Women Want Facebook to Stop Asking If They’re Feeling Fat

http://www.takepart.com/article/2015/02/26/women-want-facebook-stop-asking-if-theyre-feeling-fat?cmpid=tpdaily-eml-2015-02-26

If you’re one of Facebook's 1.35 billion monthly users, the question is probably a familiar one. But did you know that the social media giant also offers you a preprogrammed option to tell your friends and family on the platform that you’re “feeling fat” or “feeling ugly”? Now it’s coming under fire, thanks to a petition from two U.K. residents and the body positivity movement they’re affiliated with.

On Monday, two activists from Brighton, England, 22-year-old Charlotte and 21-year-old Vicky, launched a petition on Change.org that asks Facebook to “Remove the body-shaming ‘I Feel Fat’ & ‘I Feel Ugly’ status options and emoticons from all versions of Facebook.” The duo created the petition along with Endangered Bodies, a global movement of women who are challenging “the current toxic culture that promotes negative body image.”



Having “feeling fat” and “feeling ugly” as status update choices “promotes and supports the endless torrent of judgment and pressure to be perfect felt by young people across the world,” wrote Charlotte and Vicky on the petition. “We do enough comparing as it is, we don’t need a status update to make it even easier to feel bad about ourselves.”

Many users of Facebook simply type in a status update without taking advantage of all the buttons at the bottom of the input box. However, if you click on the smiling emoticon icon, the platform gives you the option to “add what you’re doing or feeling.” Most of the choices seem harmless—you can say you’re excited, sad, annoyed, even hungover. The emoticon’s face changes to reflect the emotion you choose.

The emoticon for “feeling fat” doesn’t look too happy, and it has a double chin. Meanwhile, the emoticon for “feeling ugly” seems to indicate that having a big nose, thick eyebrows, a mustache, and wearing glasses is unattractive.