OPINION:
Ariana Grande has had to ask followers to stop body shaming her. Maybe it is my fault for being naive but I had hoped that, by 2023, we would have realised that there is a time and a place to comment on someone’s body — with that time being
Zeitgeist: Ariana Grande’s message to body shamers, and what a healthy body really looks like
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Singer Ariana Grande says don't comment on people’s bodies. Ever. Photo / Getty Images
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Grande addressed comments she has been receiving about her body because it would seem it is utterly impossible for a woman to simply exist in this world without someone, somewhere, having a say on what they look like.
She began by saying she wanted to talk about “what it means to be a person with a body and to be seen and to be paid such close attention to”.
“I think we should be gentler and less comfortable commenting on people’s bodies, no matter what,” she said. “If you think you’re saying something good or well-intentioned, whatever it is — healthy, unhealthy, big, small, this, that, sexy, not sexy.”
She continued by sharing that the body that people seem to consider to be her at her healthiest is far from that.
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“There are many different ways to look healthy and beautiful. And personally, for me, the body that you’ve been comparing my current body to was the unhealthiest version of my body,” she expressed.
“I was on a lot of antidepressants and drinking on them and eating poorly and at the lowest point of my life when I looked the way you consider my ‘healthy’,” she said. “But that in fact wasn’t my healthy. I know I shouldn’t have to explain that, but I do feel like having an openness and some sort of vulnerability... something good might come from it.
“Healthy can look different,” Grande wisely added.
She also pointed out that even the most well-meaning comment can have pretty negative consequences.
“The second thing is, you never know what someone is going through, so even if you’re coming from a loving place or a caring place, that person probably is working on it or has a support system that they’re working on it with. You never know, so be gentle with each other and yourselves,” Grande said.
What does a healthy body even look like?
What Grande is reminding us in the video is that when she looked like what people commonly think of as “healthy”, she was far from it.
The thing to remember about healthy bodies is that there is not just one way to look healthy and that the way someone looks gives us approximately zero indication of how healthy they are.
Ariana Grande is not the only woman to be the target of body shaming on a regular basis. Most celebrities are, at any given point, and you don’t even need to be a famous woman to have people giving you unsolicited opinions on your looks. To be the target of criticism, a woman simply needs to exist.
We criticise celebrities for getting fillers and plastic surgery but we also criticise celebrities when they don’t. A couple of weeks ago, Justine Bateman - remember her, Mallory from Family Ties? - told current affairs show 60 Minutes she found numerous comments online from people discussing how “old” she looks because she dared to... age? We slam people for putting on weight, we slam people for losing “too much” weight. We judge them for ageing naturally, we judge them for disguising their age. We judge them for wearing too little, for wearing too much, for putting too much makeup on, for not wearing any makeup at all.
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At the risk of sounding like a weight-loss scam bot, I am offering you The One Simple Trick to make sure you don’t become a body shamer: do not comment on people’s bodies. Ever. Yes, it really is that simple. Every time you feel the need to comment on how someone looks, simply log off, go outside, touch some grass and remember that shutting up is always an option.
