When I was a freshman in high school, I was so excited to go to my first homecoming dance. I bought a new dress and spent hours getting ready, but when I called my best friend to confirm our group’s dinner plans, she decided not to go.

She explained she didn’t want everybody to make fun of her because she was overweight and had a tight dress. She had been made fun of her whole life and was so insecure she became reclusive.

Body shaming is harmful, and because our culture puts so much emphasis on physical beauty, more people are falling a victim to it every day. Saying things such as “real women have curves” and “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” have become popular on social media sites and make body shaming more prominent. These seemingly positive messages are as harmful as outright bullying.

People want to be accepted, so they use these movements as means of building their own confidence, but in doing so, they are hypocritically bashing others for the same thing they are insecure about.

Putting down on someone else because of their weight does not always encourage them to make positive changes. In fact, people often cling to their habits even more, sometimes leading to eating disorders. The University College of London did a study of nearly 3,000 adults in which people were asked if they were ever discriminated against due to their weight. After four years, the people who were discriminated against gained an average of 2 lbs, whereas people who were not lost an average of 1.5 lbs. People become too insecure to change their old habits. Many are embarrassed to go to the gym in fear that someone will make a rude comment.

Body shaming does not discriminate among weight class, and many people experience it throughout their lifetime. The confidence boost that would arise if this stopped would be tremendous. People feeling accepted as they are without having to starve or binge to fit in would become functional members of society again, and the world would be better for it.

Body shaming is wrong and has countless effects on the person both physically and emotionally. It not only affects the person experiencing it, but it strains the relationships around them. Body shaming is a problem often over-looked and needs to be controlled.