In today’s society, people are becoming increasingly more accepting of others on many fronts. In the past few years there has been a big push for the body positivity movement, which is meant to encourage women to be comfortable in their own skin regardless of physical differences.

Thousands of people have been joining in on this movement, including many celebrities who are sick of striving for the “perfect” body.

The media almost always edits photos and videos to make celebrities have what they deem to be an acceptable physique, which obviously sets ridiculously high standards for everyone else.

Those involved in the body positivity movement want to combat these standards by having the media portray women of all different shapes and sizes.

However, some people are taking this idea of equal acceptance and warping it to be biased in the opposite direction, saying things like “real women have curves; bones are for dogs.”

Women and men alike need to realize that shaming one group of people to uplift another will not inspire everyone to feel comfortable in their own skin, but will only cause a backlash of insults.

Though there is a decent number of people who intentionally make these comments to insult others, some people make remarks without even realizing the impact they have.

Telling a thin girl to “eat a cheeseburger” is the equivalent of telling an overweight girl that she should lose weight, which in either case is offensive and unnecessary.

While these comments may seem trivial to some people, they really do have a large impact on women, especially younger teens.
The National Eating Disorders website states that “40-60 percent of elementary school girls (ages 6-12) are concerned about their weight.”

Even at such an early age, girls are susceptible to the opinions that their bodies aren’t good enough. Eating disorders are also becoming more and more prevalent every single year.

Using the label of “body positivity” to uplift one body type while degrading another is petty, insulting, and it is setting a horrible example for younger girls.

Self-love is the standard that we as a society should be pushing for.