Shaming – You’re Always Doing It Wrong
Dear people who shame fat people and fat bodies,
I’m going to assume that you are doing what you truly think is best for fat people. Normally I can see where many different points of view are valid, but in this matter you are just wrong. Shaming is never the way to go and here is why:
People don’t take care of things they hate and that includes their bodies. When you encourage people to be ashamed of their bodies, you decrease the chances that they will believe that they are worthy of care.
Shaming may actually create the problems that it’s purported to solve: Peter Muennig from Columbia found that the stress of stigma and shame were correlated with the same diseases with which obesity is correlated. So every time you make someone feel bad about themselves, you put their health at risk.
Muennig’s research also found that women who were concerned about their weight had more mental and physical illnesses than those who were fine with their size, regardless of their weight. So telling a fat woman to be concerned about her weight is dangerous.
When doctors are told to shame fat people for their weight, it leads to fat people not going to the doctor, they miss out on preventative care, and they end up not getting treatment until an issue is very advanced (which gives them even less time to wade through doctors who ignore their actual health issues and just tell them to lose weight to get actual evidence-based healthcare.).
(Source: danceswithfat.wordpress.com)
