Sensitive Content Warning
Body shaming is a harmful practice that involves criticizing or making negative comments about someone's physical appearance. This can include comments about a person's weight, body shape, skin color, hair texture, or any other physical characteristic. Unfortunately, women are often the targets of body shaming, and it can have a significant impact on their mental and emotional well-being. Studies have shown that women who experience body shaming are more likely to develop low self-esteem, depression, and eating disorders. Moreover, body shaming is a form of discrimination that perpetuates harmful beauty standards, reinforces societal norms about what is considered "acceptable" or "desirable" physical appearance, and excludes those who do not fit into those narrow definitions.
Learning about body shaming is crucial in creating a more compassionate and accepting society. Body shaming is a pervasive issue that can have negative effects on people's mental health and self-esteem. Understanding what body shaming is, why it is harmful, and how it affects people can help individuals recognize and combat it in their daily lives. Additionally, learning about body shaming can help people understand how societal beauty standards can be harmful and exclusionary. By being informed about the impacts of body shaming, people can work to challenge these harmful attitudes and promote body positivity, inclusivity, and acceptance. Ultimately, learning about body shaming is an important step toward creating a more equitable and supportive world for everyone.
"Mrs. Potato Head" is a song that talks about how people try to change their looks to fit in with what society thinks is beautiful. The song suggests that getting plastic surgery may not be a good idea because it can change a person so much that they become unrecognizable. It encourages women to embrace their natural beauty and not try to look like everyone else.
If you would like to listen to this song, open the Spotify app, click the search tab, touch the search bar, and click the camera icon. Then you can scan the code attached to the song on my page.
On the left page, there are three distinct components. The primary element is an image of Gina Lollobrigida, a well-known actress and sex symbol from the 1950s and 1960s, shown tightening a corset, emphasizing the pressure women feel to conform to beauty standards that persist to this day. Behind this image, there are modern advertisements that body-shame women, interspersed with two vintage ads from the 1950s and 1970s, highlighting how this tradition has endured over time. On the opposite side of the page is a powerful artwork titled "Self-Criticism" by Kayla Baltunis. The piece consists of numerous photos of the artist marked with all of her "flaws," pasted around a full-body mirror, effectively representing how many women view themselves in the mirror. This installation had a profound impact on me, so I knew I wanted to include an aspect of it in the spread.
The piece centers around two conflicting vintage ads from the 1950s - one promotes weight loss pills with the headline "Don't Be Fat!" while the other promotes a meal plan for women to gain weight with the headline "Don't Be Skinny!". These ads highlight the societal pressure placed on women to conform to a certain standard of beauty, an ideal that still exists today. Kacey Musgraves' lyrics from "Follow Your Arrow" capture this sentiment perfectly: "If you can't lose the weight- then you're just fat. But if you lose too much, then you're on crack. You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't. So you might as well just do whatever you want."
Lifeworks, Editors. “What Is Body Shaming?” Lifeworks, 2022. https://www.lifeworkscommunity.com/blog/what-is-body-shaming-and-how-can-it-be-stopped.
Cox, Janelle. “Curious about Body Shaming? Here's What to Know.” Psych Central. Psych Central, March 29, 2022. https://psychcentral.com/health/body-shaming.
Robinson, Lawrence. “Body Shaming.” HelpGuide.org, December 5, 2022. https://www.helpguide.org/articles/abuse/body-shaming.htm.