Making fun of people because of their weight is, sadly, a common common occurrence in today’s world. If you happen to be obese or overweight you may find yourself shying away at fat jokes or comment about size. Or else, you may find yourself with folks around you stigmatizing others about their weight. You can avoid a stigma about weight from having a negative impact on your life if you shield your self-esteem. If you find yourself stigmatizing others about their weight issues, its high time that you stop and promote acceptance of all sizes if you want to help them.
Be aware of your feelings
Don’t try making yourself feel good by thinking that your weight doesn’t worry you at all. In fact, you will only make yourself feel worse. One of the most successful steps in avoiding weight stigma is to accept how some comments, opinions and images make you feel. Focus deeply on what emotions you feel when you undergo weight stigma. For instance, do you feel embarrassed, hurt, sad or angry? Note down what precisely made you feel that way. Was it assumptions beneath the commentaries? Or, maybe who made it?
Stand up for yourself
You don’t have to get yourself in a fight if someone is making fun about your weight. You should stand up for yourself, which is an excellent move to take. Letting them know that their jokes, actions and comments don’t bother you will stop them from doing it in the future. You might say something like, “I didn’t like your remark about overweight guys. I’m not the weight you think I should be, but I’m happy with myself.”
Keep a journal
If you define your feeling in some way, it can affect you. You can, however, avoid weight stigma by keeping a journal that contains how you feel instead of letting your feelings pile up inside you. Jot down how you feel about negative situations. For example, you might write about how a joke a colleague at work made about obese people hurt your feelings.
Use positive self-talk
It’s very easy for you to have negative thoughts about yourself while you’re battling with weight stigma. You may even start believing the messages that society, media, and even people close to you are giving about your weight. Fight these thoughts off by telling yourself how awesome you are. Make a list of your good qualities if you need help thinking of positive things to tell yourself.
image courtesy of: ict4dprinciples.org, divineweightlossinc.com.
