Health Shots InFocus: Stop Body Shaming! Period.

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“Kaafi healthy ho gayi hai, nai?”, “Khaati peeti nai ho? Itni patli ho!”, “Dhoop mein rehti ho zyada? Rang saawla hota jaa raha hai!”, “Tumhare chehre pe ye aadmi jaise baal kyun hain?” Body shaming doesn’t ever stop, does it?

Welcome to Health Shots InFocus, your weekly dose of wellness! After addressing the ‘beauty with brains’ misnomer in one of the recent newsletters, I am back to writing on body shaming for a reason. It is driven by one of Indian influencer Dolly Singh’s latest Instagram post. Dolly has been pretty vocal about facing skinny shaming and receiving unsolicited advice on weight gain from those who matter, as well as those who don’t.

This time, she opened up about how she doesn’t even consider her home her “safe space”.

“I realised that there are only a few people and places in my life where I can go however I want to. It doesn’t matter what I look like, what I am wearing or what my weighing scale says, I will receive love. My home is still not one. Maybe someday,” Dolly Singh wrote in her moving post, urging people to count the blessings of people in life who don’t care about the fluctuating kgs, but the smiles on your face.

What a pertinent message, I feel. Every body is different, every body is unique. So, why expect everyone to look the same? Why constantly comment? We never know who is fighting which internal battle.

As a society, we are very quick to judge or mock someone like UP topper Prachi Nigam who has excess facial hair. Or comment on someone with patchy and pigmented skin, not realising that he or she may be suffering from vitiligo. The same goes for women with alopecia, who deal with hair loss due to immune system issues. Fat shaming and skinny shaming are oh-so-common, anyway! But the damage people end up doing, sometimes unknowingly, is deep and dark.

“I have grown up despising my body, hating every bit of it,” Dolly wrote, adding that at least with time, she has accepted that it could “shapeshift every now and then”. But it’s not the same with people around her. And that is the very problem with body shaming.

Even if people begin to embrace themselves as they are, practice the self-love they need to boost their self-confidence, there will always be someone to remind them of their body battles.

Some of the world’s top celebrities have spoken unabashedly about facing the trolls over how they looked. Thin or fat, tall or short, fair or dark – they have gone through their (un)fair share of comments. It’s hard to make people stop – but we can control how we react.

Mental health expert Dr. Chandni Tugnait tells me that body shaming is harmful and hurtful to people of all body types and sizes. “It’s important to recognize that negative comments or judgment about someone’s body can have serious impact on their mental health and self-esteem, regardless of whether they are thin, overweight, or anywhere in between. These contribute to body image issues, disordered eating behaviors, and low self-worth.”

But how does one avoid being affected by body shaming, I asked her. She says the bottomline is to develop a strong sense of self-acceptance and self-love, and to surround yourself with positive influences that celebrate body diversity and promote healthy attitudes towards all body types.

And one health shot worth all reasons and seasons: Always focus on your overall health, not just weight!