February 26, 2014
Nicole Richie Body Shaming or Concern?
In a MailOnline article, rail thin Nicole Richie is spotted running errands just weeks after denying claims from Star magazine about her fad diet and anorexia.
I’m definitely not a fan of body shaming, I think it does go both ways, and it’s not just larger women that get body shamed. I know a lot of skinny people that are naturally underweight, no matter how much they eat, and I don’t think they should be scorned or held to a specific standard.
Ok, I’m not going to lie, I really don’t care about Nicole Richie, but what’s interesting about this article, is that it calls into question the line between body shaming and actual concern for an eating disorder.
What is the appropriate way to broach the subject about eating disorders? I don’t think the answer is to comment on messaging boards over whether or not Nicole Richie needs to eat a sandwich.
If it was a friend of mine though? That I had noticed getting skinnier than a healthy amount? Where do we draw the line between body shaming and concern? And I don’t mean concern trolling – those awful commenters who judge some celebrities’ appearance under the guise of well-meaning. I mean honest-to-goodness concern about someone who might be dealing with this mental illness, because yes, anorexia IS a mental illness.
I know, I just took trashy gossip mags to a whole (unnecessary) deeper level, but with more and more body image stories about celebrities popping up, it is hard to know at what point you can acceptably express concern without it becoming body-shaming.
I’m definitely not a fan of body shaming, I think it does go both ways, and it’s not just larger women that get body shamed. I know a lot of skinny people that are naturally underweight, no matter how much they eat, and I don’t think they should be scorned or held to a specific standard.
Ok, I’m not going to lie, I really don’t care about Nicole Richie, but what’s interesting about this article, is that it calls into question the line between body shaming and actual concern for an eating disorder.
What is the appropriate way to broach the subject about eating disorders? I don’t think the answer is to comment on messaging boards over whether or not Nicole Richie needs to eat a sandwich.
If it was a friend of mine though? That I had noticed getting skinnier than a healthy amount? Where do we draw the line between body shaming and concern? And I don’t mean concern trolling – those awful commenters who judge some celebrities’ appearance under the guise of well-meaning. I mean honest-to-goodness concern about someone who might be dealing with this mental illness, because yes, anorexia IS a mental illness.
I know, I just took trashy gossip mags to a whole (unnecessary) deeper level, but with more and more body image stories about celebrities popping up, it is hard to know at what point you can acceptably express concern without it becoming body-shaming.