I have such a strong visceral reaction to this provocative Comment of the Day, a personal account by Joel Mundt, that I’m going to eschew my usual introduction and let you make your own judgments without any influence by me. Here it is, in reaction to “Fat-Shaming Ethics” and the lively comments it has generated so far…
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I’m going slightly off-topic, and I apologize in advance…
I’m of the opinion that shaming is, to a degree, a good thing. In my opinion, it’s a form of non-physical discipline that emphasizes embarrassment and plays on an individual’s need to be liked and to be more like the collective. It’s a way to manipulate desired behavior using something of a “group intervention.”
A perfect example of this is…well…me. As an elementary student, I had a reputation of being really smart, but also talking out-of-turn an awful lot in class, which was disruptive. My 5th-grade teacher, Mrs. Crooks, sought me out and purposely got my name on her class list. Nobody wanted her as their 5th-grade teacher…she had a terrifying reputation among younger students. I didn’t know it until years later, but she had talked to my parents ahead of time, explaining that I would be her student, and she would break me of my disruptive ways.
And she did her best! I was punished in the most imaginative ways for speaking out of turn, like being ordered to walk around classroom without making a sound for 10 minutes while she taught the other students, or playing the part of the “silent i” in front of the class when learning to spell words like “receive”. She was modestly effective…until the day of “the sign”. I was talking out of turn yet again and Mrs. Crooks told me – in front of the class – that my punishment was to write the words “I’m a big mouth” on a piece of paper, then glue it to a piece of cardboard she gave me with a string in it, then wear it around my neck…outside during our lunch recess with the entire school.
I was horrified. When class was dismissed for lunch, I stayed back and I begged and I pleaded, I cried…please don’t make me wear that sign. I promised her that I would never talk out of turn again, just please don’t make me wear it outside. And Mrs. Crooks conceded just a bit. I still had to wear the sign, but only in the classroom for the afternoon. Then she added something like, “But if I hear another peep from you without a raised hand, you’re wearing it at lunch tomorrow.”
THAT broke me. That sign broke me…and cured me. I never spoke out of turn in her class – or any other class – after that. But it took the realized shame of wearing that sign in front of my classmates, and the perceived threat of being shamed by every other student, to achieve the desired result – a child that submitted to a teacher’s authority, gave others a chance to speak, and didn’t hinder their learning.
I will remember that until the day I die. It didn’t harm me mentally. It didn’t turn me into a serial killer. It made me a better person. It made me more considerate. I became a little less self-centered that day. My narcissism was checked. Shame and embarrassment do that, and both played a pivotal role in my development that day. I walked out of my last day of 5th grade loving Mrs. Crooks. Not only was she creative in methods of shaping my behavior, she was equally creative in her learning methods.
Many of you can take my experience and explain the ins and outs of how shaming can be beneficial – the psychological things that happened to me – and happen today when shame is properly applied. You can also explain how we cripple children when we prevent them from ever being told they’re wrong in front of their friends, when we do everything possible to prevent a child from being embarrassed, scorned, or humiliated. You can highlight how this mentality has created a society that celebrates poor decision-making rather than banding together. using non-violent shaming, to stamp it out. I can’t…my brain power doesn’t allow it.
But I know that incident in 5th grade, and others like it too numerous to mention, changed my life drastically for the better and altered my trajectory.
I never went back and thanked Mrs. Crooks for that sign. I should have, and I regret not doing so. She’s long dead and gone now, but if I see her in Heaven (and I’m pretty sure she’s there…she should be sainted for putting up with the “pre-sign” version of me), it’s the first thing I intend to do.
Ethics Alarms 
Great essay. I do believe in shaming as a means to correct aberrant behaviors. Teen/unwed pregnancy was limited for years until Murphy Brown made it a badge of honor. Ostracizing smokers is another behavior that caused many to quit. With that said, sometimes it makes some entrenched. I was that way until I said I did not want to pay the taxes and allow cigarettes to age me prematurely.
I will say this however about fat shaming; be careful. Shaming an overweight person by examining his or her size alone assuming that the person is overeating or lazy is no different than suggesting all blacks are shiftless, lazy, or criminals. I had a doctor tell me that I should just use smaller plates without even inquiring about my diet or exercise regimen. I myself have been trying to lose weight about (40#) by biking 20-30 miles every other day and other rigorous exercises for the last 3 years. My caloric intake ranges from 1500-2500 calories a day and despite those two things my weight stays relatively stable at 220.
What I am saying is that shaming works when you know that you are trying to affect a behavior. Fat shaming without knowing that the person’s weight issues are behavior in origin you could wind up creating the very behavior you are trying to correct. A better method might be to invite the heavy person to join you as you exercise. Getting an exercise partner often helps people maintain the motivation to keep on working even when results are few and far between.
