Skinny Girl Body Shaming

A major push for positive self-image has been made in today’s society, through empowering campaigns and even music.

In Meghan Trainor’s hit song All About That Bass, she sings, “Yeah, it’s pretty clear, I ain’t no size two. But I can shake it, shake it, like I’m supposed to do.” The song continues on to encourage confidence for the curvy girls, saying that you don’t need to be Barbie doll thin in order to be perfect. Many other popular songs have followed this same theme of “don’t let skinny girls make you feel bad about yourself.”

Well, what about the feelings of those skinny girls?

Yes, promoting self-love and positive self-image for women of all shapes and sizes is an incredible step society is taking. But, naturally skinny girls are a size and shape, too. Body shaming is body shaming, regardless of which body type is being ridiculed. Thin girls who are completely healthy shouldn’t be shamed for their figure, just as girls with beautiful curves shouldn’t either.

Junior elementary education major Gabby DeRosa knows what that feels like.

“While I’ve always been proud of my body there’s sometimes a feeling that the whole ‘embrace your body’ movement can have a negative outlook on skinny body types because they are what a body could look like when unhealthy,” DeRosa says. “I’ve always been naturally tiny so sometimes I feel like my body type is now considered wrong and unhealthy, when it’s actually perfectly healthy for me.”

Some girls simply are thin. They eat and exercise as much as they should to be healthy, yet never seem to gain weight. There is an ugly part of society that encourages us all to look at those girls strangely, as if they have a problem or think they’re better than everyone else. That mentality is unfair to those girls. We girls expect men to treat us with respect, so shouldn’t we treat each other with the same?

“I just find it ironic that most girls are so against being ‘fat’ but yet still make fun of those who are extremely skinny,” says senior economics and broadcast journalism major Matt Lawrence.

It’s certainly something to think about.

If we are aiming for complete acceptance of women with every shape and size, then sorry Meghan Trainor, but we have to start accepting the size two girls, too. Maybe if we all stop using shaming words like “fat” all the way down to “too skinny” for girls who are actually perfectly healthy, then we can truly do something about body shaming. Every girl from every size on the spectrum deserves to feel confident in her own skin.

Photo by  Jaclyn Stumm