“What Is Popular Culture Teaching Us About Our Bodies?” Asks A Woke Young Voice

3 min read

You walk past an attractive person, exchange glimpses, something happens, and then you suddenly look down at yourself and the inevitable trail of thoughts come running into your head and before you can untangle yourself from the mess you just created in your head, it’s all gone.

For centuries societies have come up with rigid beauty standards that define beauty in the most specific and limited ways. Thanks to fashion magazines and unnatural media representations over time, the idea of desirability has become something that could easily be measured by a measuring tape. 

Unfortunately, the construct has always been well adapted by media and most members of the society. For any given overweight person, the most dreadful day of their school life, by all means, would be the medical test day, when people would stand in ques and get their height and weight checked. 

The internalised fear of not revealing my weight to my fellow friends would render me anxious for the entire day. The weighing machine phobia was just another symptom of a bigger disease that has been plaguing the lives of many individuals. 

This naturally comes from what can be best defined by a popular social media term called “FatPhobia”. Fat is not just undesirable, but it is a subject that often invites loath and disgust. What came out of this almost global phenomenon is hundreds, thousand or who knows millions of individuals who not only failed to love themselves, but also fail to believe that they are lovable.

Fat is always followed by lazy, lonely and dull. It is almost the exact opposite of what people desire in their other people. Nosy neighbours and inconsiderate aunties, all happen to have a common hook.

“Moti Rahegi toh Shadi Kon Karega?”- If you stay fat, no one will marry you.

Basically, if you are fat, you are destined to be alone and unlovable. The years of shattering self-esteem often push people into an umbrella of utmost gloom, where it is almost impossible to fathom a person who is anywhere close to what society calls attractive could fall in love with you.

And by the way, this is not just a self-esteem issue. The absolute absence of sexualisation of fat bodies. Fat is never sexy. Unfortunately, fat is rarely even humans. When the only representation of someone with a body like your’s is as a hilarious stock character who is likely to stay a virgin forever, it is difficult to feel like the protagonist in the story of your own life.

But what is the overarching aftermath of this social suicide? Well, people end up feeling a need to compromise in relationships. Dating becomes a battlefield. Gradually, people start considering their body to be a disadvantage, creating unpleasant experiences and interactions.

A recent trend that has been deemed as the answer to this problem is self-love. While self-love is a huge step towards accepting oneself it nowhere compensates for what the society has been telling you for ages. The licence to find fat funny and not-sexy is just out there.

Amidst such popular notions, the question arises how far can we expect victims to find the solutions to problems created by others?

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