Opinion: Stop the fat-shaming
If you haven’t already seen the video on YouTube or heard about it on Twitter, comedian Nicole Arbour published a video last Thursday titled “Dear Fat People.”
The video Arbour claims to be satire, is actually just six minutes of her shaming a specific group of people. It wasn’t satire. It wasn’t even a cruel joke. It just wasn’t funny at all.
“Fat-shaming is not a thing,” she said. “Fat people made that up.” She went on to say there is no such thing as a “fat card,” all while offending other commonly discriminated groups.
“There’s a race card,” she said. “There is a disability card. There’s even a gay card, because gay people are discriminated against, wrongfully so. The gay card is covered in glitter.”
Now, as a journalist, I’m all for free speech and think all people have the right to voice their opinion regardless of what they have to say.
But as a human being, I think content like this should never be created or published.
Arbour is correct: We do have a weight issue in this country. Nearly two-thirds of the adult population is overweight or obese.
But Arbour’s “truth bomb” isn’t going to fix the problem. In fact, it probably makes things worse.
Her words affect more than just a small subset of the population. It serves as a trigger for anyone who has any sort of body image issues.
A study done by the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders, found 25 percent of college-aged women use binging and purging as a method for weight loss, 58 percent felt pressure to be a certain weight, and of the 83 percent that dieted for weight loss, 44 percent were of normal weight.
Videos like Arbour’s, can be the reason someone hates themselves or fears leaving their house because they feel ashamed to be in public. So why does she refuse to admit posting the video was the wrong decision?
In a response video, Arbour said everyone is overreacting. To her, she did nothing wrong. She just said what everyone else was thinking.
However, after reading the comments section, it doesn’t appear people agree with her. I agree with them. Arbour was in the wrong. She was being a bully and camouflaging it as comedy.
Contact Hannah Armenta at [email protected].