Why Being Overweight Can Raise Self-Esteem Issues

Self-esteem is important because it is how you feel about yourself that affects your well-being and the ways in which you interact with other people. Unfortunately, your self-esteem can take a battering when you’re overweight because there are many people who believe that being overweight makes you a target for abuse. If you were overweight as a child, the bullying and taunts often start from there, and so you grow up not liking the way you look and obsessing about your weight. It doesn’t stop when you grow up, either, though, and so you continue to be negative about yourself.


Being bullied as a child
With a significant proportion of the population considered to be overweight or obese, being fat is apparently becoming normalised. However, it is easy to dispute this assertion when so many overweight children suffer at the hands of bullies. Children have a tendency to gang up on anyone who is perceived to have a ‘weakness’, as it stops them from being bullied. There is no consideration of how overweight children actually feel inside or the implications of such abuse for individuals’ self-esteem as they get older.

Living in a fat-phobic society
Obesity is one of the most pressing public health issues throughout the developed world and so media coverage of the issue of obesity and of obese individuals tends to be negative. On the one hand, fat people are portrayed as posing a threat to society because they are costing the economy billions, while on the other hand they are generally seen as figures of fun, often being poked fun at because of their weight. When you’re overweight and confronted with the idea that obesity is completely bad, it’s no wonder if your self-esteem suffers and you become even more self-critical.

Images of impossibly thin people
Alongside the negative associations with obesity, overweight individuals have to contend with attractive, slim individuals on their television screens and in magazines. Every inch a model or actor gains or loses is documented and ordinary men and women find themselves comparing their bodies to those of individuals who are paid to keep in shape and look good. They beat themselves up for failing to be perfect, even though there is no such thing and, unsurprisingly, their constant exposure to such images does their self-esteem no favours.

Conclusion
It is evident that being overweight can definitely raise self-esteem issues for people when this is a society that is preoccupied with the issue of weight. Unfortunately, when you suffer from low self-esteem it seems to make tackling your weight even harder to do because you don’t believe in yourself enough to bother trying to do anything about it.