The Impact Of Social Media On Obese People
Obese people face widespread discrimination all over the world. From being fat-shamed to suffering outright neglect, the tribulations faced by this group are many and come in their way of leading a life of dignity. In this backdrop, the role of blogs and social media in negating societal and media-driven discourses that revolve around the vilification of obesity has assumed widening significance.
Common societal tendency has been to make fat people believe that they themselves are responsible for their obesity. By citing their purported misbehaviour and lack of willpower, among others, to be responsible for the same, the sense of grievance and exclusion faced by fat people is increased. In this regard, the medicalization of obesity, the weight loss industry and media have played an incriminating role by fomenting an environment where fatness is seen as totally undesirable. Fatosphere, an avenue opened up by the internet, has come to their rescue, though, by allowing them to reconnect on intellectual, emotional, and tangible levels through blogs and social media (Dickins et al. 803). It allows them to reach out to people who share similar concerns and encourages them to seek counsel and advice to overcome their problems. The body positivity movement is aimed at promoting self-love by shattering norms about what it means to look and feel good. It helps each person cultivate unconditional love for self irrespective of one's body image characteristics (Cywnar-Horta 38). However, the infusion of capitalist interests has led to advocates being driven by the urge to present a more eroticized version of themselves in keeping with consumption practices.
The role of these capitalist entities in driving the body positivity movement is then open to scrutiny. Bloggers have been using online platforms to permeate a discursive strategy borrowed from social justice movements that border on political marginalization. In this regard, practices such as 'coming out' employed by famous bloggers has provided them with the language necessary to challenge the might of institutions that have traditionally held sway in discourses of these kind. Other discursive strategies include delinking notions of lifestyle choice and biological and genetic construction as being causes of obesity. The Fatosphere movement has promoted debate about dominant understandings of gender in visual representation by challenging normal societal assumptions about body image. Herdon has identified new trends that look “into the way change or new phenomena in the Fatosphere movement in North America relates to the intersection of gender, race, and queer fat politics” (qtd. in Afful and Ricciardelli 469)
