothing wrong with me. I was never the problem. The problem is society. My job is not to look like the girls in the magazines. That is not the way it was meant to be. Body shaming is not okay.
Susy Macias
Senior Features Editor