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Your body is not wrong: S&G Volunteers raise their voices to say NO! to Body Shaming
Body shaming is the act of making fun or mocking a person's physical appearance. It can include fat-shaming, shaming for thinness, height-shaming, shaming of hairiness, of hair-color, body shape, one's muscularity, shaming of looks (facial features), of tattoos and piercings or diseases that leave a physical mark.
"Barbie syndrome" is a term that has been used to depict the desire to have a physical appearance and lifestyle representative of the Barbie doll. It is most often associated with pre-teenage and adolescent females, not aware that in real life a person with Barbie physical proportions would suffer from anorexia disorder.
In a study of children's films and books regarding messages about the importance of appearance, media targeted for children were heavily saturated with messages emphasizing attractiveness as an important part of relationships and interpersonal interaction. Among the movies used in the study, two Disney movies contained the highest number of messages about personal beauty. This study also found 64% of the videos studied portrayed obese characters as unattractive, evil, cruel, and unfriendly, and more than half of the portrayals involved the consideration or consumption of food. (source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1447967/)
Body shaming can extend to a perception that one does not sufficiently display masculinity or femininity. For example, men with wide hips or prominent breasts or lack of facial hair are sometimes shamed for appearing feminine. Similarly, women have been body-shamed for their lack of femininity or for having broad shoulders, traits that are typically associated with men.
Extensive levels of body-shaming can have negative emotional effects, including a reduction in self-esteem and other issues such as eating disorders, anxiety, body dysmorphia and depression. Also, body shaming can lead to serious depression, especially when people feel their body can not meet social criteria.