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YOUTH ARE AWESOME

Youth Are Awesome, commonly referred to as YAA, is a blog written by youth for youth. YAA provides the youth of Calgary a place to amplify their voices and perspectives on what is happening around them. Youth Are Awesome is a program of Youth Central.

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HomeEntertainmentFat Shaming video?

Fat Shaming video?

There was a video posted by a YouTuber named Nicole Arbour that has received over 17 million hits and a lot of controversy since being posted. The video is titled “Dear Fat People”, already it is obvious that Arbour is addressing a very sensitive concept that goes around and around constantly on social media because of something called body shaming. The video has since then had video responses by popular YouTuber Grace Helbig and TLC star Whitney Thore.

The word fat has always had a negative connotation associated with it, although I have since heard a different opinion stating that it is just a word, an adjective describing a person. I have met people who refer to themselves as fat because that is what they are and it doesn’t have to be a negative word. At the same time though, the word can hold a lot of heavy emotional stress and offense which is completely understandable especially with women and the unrealistic standards surrounding people today. Body shaming can happen whether you are overweight or skinny or were in an accident or were born with a disease or disability. Body shaming is a huge issue that can lead to depression and just so much emotional trauma.

All this being said, Nicole Arbour has a point behind all of the offense associated with the video; she is saying that all these things were brought onto themselves. Which could be true in certain situations. The health issues and the depression would possibly go away if people exercised regularly and ate healthy but she is being insensitive. It is just not that easy. It is not easy to stop being lazy and enjoying your life because food is great and a lot of people are healthy but they aren’t necessarily happy either. There are genetics and there are conditions that people are born with. All of this shouldn’t concern anyone because it is not your life and you don’t know what is going on with their health or how they feel. Everyone is just trying to get by in this world and maybe they are happy just how they are living.

Nothing is going to change unless you do something about it. So if you are unhappy with your weight or your health is compromised because you do not have a healthy lifestyle, if you have complete control over this then yes, you can change it because we want you to be happy and love yourself. If you already love yourself, then don’t change, because you just do you. This is a completely personal issue that should not be addressed in this way. Be funny without being mean or else you aren’t really funny. Everyone is aware of who they are and what they want and it is up to them to find out what makes them happy.

Grace Helbig was one of the many people who addressed the video and made a response, if Grace Helbig thinks something is not okay, then it’s not.

We are all human, we are all the same. Do not make someone feel bad about anything, you do you. You do you in a way that doesn’t compromise your well being. Life is this extremely unexpected and hard thing that we can’t understand and everyone is just trying to be happy in their own way, so the way Nicole presented this opinion was inappropriate, crude and insensitive.

The opinions expressed are my own.

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