Being a chubby teenager myself, I can vouch for quite a few things about fat-shaming. The first one being, it’s not fun being made fun of even if you’re jesting with someone about how they look. Believe it or not, teasing people who struggle with body image issues can make them susceptible to low self-esteem, which can further push them into depression.
Something similar happened to Bailey, a high school student who was body shamed for not being the ‘ideal body type’.
The incident occurred when Bailey went to school wearing a dress like many of her peers. However, things did not go as planned and soon her day turned into a nightmare.
As reported by DailyMail, somebody from her school even took a picture of her legs for their Snapchat and called it “Thicc”.
I cannot even begin to imagine the mortifying humiliation she must have felt after being subjected to body-shaming at an age when she should be encouraged to not be conscious of her body.
Bailey soon realised that people were mocking her for her body and proceeded to text her mother to get her a change of clothes.
The exchange of messages between Bailey and her mother as well as her photo went viral. They were shared by people all over social media to condemn such bullying and body-shaming.
However, some people are defending the bullies citing tweets from the girl’s account saying that she deserves to be bullied since she is ‘racist’.
People also said that she is not the victim because she is a perpetrator of racism.
Let me tell you, we all have said and done something stupid or something we didn’t mean just because we were young. But, does that mean they deserved to be demeaned like this? No. Absolutely not.
It breaks my heart to think that people could actually feel good about themselves whilst putting other people down and shaming them for the way they look like. It’s 2018 already, can we all just rise above this pettiness?