Body Shaming and the Work of Self-Knowledge
A personal account of being body-shamed from childhood through adulthood in Cameroon, and the slow, deliberate work of recovering confidence in one's own body. The writer argues that society's narrow beauty standards—enforced by media, advertising, and casual cruelty—damage mental health and self-worth, and calls for a shift toward celebrating bodily diversity and fitness over weight loss.
Growing up as a child in a rural area like Muyuka, life was smooth and everybody appreciated me for my wittiness at such a young age. Nobody cared that if I was too slim and tall, they cared about what I could offer and it was a beautiful feeling.
Entering my teen years, my mum's friends even strangers began commenting about how 'skinny I was and that my clavicles ( collarbone) made me look like a hunger-stricken individual.' I became more aware of how looked, so much so I sought validation from anyone and it made me vulnerable to worthless words from anyone who appreciated my looks.
My parents became aware of my change of personality and they boosted me with encouragement time after time and I became so confident in my own body, having a healthy self-esteem and self-image, and I stopped seeking for validation and concentrated more on my academics which had been suffering because I was hurting.
When I became a young adult, I had healed from the body shaming I received when I was a kid, only to receive more in my later years.
Friends told me I wasn't "curvy enough, my great toe was too big (tolambo), my buttocks were flat and unattractive". Stigma set in and as much as I tried to encourage myself, I resorted to wearing tight clothes to prove them wrong and show some curves. This didn't last for I was becoming another person in a bid to prove society wrong. I started doing surveys on ways to build self-confidence, yet void of narcissism and hate for others who may try ruining my mental health with their derogatory words.
My story is not so different from the millions of boys and girls out there, whom society's standards have robbed of their confidence and they feel like strangers in their own bodies. Some have resorted to unhealthy eating habits, excessive exercising in a bid to console their raging emotions. Like me, our advertising culture with the help of the media is breaking our confidence. They present "thin as the new healthy as well as being all curvy like Kim K, remain all youthful like Jello without giving preference to the 3 body types. This phenomenon has made celebrities like Melissa McCarthy to advocate for preference and liberty for other body types. I'm not encouraging obesity or laziness, but if we can appreciate each body type and exercise according to the physical fitness regiment pertaining to our body types, so we remain active and healthy, the world will be better.
Whatever happened to being fit?? Being fit has been forfeited for weight loss. Have you ever seen a man/ woman who loses weight and looks ugly?? This shows that their body type warrants them to be plumpy, encourage them to stay fit not to lose weight.
When I got married, I gained weight which is normal for people of my body type and I was still body shamed and asked to lose weight, for my slim self was better, horrifying was that such comments were made when I updated my profile picture on Facebook, I just smiled and educated them later on😂😂. Being in the know is beautiful, it jerks your confidence. I don't care what anyone says about my body or hairy legs, I know my worth and I'm glad to be me. Yes! beauty can be enhanced but don't bully people to it. Show them the way with love and they will follow.
Let's us stop body shaming in all it's forms before it sends more people into depression. It breaks them down and even makes them judge themselves, nothing is more painful than self-criticism and self loath. Encourage people to stay fit, active and healthy and not to lose weight except in cases where you're certain that their weight presents a problem to their health. If body shaming worked, there will be no fat people and slim people roaming our streets. God is a God of diversity, He couldn't make one shade of beautiful, let's celebrate our differences, for they're our beauty.
**Stella Bercley Eyabi is the founder of Diversity is Beauty Africa - DIBA, an online organisation, a servant leader, a journalist turned freelancer. She works to empower humanity on the importance of owning one's identity and originality, building a healthy body and self-image as well as positive self-confidence and self-esteem. You can follow the DIBA Facebook page and learn more by clicking here:https://www.facebook.com/dibbafrica/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARCiqqapr1aY5En3nvzN85J8CxKA10l3Tam3RRRWuvMzixJnmbE8oVl-xK7jBbQqTiWLMLJ0CBBhRbkB
The piece emerges from a moment of growing social media visibility in Cameroon and wider Africa, where Facebook and online platforms had become primary spaces for both connection and judgment. Body-shaming comments on profile pictures, as the writer describes, reflect the collision between traditional community scrutiny and the amplified, unfiltered commentary of digital life. It is also a moment when global beauty standards—the 'thin' and 'curvy' ideals referenced—were increasingly circulating locally, creating confusion and pressure, especially for young women.
In 2019, this was an urgent intervention in a space where body-shaming was often treated as casual banter rather than psychological harm. The writer's insistence on dignity—on being 'in the know' about one's own worth—speaks directly to the mental health crisis underlying aesthetic conformity. It remains resonant because the premise has only deepened: social media has only multiplied the platforms for judgment, and the psychological toll of body-monitoring has become undeniable. The call to celebrate diversity rather than police bodies is not new, but its grounding in lived Cameroonian experience, and its refusal of both shame and narcissism, gives it quiet moral force.