Transcriber: Siddharth Gupta Reviewer: Chryssa Rapessi
It was my first day at my new school.
I was excited to start grade three, and I wanted to make tons of new friends.
I remember entering the classroom all excited,
and I picked the front seat to sit on.
Soon after, class started, and nobody noticed me.
I mean, I wanted people to come up to me and ask me to be friends,
but none of that happened.
Sometime later, I was casually writing notes when I heard a guy say,
“Hey, you giant at the front. Move your head.
I can’t see the board because of you.”
I felt a lump form in my throat, and I wanted to cry,
not just because I got called a giant.
It was because I found it extremely embarrassing.
Sometime later, at lunch, in fact,
I heard some girls from my class whispering about me
and trust me, you did not want to hear it.
They were talking about how fat I was and how I looked like a baby elephant.
Do I look like elephant? Do I have big ears or a trunk?
It’s like that one sentence
that was said to me years ago is still stuck in my head.
I’m still insecure about it, and they still say to me.
They go, “Aren’t you too tall to be a seventh grader?”
Before coming on stage, I was nervous,
and I’m pretty sure all the TED speakers and the people in the audience
have been in some sort of situation where they had to go on stage.
Now, people worry about messing up.
But what I worry more about is what will people think of my body?
Will they judge me?
Do you see the impact body shaming has on me?
I am scared to do the smallest things just because
I think people will judge me and it affects me still now.
Right now, I'm nervous.
And it's not just my problem.
A lot of people who have been body shamed,
it affected them.
Now, have you ever been body shamed?
Hmm. Maybe.
And it probably affected you as well.
Now, everyone has some insecurities, right?
They can be insecure about their shoulders.
They can be insecure about their hair, their arms, their legs,
their social status, their IQ.
They can be insecure about anything
and being a human being, it’s natural.
It’s completely fine, but when people say it to you in public or in private,
you feel hurt and angry.
You start hating your own body.
And often times compare yourself to others.
Now, when I got body-shamed,
I believe that it distorted my interaction with others.
I avoided birthday parties that I was invited to
because I thought people would make fun of me.
Some psychiatrists also say that there isn’t only depression,
there’s depression, anxiety, insomnia,
a whole lot of things that happen because of body shaming.
And me, I fell into depression when I got body shamed
because I had no friends,
because I didn’t want friends.
Now, well, some people also gave up on their dreams because of body shaming.
I had this friend who wanted to be a dancer,
but someone from her school made fun of her body.
They told her she was too fat to dance.
After that, she gave up on dancing and now is just a student with no dreams.
It tore my heart to pieces.
I had to see my friend fall into depression,
and my friend wasn't the only one.
I’m sure that there are a lot of people who gave up on their dreams
just because they got judged
and then their confidence just crumbled, gone.
Nowadays, social media has taken body shaming to a new level.
Teens spend their time scrolling through apps
like Instagram, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Twitter
and there they’re exposed to videos and pictures of models
who have features that are considered features in an ideal body.
They compare themselves and the other around them to those models
and start hating their body.
Do you see how bad body shaming is?
It’s bad, bad, bad.
But the question is, how can we unbody shaming?
So firstly, whether it’s called body shaming, skinny shaming, fat shaming,
we have to make one thing clear.
Nobody should be judged or taunted because of the way they look.
You are you and you are unique. You are beautiful.
Now, we have one body.
We shall love it. Take care of it.
Other people will always have something to say,
but we can't go around and please everyone, can we?
Parents and teachers also have an important role to play here.
If they see someone getting body shamed,
they should protect them and the guilty person has to be punished.
And lastly, learn to love yourself.
Loving yourself will give you self-worth, self-love.
You will feel more positive.
You will feel more satisfied with your life.
And you will feel like you are the main character in your life,
and you should feel like that, make yourself feel special.
You are unique. You’re beautiful.
Body shaming is a big problem in today’s society
and will be worse if you don’t end it.
If people learn to accept everyone,
the world would be a much better place.
But on the similar side,
I have an advice for all the victims of body shaming.
You have to prove the critics wrong, and you have two options.
One is by either developing or improving your body physically,
which is a very lengthy process and may take many months.
The other option you have is to develop your personality in such a way
that your weakness becomes your strength.
Remember that with criticism comes innovation,
and with innovation comes evolution.
You should make your good traits your best thing in yourself.
Don't be ashamed of how someone else sees you.
Be proud of who you are and thankful for what you have, not what you don’t.
But all of this help me a lot, and I got over the menace of body shaming.
And I hope you do too. Thank you.
(Applause)