7 Accidental Ways You Could Be Body-Shaming Someone And How To Fix It

Model and actress Tia Mowry has recently been scrutinized on Instagram for her weight.

Her followers were questioning her, asking whether she was pregnant because she had put on a few pounds.

She replied through HuffPost and said the rumors were inaccurate.

"I'm just enjoying life," she said. "We are living in a society that is so obsessed with being perfect. Why can't we just be us, you know?"

You go, Tia.

Mowry stated she gained 10 to 15 pounds because of her cooking show, "Tia Mowry At Home," and she's perfectly happy with it. 

Shouldn't her followers be commenting on her success and happiness, rather than questioning a pregnancy?

This type of body-shaming occurs so often, especially on social media.

We forget how sensitive the topic is, and how much it can hurt another person.

Unfortunately, we live in a culture obsessed with the size of our bodies. It's actually sort of sick.

We spend so much time commenting on the amount of space our (and other people's) bodies take up, that we forget about some of the awesome things these people are actually accomplishing.

Below are some ways we body-shame without even knowing it:

1. "Ugh, I feel so fat today."

I am guilty of saying this a lot.

We often associate other insecurities such as low motivation, fatigue or other personal problems by saying we feel fat.

Fat is not a feeling. By connecting a bad feeling with "feeling" fat, we are once again saying being fat is, in fact, bad.

2. "You look fantastic!" (This is usually said after someone has lost weight.)

This is implying the person looks good now. He or she didn't look good when he or she was X amount of pounds heavier.

Once again, we are implying weight and attractiveness are in an inverse relationship.

3. "Wow, you are so confident for wearing that. I could never pull that dress off."

Despite sounding like a sincere compliment, this just makes the person wearing the dress question his or her entire look.

Just tell the person he or she looks great, and stop pushing your own insecurities onto him or her.

4. "You don't look fat. You look gorgeous."

Well, guess what? These two are not opposites.

You can be fat and gorgeous or skinny and gorgeous. You can be purple and gorgeous.

They are not, and will never be, mutually exclusive concepts.

5. "God, how on earth are you so skinny? Don't you eat?"

We have absolutely no idea what is going on behind someone's weight, and this comment could possibly be pushing an eating disorder into a dangerous state.

Or maybe this particular person has tried to gain weight for years, and is super insecure.

We don't know, so we should keep our mouths shut.

6. "I am so jealous of your curves. You must have boys constantly fawning over you."

Personally, I have been endowed with a busty chest, so I am constantly getting comments like this.

Stop.

Bodies are not prizes for the opposite sex. Stop making people feel like they are nothing more than things to lust over.

7. "All bodies are beautiful." (This is said after glancing at the overweight people in the room.)

Stop making this a trendy slogan and start believing it.

This phrase isn't just used for one particular group of people. It's for all people.

These days, we have the Victoria's Secret campaign and the Dove Campaign.

We are separating one type of body from another.

But we are not creating a culture of acceptance for all kinds of bodies.