Exploration of female students’ experiences of body shaming

Abstract

Body Shaming is when the form of one’s body is criticized, either intentionally or not, it is considered a form of verbal bullying. The purpose of this study was to explore body shaming experiences of female university students. This was a qualitative study which used an interview guide to acquire data for the study, six female university students participated and these were selected through snowball sampling. The study used the three-phase procedure described by Miles and Huber-man (1994) to give meaning to the data and for organizational purposes. Interview data was transcribed and subsequently analyzed to facilitate the development of themes such as: (1) body shaming situations, (2) emotional responses, (3) negative self-talk, (4) solutions and (5) self-love. Participants revealed that they had experienced initial negative effects affecting thoughts and feelings towards oneself related to body shaming, over time the participants reported to have learnt to think positively about themselves, appreciate and love their bodies.