I can’t even look back on my childhood and say I was carefree and didn’t have the weight of the world on me because FAT SHAMING was already taking up more space than my little big world could handle.
It felt like I was always loving my life against a force that was trying to restrain me.
I still remember looking at myself in the mirror and not seeing what my father or strangers were saying that i looked like. I looked fine you know. I looked pretty to myself. But that would be the start of me doubting my own body image and later turn into full blown distrust at any reflection of my body.
Chronic Fatshaming is not a joke, not “just let it go” or “take it easy” when its fat kids who grow up having to deal with it, forcefully make space for it from such early age.
I do consider fat shaming kids as a form of abuse because the mental toll, the destruction of the developing child’s body image, putting the child in a position to handle something beyond their age will have prepared them for, severely if not forever damaging the child’s ability to form a healthy body image and a good relationship with food, movement and hunger.
No child should grow up thinking that they somehow are making a mistake everyday just by existing.
Fatphobic people are ignorant towards seeing how their behaviour,their words are affecting children who still need a lot of help from adults to lead their life.
Children are resilient and they find ways to live life anyway yes i know but why ruin their chances at having right tools to make a good life for themselves with whatever body they have.
Seriously, no matter how well you think you know kids,nutrition or fitness or whatever do not body shame a child. Our bodies are complex, early exposure to high cortisol can throw off so many pathways and put the bodies of children teenagers on survival mode without them even having knowledge about it.
