Danielle Taylor

Norrel Blair

Plan of Action: Fat Shaming

Around the world, for many years, there have been several
different versions of what the ideal body type and standard of beauty
is. There are two YouTube videos that display this perfectly. The first
one, Womens Ideal Body Types Throughout History, starts in Ancient
Egypt and goes through each decade up till now. The ideal body type
has shifted from slender, to plump, full-figured, flat chested, hourglass
figure, boyish figure, adolescent physique, athletic build, and we have
now reached to the ideal being healthy skinny with a big butt and thigh
gap. The second video, Mens Standards of Beauty Around the World,
gave insight to what the ideal look for a man is in a variety of different
countries. What was considered masculine was different in every
country. Some popular features that varied from country to country
were beards, tattoos, the use of makeup, body hair removal, lightening
of skin, and the practice of cosmetic surgery. Both of these videos are
examples of how society has always held us to a standard of what we
should look like.
Through research we found that even though the ideal body type
has been changing over time, in recent years, people have began to
shift their opinions of fatness being a sign of health and vitality, to look
with disgust at people who are considered obese. Within recent years,

suddenly the fat stigma has begun to arise, and so has Americans
average weight. Though it is a well-known fact that many Americans
struggle with their weight, a recent event has stood out to us and has
made this problem more and more prevalent just within the past few
months. Early September 2015, comedian Nicole Arbour made a
YouTube video called Dear Fat People that has gone viral. In her video
she criticizes and degrades fat people in a variety of ways. She
mentioned that fat-shaming was not a thing, rather, lets make it a
thing and shame people who have bad habits until they fucking stop.
There has been body image uproar in the media since then so we
decided to dig a little deeper in to the subject of weight. We found that
there is a lot more that people should know before looking at someone
and assuming that they are lazy or that the only thing they consume
are unhealthy foods. There are three factors that we came up with that
are main contributors to the weight-gaining problem: the rising cost of
healthy foods, health issues that cause a person to gain weight or
prevent them from losing it, and lack of nutritional education.
There was a study done by researchers in the United Kingdom
that was published in PLOS ONE that proves that the cost of healthy
food items are significantly higher than the cost of unhealthy food
options. For the study, food price and nutrition data was obtained from
two different sources and were linked together. The food was put in to
groups based on their nutritional content while the price was broken

down by price-per-unit-of-energy value separated the food. The price

change was then evaluated from 2002 to 2012. According to the study,
We found an absolute difference in price between the nutrient profile
categories in 2012, with more healthy foods approximately three times
more expensive than less healthy foods. Researchers also found,
between 2002 and 2012 the mean price of all foods in our sample
rose 35%, from 3.87/1000 kcal to 5.21/1000 kcal. With over 45
million Americans living under the poverty line, theres no wonder why
a majority of the country is overweight.
The tables below accurately display their findings.

The understanding that most people have is that if you have a

balanced diet and exercise regularly, there should be no reason for
someone to not be in shape. However, this idea is far from true. The
reality is, there are several outside and uncontrollable factors that
could cause someone to gain weight and not be able to lose it. For

example, extreme levels of stress, anxiety, or depression can cause

someone to gain weight. According to Psychology Today, when your
brain detects a threat, it releases chemicals such as adrenaline, CRH,
and cortisol. When you are stressed, for instance, your brain will
release those chemicals but eventually adrenaline wears off, cortisol
(known as a stress hormone) is what is left. Cortisols job is to signal
the body to replenish your food supply. Psychology Today says, excess
cortisol also slows down your metabolism, because your body wants to
maintain an adequate supply of glucose for all that hard mental and
physical work dealing with the threat. If you are chronically stressed
and those chemicals are continuing to be released, your body is
literally telling you to continue eating with the intention of storing the
fat. Another uncontrollable factor would be fluid retention, which
causes parts of the body to become swollen, which translates into
weight gain. Others would include: Polycystic ovary syndrome, steroid
treatment, ageing, diabetes treatment, and an underactive thyroid.
Aside from food prices skyrocketing and facing other health
issues that contribute to weight gain; some people simply lack enough
nutritional education for them to keep weight off. A common
misconception people have is that there is one basic diet they can
follow or that they can follow the same eating regimen as someone
else. The reality is that everyone has a different body type,
metabolism, and exercise schedule. Another area that gets people in

