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The Orion

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The Orion

Chico State's independent student newspaper

The Orion

Weight stigma favors the curvy

Illustration by Rachel Dugo
Illustration by Rachel Dugo

“Wow, you’ve gotten so skinny, do you even eat?”

It’s comments like these that make me wonder why bigger girls think it’s not offensive to critique others’ bodies.

Since my first year, I’ve lost 30 pounds. Don’t get me wrong, it’s awesome getting compliments about how good I look, but I’ll still get the occasional negative comments about looking too skinny.

Unfortunately for me, my weight loss is accompanied by a lot of pain from not being able to keep certain foods down. When I had my gallbladder surgery, I figured I would lose some weight. However, it turned out to be much more than that. I had to completely eliminate anything fatty or sugary – aka the good stuff – out of my diet.

Many girls dream of having that perfect, toned, fit body. When they don’t, they’ll usually resort to belittling others to make themselves feel better. I can admit that when I was bigger, I always wanted to be that skinny girl and found myself feeling jealous of these girls for no reason.

Now that I’m losing weight without having much control over it, I realize that just because one may think someone looks perfect, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they feel good about it.

It’s easy to see how women get caught up in hating on smaller girls, especially when popular songs like “Anaconda” by Nicki Minaj repeatedly bash on “skinny bitches.” I actually find this ironic considering the fact that her curvaceous assets, which people praise, are completely fake.

Let’s be real, if I tried to shake my tiny butt like Nicki does in her music videos, I would instantly get ridiculed.

Even songs like “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor, which are meant to be inspiring toward women of different sizes, completely disregard an entire demographic of girls who don’t fall under the category of a plastic barbie doll.

Whether it’s hate or jealousy, the fact that this separation exists within women is ridiculous. Young women know all about the pressures of body image. They should accept one another rather than judge without really knowing anything.

Veronica De La Cruz can be reached at [email protected] or @Veronica_dlc on Twitter.

 

 

 

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