Body proud - FAT SHAMING gets the boot

As an online petition makes Facebook drop its `feeling fat' emoticon, Times Life traces the steady movement across the world to accept greater body diversity.
The social media went abuzz last October as actress Sonakshi Sinha, livid with all the jokes about her weight on Twitter, took the fight to the trolls, and almost literally, showed them the middle finger.Posting a picture of a skeleton on her Instagram account (picture right), she wrote: “To all those who keep commenting on my weight, whether it's a full picture, or a close up where you can't see jack, take a good look at this picture...
Now get this: 1) This ain't ever gonna be me. 2) Get over it. 3) I wish you could see which finger I hold up for shallow and idiotic people like yourself.“
FAT JERKS SHAMED!
It isn't just her. World over, people are shunning the unnatural body image set by the media and the glamour industry. This year, Sports Illustrated, known for its bikini-clad models -never above size 4 -has taken models sized up to size 16, like Ashley Graham; looking stunning in a black bikini. Pirelli, famed for its nudes, all over the world, this time, chose women of different nationalities, ages and sizes for its calendar. Candice Huffin, size 16, who featured in the calendar, said to a magazine: “The idea of my size or weight never came up in the casting process or even the thought process.“
Facebook recently dropped its emoticon labelled `feeling fat' after being pressurised by Change.Org's petition which received 16,000 sig natures. Catherine Weingarten, a playwright, who started it along with Endangered Bodies, a group campaigning against negative body image, established that “fat is not a feeling“.
The movement for greater size diversity is gaining momentum every day (see box, top right). Says ad guru Prahlad Kakkar, “Fat people are also consumer targets and the market doesn't want to antagonise those who have curves. So, you now see an entire parallel industry trying to make them feel good about them selves and say, everyone doesn't need to be one size. The message here is: body diversity is acceptable and welcome.“
Blogger and mediaperson Aparna Mudi has been fighting weight diversity acceptance for a long time.
“I've transformed from being someone very self-conscious to someone who fell in love with her self. My friends refused to pander to my self pity and made sure I was dressing up for myself. For me, fat is sexy. A big reason for that thought is that attitude makes a lot of difference to appeal.“ But in a world where body image and self worth is dependent on flawless women who tease us through the glossies and TV, it's hard not to fall into the “I'm not good enough“ trap.
Designer Rakesh Agarwal explains why it's time to buck the trend, “Body ideals were invented by manufacturers who went for bulk production, and worshipped bodies that suited bulk factory production. If all women were of sizes as manufactured in the industrial age, it turned into profits. So they started to propagate the myth of an `ideal' size for women.“
CONFIDENT CURVES
The recently-released film, Dum Laga Ke Haisha, shows a Bollywood heroine, Bhumi Pednekar, as an overweight housewife who doesn't believe nothing is outside her reach just because she isn't the `ideal' form of beauty. Things are changing. Recently, more than 22,000 people signed a petition for Disney to make its next princess character plus-sized.
A huge number of artists, photographers and models are celebrating curves as the new body shape. In her dance work, Nothing to Lose, artiste Kate Champion collaborates with filmmaker and an activist against fat shaming, Kelli Jean Drinkwater, to celebrate large physical forms in a dance performance. Debuting at the 2015 Sydney Festival, this dance theatre challenges the perception of a dancer's body. The participants were not taut and trim but fat and overweight. Says Kate, “Fat is a powerful little word, full of baggage and judgment. I wanted to narrate stories to challenge aesthetic norms and reclaim space for people with large bodies. I want to strip away the judgment around fat bodies.“
Georgina Grogan is just one of the plus size beauty bloggers among many, and also an activist against fat shaming. The motto of these bloggers is to show people around the world that fashion isn't the prerogative of slim people. Even as multinational brands play the politically correct card by storing plus-size clothing but keeping it hidden at some corner, these bloggers are showing ways to dress and look fabulous with weight and flab on you. “I'm fat, I don't see that as a bad thing. Everyone has fat, I just have more of it,“ says Grogan.
THE US ARMY AND INTERNET TAKE A STRONG STAND AGAINST FAT BULLIES
The US Army General Martin Dempsey announced two weeks ago that military will end fat shaming and embrace “its full-bodied warriors“. He said to the media: “The armed forces run on hateful traditions, but it's time we joined with America, which we all know `Runs on Dunkin!'“ Last month, the internet took the fight against fat shaming to the bullies in a tit-for-tat move. As a picture of an overweight man, who was laughed at when he danced at a party, went viral, people from all over the world came to support him and turned the tables on the fat shaming bully. An LA writer, Cassandra Fairbanks, launched an online campaign to find the man in the photo, to invite him at a dance party with 1,727 women who agreed to come to cheer him up! Sean, as he is called, was found in the UK, and he accepted the invitation.