that’s really not how it works when it comes to body shaming.
please don’t get me wrong: fat people are treated horrifically in our society. they are told they are unattractive, undesirable, and don’t have the right to exist in public. their bodies are made the targets of cruel jokes and criticisms, with their abilities, personalities, and actions being judged second, if at all.
fat women, in particular, suffer, because society already believes that it has an inherent right to all women’s bodies. in a world where men are taught that women’s bodies exist for their pleasure and the media acts like all women are meant to look one way, men view fat women as a personal offense — “how dare she not conform to my artificial idea of what a woman looks like! how dare she not fulfill her one duty of pleasing me! i hate her!”
you see why this is all wrong, right? when someone criticizes another person for their weight, body structure, etc. they are expressing their belief that a) they have a right to someone else’s body and autonomy, and b) the person they’re criticizing only exists to visually please them.
and this is why body shaming is still wrong when it’s done to a thin person.
you are telling someone that, because of how much they weigh and how they’re built, they displease you and are unworthy of what someone of a different body type deserves. you are telling them that they don’t have a right to be how they are. you are telling them that the thing that keeps them alive is wrong.
of course, a concerted effort must be made to defend and embrace fat people, because they face far more body policing, cruelty, and discrimination than skinny people. skinny people can often see themselves represented in the media and are not faced with others telling them what to eat or wear as often.
but keep in mind that there’s really only a few “right” ways to be thin according to society — women must have tiny waists and skinny limbs, but large breasts and butts; men must be either lean in a very particular way or muscular. skinny women, in particular, are still attacked for their bodies. in high school, i faced so many horrific criticisms for my flat chest and awkward build that i developed an eating disorder that plagued me for years.
how someone is built may be natural, a result of a health condition, or simply their choice. it is no one’s business but their own, because their body is no one’s but their own.
if you tell fat women to love themselves by telling skinny women to hate themselves, you are not teaching self love, you are still teaching that one person can only love their body, not for what it is, but for how it compares to another’s. you are still shaming people for how they physically exist and feeding into the patriarchal view that women do not own their bodies and must conform to a certain ideal. you are saying that, for people, particularly women, to embrace themselves, someone must suffer.