Body shaming a child - Desperate Housewives (SPOILERS)

[JustAnotherDayWorkingAtHome]

So I've only started watching the old American tv show Desperate Housewives recently and am now on season 5.

This storyline involves Gaby having had a child who is overweight. Juanita the child is 4. The storyline is supposed to be funny I think but I find it really distasteful, it shows her over eating at a kids bday party, bursting out of the largest size princess dress, other parents gossiping and her having a poor diet at home.

This show was huge, how was this accepted as ok and funny. Have things really moved on that much in 16 years (this was screened 2008)

Have you seen how the boy in Bad Santa was portrayed? And there’s a boy guzzling a chocolate cake in a kids film, remember Augustus Gloop in Willy Wonka? It happens in entertainment.

I mean those were the peak years for body shaming, from being someone who was a teenager then. It was all over magazines + the news, celebs who'd "let themselves go" at a size 6 😂 there was so much more body shaming!

I think it also plays into future storylines in seasons you haven't got to yet, but I'm not sure if they planned it that far ahead or it was just a happy accident ha!

It's not that surprising when you think about how the 2000s was rife with diet culture. All of the main cast were very slim, including Lynette who was supposed to be the more down to earth, less glamourous one. As another PP mentioned, it was a time where celeb mags were shaming women and calling them a "whale" for having virtually any fat on their bodies. It was a wonderful time to be a teenage girl. 😒

I haven't seen Desperate Housewives since it aired; the Juanita storyline didn't feel shocking at all to me at the time, though I imagine it would feel in very poor taste nowadays. I think we've progressed in some ways and regressed in others.