Fat shaming is too often the lazy man’s attempt to effect a change.
Thanks, Joel. What I’ve been trying to get at on this topic. Shame has been stupidly removed from society’s toolbox as a means to affect crucial behaviors in a positive manner. Which is not a good thing. It’s actually incredibly corrosive.
By the way, I suffered from the same tendency in sixth grade. I’d blurt out answers to Mrs. Vargas’s questions before she’d even finished asking them. I think her glaring at me and moving me from the first row to the last row in the room of forty or so kids turned the trick.
Perhaps shaming is great when it works well and there are relationships present for restoration. Or, in a targeted one-off situation where there is general concensus with a norm like raising one’s hand too speak. I doubt shaming would work well in an inner city school though.
But is shame a worthwhile tool for society to apply when our zeal for applying shame is mostly fed out of our ignorance of other peoples real circumstances and difficulties which we have never experienced.
I used to be very inwardly critical of obesity(which is most commonly tied to chronic elevated insulin) until I had to give up carbohydrates. Though I am free from them now, 2 months into breaking an unknown carb addiction, I found myself listlessly staring at our pantry watching all of the boxes of processed food products simply sit there. At that moment, I realized that I was an addict and gained a profound sense of understanding for all of my overweight friends who are content being obese, self-shamed by my convenient metabolism.
One of my friends said to me one day at lunch “I bet if I became type 2 diabetic because of how I eat, you would not have any sympathy for me.” I replied, “Correct.” What struck me about that short exchange was what seems to me to be implicit in the other person’s entitled sense of expectation that I should fawn compassion for a plight of sickness entirely caused(and avoidable) by one’s self and pursuit of happiness(comfort) from food.
Yet, I would still very much avoid the shame route because I see how it largely just drives people away. The interplay of insulin/thyroid and carb addiction is a tough problem to solve even if someone is totally willing. And if someone is eating to medicate feelings, it would be better to meet those emotional needs first, setting a foundation which will encourage any enurance needy to get through the necessary dietary experimentation and changes.
However… fat shaming of fat glorification, all for it!
“However… fat shaming of fat glorification, all for it!”
I almost made this point myself, but thought it was a tangent from my point. I kind of feel the “healthy at any size” fat glorification influencers are the other side of the coin. An amazing number of the participating body-positive movement spokespeople from a decade ago are either dead or deteriorating, as much as I’m convinced that shaming people is ineffective, I’m certain that lying to them isn’t any better.
I agree in principle with Joel, that shaming someone into good behavior could be good for them under some circumstances, but it’s almost certainly not going to actually happen. Particularly when there isn’t already a relationship in place. I have the feeling that more often than not, the people arguing that “it’s for their own good” really don’t care about the person well enough to care whether or not they die in a fire, nevermind whether they live a healthy lifestyle, and “it’s for their own good” becomes the euphemism necessary to continue being an asshole or concern trolling.
Because let’s be real: If all that was necessary for someone to adopt a healthy lifestyle was awareness, or if shame worked in these situations, there wouldn’t be any fat people. There is, objectively, scientifically, a 0% chance that a fat person over the age of 10 has never been called fat in their life. There’s no hiding that someone is fat, they literally walk around with it hanging off them. They’ve seen a mirror. They’ve either stood on a scale, or purposefully avoided one. They have heard about the health risks. They have heard about the weigh loss programs. Or pills. Or surgery. And Ozempic! They know about diet and exercise! The global weight loss industry is 200 billion – $200,000,000,000 – annually.
And because they’ve been told about these things, by their family, by their friends, by complete and total strangers, and by an amazing amount of news media, the likelihood of your particular flavor of shame being the straw that breaks the camel’s back on the road to a healthy living epiphany is also effectively zero.
So why do it?
I don’t believe we’ve removed shaming people from our cultural habits. Rather, what has shifted are the things by which we find shame. Out are failing grades, disruptive behavior, criminal record, sex out of wedlock, picking up a welfare check, impoliteness, slovenly appearances, and the like. In are being white, being conservative, using the wrong words, insisting on the reality of biological sex, being male, being trans-exclusive, insisting on merit, and the like.
Shame is the basic negative feedback that tells us we should not do something. While it can definitely be applied in harmful ways, I don’t think there is a way out of applying shame. Society cannot function if everything is permissible and even applauded. Our efforts, as OB has pointed out, to prevent anyone from feeling shame has made a cultural that cannot tolerate even the slightest psychological discomfort, and which feels entitled to everything.
