Body positivity. The term embodies self-love, self-care and embracing ‘beauty’ in all its diverse forms. It means the shedding of negativity around one’s own body image and not worrying about fitting into society’s ‘perfect’ mould.
Unfortunately, not everyone has hopped on board the positivity train, resulting in fat-shaming. Actress Vidya Balan has been continually grilled for her weight and Neha Dhupia faced it after her pregnancy.
‘Shotgun Junior’ aka Sonakshi Sinha recently opened up about how she was bullied for her weight while growing up.
News18 quoted her saying, “I used to weigh around 95 kilos and I was always a big kid. Even though I used to do a lot of sports, the boys used to bully me and call me names. They wouldn’t give me the main roles in plays in school. They would always make me stand at the side or the narrator.”
Recalling a particular incident that happened during college, the actress said,
“We had to organise this annual fashion show and I wanted to be the model and walk on the ramp. So one of the thin girls told me, ‘You handle the lights’. I said, ‘Why? I want to walk the ramp’. She replied, ‘No, you are too big to walk the ramp.’ I just felt really bad.”
Even after her debut film ‘Dabangg’ hit the theatres, the fat-shaming didn’t end.
“It didn’t stop there. I lost 30 kilos for my first film. When it released, the audiences lapped me up but the worst part is I was being fat-shamed by the industry people and the media. That really hurt.”
On being asked how she handled all the negativity, she revealed,
“I knew I wasn’t the average-looking stick figure person. I didn’t have to. Honestly, I knew I had a lot more to offer than what I weighed on the weighing scale. So I never took that to heart.”
Check out the full interview here.
We sincerely hope that society becomes more accepting and supportive of people with varied body shapes in the future.