I used my culture-jammed version of the Strong4Life anti-childhood-obesity advertisement to deconstruct understandings of fatness and expose the patriarchal foundations in fat shaming. By replacing the statement “it’s hard to be a little girl when you’re not” and “stop childhood obesity” with “it’s hard to be a little girl when patriarchal society dehumanizes you” and “stop fat shaming,” I reveal the dehumanization inherent in fat shaming. My alteration depicts patriarchal society’s degradation of fat female bodies as inhuman and explores that what actually makes it “hard to be a little girl” is the constant dehumanization and discrimination of patriarchal society. Patriarchal society asserts that in the name of health, it is socially acceptable to harass fat bodies. The dehumanization of fat bodies is deemed reasonable, because, through the use of media and advertisements such as these, fat bodies are already subhuman to society. Once fat women are deemed inhuman, they are stripped of their respect and are open to public ridicule and rational bullying. When this is imposed on young women and girls, they believe they are worthless unless they conform to Western ideals of beauty and thinness. This ultimately satisfies the aims of patriarchal rule: women viewing themselves as inferior. The original advertisement conveys the idea that if one is fat, the cruelty they are subjugated to is self inflicted. The jammed version asserts that being fat is not the issue; the issue is the patriarchal society which dehumanizes you for being so. In a patriarchal society, female bodies are public domain, open to criticism, however, my rendition of this advertisement turns the shame from fat bodies onto the patriarchal structures which ridicule them.

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https://www.npr.org/2012/01/09/144799538/controversy-swirls-around-harsh-anti-obesity-ads