Discomfort prompts us to move. That is why negative reinforcement works. Taking a positive-reinforcement-only approach tries to lure people into moving because of being tempted by a nice reward. But the problem with that is that many people will find remaining in place more tolerable than putting forth the effort for the reward. Many people find the short term pleasure of doing what I want now more tempting than the long term pleasure of self-discipline, attainment, and success. In order to get moving, there has to be something that overpowers the temptation to stay put, and sometimes that has to be sufficiently painful.
Even more important, utilizing the appropriate disciplinary measures early to break bad habits is far less painful than letting the bad habits settle in. All that discomfort that was avoided early on is met with mountains of pain in comparison later. Someone being spanked (I should have had spanking on the list of things we’re currently shamed about) and learning not to take what is not theirs as a toddler might just head off a prison term for theft later on. (I don’t have statistics on that, but this is meant to be a hyperbolic contrast for sake of example.) And we see this being wielded: make sure kids from a very early age know it is shameful to think queer-trans-thruple-sodomy is anything other than beautiful love. Shame them into using the right pronouns. Shame them into exploring their pre-pubescent sexuality as though they were mature adults capable of understanding the implications of what they are doing. Shame them about the carbon dioxide they are exhaling. Shame them for being born privileged (if they were, and perhaps even if they weren’t but didn’t meet the right intersectionality).
The thing with shame is that it is that little voice inside our heads that tells us, “You’re bad.” We often (and often need to) look to others to find affirmation that we’re not as bad as we fear we are. That’s the hook. People know we have that propensity, even that need, and then wield shame as a tool to coerce us into things we don’t want to do. If making us do those things are actually good for us, that’s not a bad thing, up to a point. In Erikson’s stages of development, the stage “Autonomy vs Shame/Doubt” is very early, in the toddler age range. At some point we’re supposed to equip ourselves to deal with shame. The healthy way to deal with shame is through cultivating humility (know thyself) and discipline (I not only know what is right, I can do it). The unhealthy way is to keep seeking affirmation, and always being at the whim of what other people think.
Excellent comment. What I wanted to say but much better than I could have.
I would only add that society is trying to learn how to better deal with emotions, and we’re making some progress but it sometimes feels like one step forward, two steps backward.
Yes, we’re teaching kids and adults not to bottle up your emotions until they explode. But instead, the message we often teach is that your emotions make you who you are and it’s up to others to accept that. We teach people to take care of themselves and others, but the message often received is that “self-love” means I can be selfish and it’s a good thing! If others stop being my friend because I start taking things for myself, call them out on everything that bothers me, and not extending courtesies to them, they’re toxic and not accepting of me.
Shame follows this same trend. We’re trying to teach people the self-confidence needed to not be tossed about by the whims of others’ opinions of us, but it often expresses itself as total disregard for the mores of society and polite behavior. Shame is a necessary tool, but like with any tool, it can be used the right way or the wrong way.
Yeah, that was a great response. Thanks!!!
Shame has been around for at least as long as humans have been around. It must serve some useful purpose. The progressive impulse to purge something from humanity because they think it’s bad is foolish to the point of arrogance. But it’s one of their default settings.
COTD in my opinion Ryan
This is what I love about you all on this site. You think of angles and perspectives that never cross my mind. Jack gets the ball rolling, and you all add to it. It’s a fantastic symbiosis…I think that’s the right word.
Since shame is defined as an unpleasant self-conscious emotion often associated with negative self-evaluation; motivation to quit; and feelings of pain, exposure, distrust, powerlessness, and worthlessness. 9so says wikipdia. it folows that shame can ed t self impovement as the writer eloquently states.
While walking around airports specifically and in the oublic in generally, i have concluded that more mirrors are necessary so that before leaving their houses a lotof folks need to gaze at a mirror so that a sense of shamed would b elicited. The purpose of course would be,to them to revalaute their mode of dress and general appearance.
Relevant tradeoff: Habits. People are concerned that other people’s habits are causing unnecessary problems for themselves and those around them, and making them weaker instead of stronger.
Relevant constructive principle: Challenge. To help people make any change we think would help them, we need to show them a vision of what they could be that inspires and appeals to them, offer them viable paths to achieve that vision, and support them on that journey. If they don’t see a way out, they’ll just feel worse and sink deeper into any habit that gives them temporary comfort.
Shame in the form of “I’m disappointed because I know you can do better” can play a role in helping people develop good habits, when expectations are realistic and people aren’t expected to make an effort all by themselves. In the absence of an inspiring vision, viable paths, and support, shame just causes unnecessary suffering and damages people’s trust in those around them.
of course you could always give a misbehaving kid the Benjamin button haircut, which he’ll never live down, or make him jog in place on the front sidewalk in his underwear saying what he did, like the guy in Men of Honor who is jogging in place in his boxers and yelling “I stole a pot! I stole a pot!”