Fat Shaming: Drawing the line.

@looses- you've obviously never been a smoker. Smoking shaming happens constantly. People will come up to you unprompted, in designated smoking areas, and tell you they hope you dont have kids and you should be ashamed of yourself. They will lecture you as if you might have never heard smoking can be bad for you. I've even seen whole threads dedicated to how stupid people must be to smoke in their cars when they leave the gym, and how they shouldn't be allowed to smoke outside a gym because healthy people have to smell it as they walk by, and those 2 seconds might give that person cancer. To be clear, I am in no way arguing smoking is a good thing, but to say those people dont get shamed is absurd.

@looses- you've obviously never been a smoker. Smoking shaming happens constantly. People will come up to you unprompted, in designated smoking areas, and tell you they hope you dont have kids and you should be ashamed of yourself. They will lecture you as if you might have never heard smoking can be bad for you. I've even seen whole threads dedicated to how stupid people must be to smoke in their cars when they leave the gym, and how they shouldn't be allowed to smoke outside a gym because healthy people have to smell it as they walk by, and those 2 seconds might give that person cancer. To be clear, I am in no way arguing smoking is a good thing, but to say those people dont get shamed is absurd.

No, I've never been a smoker, although my parents have both smoked my entire life, and I've never witnessed them being shamed for it, even when they would smoke around me and my brother, etc. My extended family let it slide because they all smoked too, and so on. Perhaps it just happens when I'm not around. Who knows. And maybe it's not an entirely apples-to-apples comparison, but, for example, in high school smoking is considered attractive by a lot of kids. I know a lot of girls who started smoking because of that, and I know loads of girls who find it "hot/sexy" when guys smoke. I've encountered few people who want to GAIN weight to look attractive. Hopefully I didn't offend you?? And I definitely didn't mean to imply that smoking shaming never happens, but I think it's possible that more people let smoking slide than weight. But we've both had different experiences, it seems, so who knows.

@looses- you've obviously never been a smoker. Smoking shaming happens constantly. People will come up to you unprompted, in designated smoking areas, and tell you they hope you dont have kids and you should be ashamed of yourself. They will lecture you as if you might have never heard smoking can be bad for you. I've even seen whole threads dedicated to how stupid people must be to smoke in their cars when they leave the gym, and how they shouldn't be allowed to smoke outside a gym because healthy people have to smell it as they walk by, and those 2 seconds might give that person cancer. To be clear, I am in no way arguing smoking is a good thing, but to say those people dont get shamed is absurd.

That is not shaming people who are smoking.....that is just people trying to watch out for their own health, and trying to help others. By trying to help others be healthier, they are not shaming. In a large majority of communities, people can't smoke next to a pulic building (due to laws). So, that person asking smokers to move further from the gym may of had every right to do so. The complaints are also logical; breathing in 2nd hand smoke is incredibly dangerous.

If you are comparing this to fat/body-shaming, you rather don't know much about body shaming, or you don't know much about people's rights, or how truly dangerous smoking can be, (and not just for the person enjoying their cigarette). People have every right to watch out for their own health, and I think (that while some people may go about it the wrong way) people wanting to help others better their health is an incredibly compassionate, and generous.

Okay – I'll admit the smoking comparison was not a very good one. My bad.

That said, I don't think it negates the fact that fat-shaming is not good. I've been shamed for my body most of my life, so I have a solid idea of how it is for me (though I'd hate to speak for everyone). I agree that people have the right to watch out for their own health, but not the health of others (provided these people are capable of making decisions for themselves). Half of the fat shaming that occurs (in my opinion) seems to stem from the idea that there is something inherently bad about not being skinny or whatever. (I'm still a teen, so a lot of my experience with fat shaming has been by teenage girls who seem to draw some magical connection between a person's weight and their worth as a human being. Besides that, you've got songs, etc. that perpetuate the idea that being fit/attractive/not fat is going to get you places – see songs like "The New Workout Plan" by Kanye, for example.)

I can understand family members + close friends being concerned about my weight for health reasons, but I've never appreciated them calling me out on it, because it's something I've always been aware of; I needed to decide for myself to lose weight, and it took escaping the constant chorus of "you're eating that?" and "have you thought about losing weight" to make me commit. There's no positive way to tell a person to lose weight, and while their concerns may be "compassionate and generous" they tend to mostly just hurt the person's self-esteem (again, my experience).

And I'm not saying this is an excuse for no one to care about their weight – I appreciate the idea of being healthy, which is why I'm losing weight myself. But the idea that other people think they have the authority to decide for me what's best for me, when I know what's best for me, comes across (to me) as offensive.

Idk. I'm probably the unpopular opinion here, but I just figured I'd throw in my two cents.

I was responding strictly to the smoke-shaming aspect of that comment! If you read back a bit, I made 2 comments on this thread about the issues of fat-shaming, and you pretty much just repeated what I said! ^.^ Yay for great minds thinking alike!

I just wanted to make sure you knew that I was not speaking as though smoke-shaming and fat-shaming were interchangeable. My opinion towards this concept of smoke shaming are 200% different than my opinions of fat/body shaming. :x

Fat shaming? More like body shaming period. Shaming someone because of their body period is just wrong. No matter if thin or "thick". I think the only time we should concern ourselves with someone else's body is if they are overweight and it's affecting their health. My bigger butt might gross you out, but I may be perfectly happy with it or even love. The gap between someone else's thighs might gross you out, but they might love it. As long as they don't have a body that is unhealthy we shouldn't be concerned...at you can't tell if someone is healthy just by looking at their body. My body is my body, and I could care less about other peoples bodies. If you're happy with yourself then there is no reason to be judging if someones arm is a little chubbier than you think it should be.



**I would also like to point out that VS models are highly paid models, and modeling is their job. Therefore going to the gym is their job. Eating healthy is their job. Meaning they are able to put more time and energy into looking like they should...besides being blessed with tiny bodies and curves.