Whitney Way Thore, star of TLC series “My Big Fat Fabulous Life”, is no stranger to body shaming. In 2014, her youtube video titled “A Fat Girl Dancing” went viral (with nasty and nice comments alike) and she was thrust into stardom, becoming the epitomized image of body positivity and self-love. When she was in college, she was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome) which led to her weight gain of almost 200 pounds, but even before this happened, Whitney says she suffered with eating disorders from being body shamed as a kid (when she was only around 100 pounds!). This, sadly, is unsurprising. According to a recent report by Common Sense Media, a child advocacy group, kids are starting to develop concerns about their body image at younger and younger ages, and clearly with the help of others. By age 7, one in four kids has engaged in some kind of dieting behavior. And the ideas kids form in childhood about themselves are usually carried into adulthood. This is not normal, it’s not healthy, and it needs to be a national conversation- and that’s where the No Body Shame Campaign comes in.
Founded by Whitney Way Thore herself, the No Body Shame Campaign (or No B.S., which is fitting) aims to “help men and women of every variety love and live their lives free of shame”. Last week, she released a video for the campaign on Youtube titled “No Body Shame” which opens with this amazing monologue:
“It’s when they tell you, you have such a pretty face. It’s when they look at you, and they ask, ‘What are you?’ It’s when they tell you to eat a cheeseburger, or they want to know what happened to you. It’s when they try to sell you makeup and wrinkle cream, because don’t you want to fix it? It’s when they want to know what’s wrong, what’s wrong with you? But there’s no wrong way to have a body. We are more than the sum of our parts, we are more than someone’s expectations of us, don’t let them tell you what you can’t do. You are limitless.”
You see, body shaming comes in many forms and variations and approaches, but it is not a unique experience. We’ve all been body shamed, and maybe, at one time in our lives, we’ve done it to somebody else, which we hopefully regret- either way, we’re not alone. And we can change the way we see ourselves, and the way we see others, and we can change the amount of love we pump into the world. We can give new meaning to the idea of “living”, and Whitney’s campaign aims to accomplish that. You can join the campaign on the No Body Shame Campaign website, and always remember: love yourself, love others, and drop the B.S.!
