If you haven't been keeping up, in the past two weeks Jason Momoa, Nick Jonas, and now Noah Centineo have been publicly body-shamed on Instagram and other various social media platforms.
The otherwise fit and healthy individuals are being told to stop letting themselves go, to hit the gym, and various other unnecessary comments after posting topless pictures.
It started with a photograph of the "Aquaman" star that went viral when he was pictured in a swimming pool in Venice, where a debate sparked among social media users criticizing the way he looked in the picture and comparing it to his physique in his previous films. Specifically, users pointed out that he doesn't "have abs anymore" and was sporting a "dad bod".
Although Momoa released a statement to TMZ claiming that he was not offended by what was said, jokingly adding that he'll "show TMZ my dad bod later", the point remains that it is never okay to go online and blast your opinion about what another person's body looks like.
Please remember that in order to have the washboard abs that the media is so obsessed with, you need to have very low body fat (around 7%). Additionally, you need to be on a strict diet and stay extremely dehydrated in order for your abs to be displayed like that. This is because muscles naturally need a layer of body fat to cover them. What you see in movies and TV is almost never real and are evidence of an unhealthy lifestyle. The pictures that are currently being body-shamed is how a person is naturally supposed to look, in fact, it's a much healthier version.
But now that we've got that out of the way, let's discuss why it is never okay to body-shame someone. In 2019 you would think we would already know why, but it's become increasingly apparent that that is not the case.
I'm sure most celebrities knew what they were getting into by putting their lives on constant display. I'm sure they knew it would come with negativity and that being subjected to the public eye meant they were going to be photographed 24/7, but criticizing a person's otherwise healthy body just because it doesn't completely adhere to our impossible and unrealistic body standards just seem insane and absurd at this point. If anyone came up to you and told that you needed to lose weight, gain weight, put in some more effort into how you look, etc. you would be pretty upset, if not completely devastated.
But most of the time we aren't saying it to people's faces anymore. Instead, we're saying it to random people we don't even know or will ever know as we hide behind a phone screen.
How would you feel if you posted a picture on Instagram and had thousands of people commenting that you needed to lose weight or start hitting the gym? I can't imagine that anybody would be fine after being subjected to that (unless, of course, you're Jason Momoa).
And even if a celebrity has gained weight, why do you think that it is your job to inform them? Why do you see it as important to share your opinion on what their body looks like? And why on earth are you shaming someone for having fluctuating weight like a normal person?
Why should anybody care what another person looks like? It is not your business and a person's weight or appearance is not a stable identity category for us to dictate an individual's worth.
If you're spending your time commenting on a photo of another person's body, I am begging you to find a better way to spend your time. There are so many better ways to pass the time that does not include being a destructive and generally horrible person.
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