If you’re body-shaming people in 2024, you need to check yourself.
While we are far from perfecting our online habits, surely body-shaming is a thing of the past in 2024?
Sadly, it’s not.
Six O’Clock Show host, Katja Mia, was, unfortunately, on the receiving end of outdated, unnecessary, and cruel body-shaming this week.
The presenter is currently participating (and killing it) on Dancing With The Stars, with one social media user taking it upon themselves to share their unsolicited opinion about the dancer’s body.
Katja, instead of engaging in a pointless conversation with the user, responded to the nasty message via her story.
“Body shaming is sooooo 2010, I thought we were done with this sh*t lol?…” she wrote on her story.
I thought we were too.
“…Especially disappointing when it comes from another woman… Marie needs to get a life,” the broadcaster adds.
Continuing to call out body-shaming on social media and in the real world is an important move in working to dismantle this kind of behaviour.
While Katja didn’t share the user’s profile, sharing the cruel message takes away the shame that ‘Marie’ clearly wanted her to feel about her body and sends a message to other trolls.
However, the user’s message does highlight another issue, a lack of representation for all bodies on TV, which the presenter also expressed concern about.
“Just shows how there is not even enough visibility of naturally curvy women on our television screens,” she wrote.
“Women like Marie are still so uncomfortable and bothered by it, like get a grip! I’m not the regular body type but I still look hot.
“And I’m gonna keep representing for the curvy girlies.”
As the saying goes, ‘If you can’t see her, you can’t be her’ and it goes without saying that we absolutely need more Katja’s on our screens and in our lives.
Young girls reading the presenter’s story this week are more likely to absorb her message, rather than ‘Marie’s’, which is key in preventing body image issues, promoting inclusivity, and building confidence.
It would have been easy for the DWTS contestant to ignore or delete the message and carry on with her life, she didn’t owe it to anyone to share the nonsensical musings of a troll.
This action, however, may stop the next body-shamer in their tracks before hitting ‘send’ on a vicious message, which is positive, even if it is only out of fear of being exposed in front of thousands of social media users.
The additional benefits that come from calling out this behaviour are that Katja later revealed that she had received an influx of beautiful and kind messages from followers after sharing the post of the verbal attack.
Despite the pain that ‘Marie’s’ DM could have or did cause, support has been flowing into the dancer’s inbox.
“I haven’t gone through all the lovely dm’s yet but wanted to say thank you to everyone that sent encouraging and lovely messages to me,” she wrote on her story.
Sadly, the broadcaster admitted that she is ‘immune to body shaming/hate’, but thanked those who reached out with love.
“When you deep it, it’s never nice to see nasty sh*t written about you. So thank you guys for the love, love uuu.”
We love you, Katja, you beautiful, powerful, and amazing woman!
‘Marie’, we hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson!
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