by Lisa Beach

Created on: December 10, 2009   Last Updated: December 12, 2009

The main, [and overriding reason] for one not liking his/her appearance, is pressure from society to be beautiful in everyway. There are so many ways society pressures us as humans, it’s no wonder fat individuals don’t like how they look.

One can say it’s his/her own fault for getting fat, but that starts with being over fed as a child, and a total lack of exercise, add being laughed at where the person can hear, and a dash of guilt, and the fat person goes home and eats more. All of the criticizing spirals out of control. The more out of control it gets, the worse the fat person’s idea of him/herself – the worse his/her esteem becomes.

For good examples of pressure, there are Barbie dolls, Star Wars dolls, and various video games. There was a time when Barbie was just a doll little girls played with, changing her outfits and dreaming of G.I Joe. Nowadays, there are actually those who compare how she would look in real life.

For Star Wars, Luke Skywalker originally was just a doll in the star war outfit – now, decades later he’s “ripped” with a “six-pack” pressuring little boys from very young ages to think he looks normal. And as for warrior-type video games that boys love these days, they are also barraged with an ideal of the perfect, muscle – rippling machine. Subconsciously, the teenager gets the idea driven home that severe masculinity is the perfect image.

Not being able to live up to such perfection is the seed of a child’s lowering self-esteem. Low self esteem is THE reason fat people hate the way they look.

The next step toward disliking one’s appearance is what I call “family back biters”. This type criticism often comes from Mom, as she most likely went through the same thing with her mom. I know ladies who start conversations with their daughters, “Honey, you know I would never criticize you, but –”

[Personally, I felt like the shrinking girl “Alice” in the story “Alice in Wonderland”.]

The Doubly Whammy comes next: being bullied at school. Parents think of hair pulling and other innocent pranks, but they couldn’t be more wrong. Kids get raw eggs thrown at them, their heads pushed in toilets, their stuff stolen, and ruined. They get beat up, and the girls called sluts. Guys start rumors about your daughter sleeping around, and others believe it. What friends she had ditch her so as not to be called a slut

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