By: Jay Yi

Recently, a controversial topic has popped up –fat-shaming. All this started when TikTok star, Remi Bader posted a TikTok stating that when she tried to ride at a ranch, she wasn’t allowed to because of her weight. Not only that, an employee at the ranch made a TikTok fat-shaming her.

Remi is one of many people being fat-shamed in the US. In fact, according to Dr. Hasan Merali, 40% of adults report being fat-shamed in some way. Some might think that fat-shaming doesn’t have much of an impact on the people, but studies prove the opposite is true.

Laren Vogel, from the Canadian Medical Association Journal, says that, “Studies show that exposure to weight bias triggers physiological and behavioral changes linked to poor metabolic health and increased weight gain. You actually experience a form of stress.” This means that when someone fat-shames someone else, that person is more likely to gain more weight instead of losing weight.

Ultimately, if the people who are getting fat-shamed gain more weight, they risk death. Even if they don’t die from obesity, their bodies are more prone to other illnesses. This makes fat-shaming a real threat that we need to deal with. If more and more fat-shaming comes up, this could lead to severe problems considering that every two out of five adults report being shamed.

Overall, Remi Bader getting fat-shamed is proof that adults out there like her are also getting shamed. This is important as fat-shaming can cause death or near death experiences. If we don’t take action to stop the shaming, it will become a real problem, as many people gained weight during the pandemic.

Sources: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6565398/