trouble is following whats popular. Labels can be misleading, and just

because something says it is whole grain, gluten free, or organic
doesnt necessarily mean it is healthy. All sorts of junk food can be
made with ingredients that would be considered organic or gluten free,
but the truth is, its still junk food that may be made with ingredients
that are even worse. Being knowledgeable about nutrition and knowing
what you need to feed your body takes work and you will have to do a
little bit of studying.
After researching and finding uncontrollable factors to weight
gain, we decided to survey UCF students and find out what their
experiences with fat shaming were. Out of the 89 respondents
surveyed, 84.27% of them admitted to being made fun of for their
body or size. Furthermore, 60.67% of respondents admitted to having
psychological and physical health-related issues such as anorexia,
anxiety and confidence issues because of their body, For example, one
respondent said they felt uncomfortable wearing a bathing suit
because they felt self-conscious about their stomach.
One of the most interesting results from the survey were the
findings from a question asking if respondents felt there was an ideal
body shape. While the majority of respondents (61.36%) responded
No, the 38.64% who responded Yes yielded revealing comments
toward the idea of an ideal body is. Many of the responses used the
same words over and over; thin, tiny, skinny, flat, small and toned. Not

surprisingly, with those responses, there were even comparisons

Victoria Secret models as to what an ideal body should look like. Our
findings not only reveal that most people have suffered from some
form negative feedback or abuse due to their body or feelings about
their body, but that the idea of an ideal body shape in the minds of
those believing in one particular body shape is almost uniformly
characterized by adjectives that only promote a visually thin frame, but
none that promote actual health.
Because over half of our participants admitted to having some
sort of psychological or physical health issues due to the anxiety of
maintaining an ideal body type, we decided to do a search on the
average percentage of Americans who have also dealt with this.
According to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and
Associated Disorders, the body type portrayed in advertising as the
ideal is possessed naturally by only 5% of American females.
Therefore, it is no surprise that we had such a high number of
responses confirming that they have felt self-conscious about their
weight or have taken extreme measures in order to change it. All of the
participants from our survey were college students. Kids are now being
influenced and taught from a young age to perceive anything larger
than the ideal body type, as being fat. Anad.org states that 47% of
girls 5th-12th grade reported wanting to lose weight because of
magazine pictures, 69% of girls in 5th-12th grade reported that

magazine pictures influenced their idea of a perfect body shape, 42%

of 1st-3rd grade girls wanted to be thinner, and 81% of 10 year olds are
afraid of being fat.
In order to resolve this problem, we have decided to make a blog
that is both educational and interactive. This blog would be created
and ran by a team of people with the same desire to stop the fat
shaming trend. Daily posts will include education on the outside health
issues that may be causing weight gain and what their symptoms are.
Other posts would include tips on where to find reasonably priced
healthy options as well as updates on where to find sales. We will also
do posts that offer nutritional information that may not be common
sense to everyone, with the idea that people will pay more attention to
what they are buying at the grocery stores. People will be able to ask
questions and suggest topics that they would like to be covered and
our team will interact back with them. The idea is to make them feel
like whatever situation they are in or have experienced, they are not
alone and they have people that they can talk to and get information
from.

Works Cited
"ANAD." Eating Disorders Statistics. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Farrell, Amy Erdman. Fat Shame: Stigma and the Fat Body in American Culture. New
York, NY: New York UP, 2011. Print.
Greenberg, Melanie. "Why We Gain Weight When We're Stressed-And How Not To."
Psychology Today. N.p., 28 Aug. 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
Jones, Nicholas R. V., Annalijn I. Conklin, Marc Suhrcke, and Pablo Monsivais. "The
Growing Price Gap between More and Less Healthy Foods: Analysis of a Novel
Longitudinal UK Dataset."PLoS ONE 9.10 (2014): n. pag. Web.
"What This Fat-Shaming Comedienne Gets Wrong About Obesity." ThinkProgress RSS.
N.p., 07 Sept. 2015. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
"Men's Standards Of Beauty Around The World." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 10 Dec.
2015.

Women's Ideal Body Types Throughout History. YouTube. BuzzFeed, 26 Jan. 2015. Web.
10 Dec. 2015.
"9 Medical Reasons for Putting on Weight." NHS Choices. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.