Body Shame

Body shame is something which is spreading in every section of our society epidemically, especially among women and children. I am going to share one of such encounters which happened recently.

I was attending one of my friend's wedding and my niece who is just 7 years old (but very smart according to her age) had delightfully accompanied me. When I was involved in a casual chit chat session with other friends, one friend of mine who I had not seen or talked to for last 5-6 years popped up and greeted me with a screaming "Hi" from a distance and in the same loud tone yelled-"You look sooooo......fat". I was a bit embarrassed as there were a bunch of friends around. I wondered for a while if I have really grown too fat. She must have been definitely over 10-12 kgs. over my weight. (though I am poor in calculations but good in speculations and approximations), So I tried to calm myself down and did greet her back trying to be as polite as I could and said: "We all are just competing with each other, right?". But she did not stop there and replied- "No, you are more than me." For a moment, I was speechless and to avoid any argument on an irrelevant topic, I just ended the conversation returning a fake smile back to her.

When we were returning from the event, my niece who observed all these things, came to me and said "Bua, you are not fat, you look beautiful, you know at my school the same thing happened to me, I got bullied by few of my friends. When I returned, then papa told me that I am a rather healthy, cute baby and not fat. So you do not feel embarrassed. I planted a kiss on her forehead. I was amused by her innocence, as she thought that I was still occupied with that friend's remark (and yes she was  right, I was actually thinking about that bull shit)

So the moral of the story is- We should be concerned about our good health as compared to how we look, whether skinny, slim or fat. We should teach our children to avoid any kind of body shame, to detest the unsolicited advice on the sartorial, or any other choices that we make and ignore those who just want to demotivate or bring us down. One should have a good diet and a great heart which always motivates and never demeans anyone.