Body shaming is the action of expressing humiliation about another individual’s body shape or size which can result in severe emotional trauma, especially at a young age. Body shaming is serious and gives huge negative effects on the physical and mental health of a person. This study aims to investigate the effects of body shaming on individuals in society. This study employed a quantitative method where a set of questionnaires regarding body shaming was distributed to members of the public randomly through social media. A total of 101 respondents responded to the questionnaire and it was further analysed by using SPSS software to find mean and standard deviation values. The findings show that respondents agreed that being fat, being skinny, and having bodyweight that is not in harmony with their height are the reasons why people body-shamed others. The findings further revealed that people felt distressed when others talked about their appearance. Many respondents also expressed that they are being treated differently and feel uneasy or embarrassed in public situations where other people are concentrating on their appearance. The results also showed self-compassion helps to cope with body shame by having more respect for themselves and feeling self-conscious about their appearance to be more confident with themselves. It is recommended to create awareness through social media on how body shaming affects an individual and ways to cope with being body-shamed by having more respect for themselves and feeling self-conscious about self- appearance. Therefore, future research needs to spread awareness to the public so that people will stop body shaming because it is very dangerous and could affect mental and physical health.
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In-Text Citation: (Arumugam et al., 2022)
To Cite this Article: Arumugam, N., Manap, M. R., Mello, G. De, & Dharinee, S. (2022). Body Shaming: Ramifications on an Individual. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 12(4), 1010–1021.
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