What’s Wrong (And Right) About Fat Shaming?

There aren’t too many places you can go in our culture now without coming across the term ‘fat shaming’. It’s in the press, on websites, and even in the celebrity gossip rags.

But what exactly is it, and why is it suddenly all people can talk about?

What Is Fat Shaming?

Essentially, fat shaming is a specific type of body shaming. Most people will be familiar with body shaming, almost all of us will experience it at some point in our lives. Body shaming is everywhere, and it’s horrible. For some reason it’s particularly targeted to women, often by other women. For some reason, it’s hard for us to accept that body types are different, and we’re often made to feel ashamed for being too fat, thin, tall or short among a number of other qualities that are seen to be ‘less than ideal’.

In recent years, fat shaming has become a common type of body shaming, and it isn’t hard to see why. We’re in a changing era right now when it comes to health, and more people are overweight and obese in our society than ever before. Some people believe that fat shaming is the answer to this because shame can be used as a motivator to kick people into shape.

Does It Work?

The problem with using shame as a motivator is that not everyone is motivated by the same things. In fact, to some people shame isn’t a motivator, it’s a paralytic. Being publicly shamed by other people makes the person in question want to hide themselves away, and not make healthy changes but rather avoid judgement.

So no, it doesn’t.

When it actually comes down to it, fat shaming is a kind of negative reinforcement, which is why it’s unlikely to work. Negative reinforcement involves a penalty for not doing something, instead of reward for doing something (a.k.a positive reinforcement). The problem is that over time negative reinforcement becomes easy to ignore, while the benefits of positive reinforcement can be retained over time.

Next Page: But Why Do People Do It?