Does THIS qualify as a 1st World Problem yet? [View all]

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

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

A Change.org petition hopes to get the social media platform to remove several body-shaming status update options.




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.

The two activists note that the terms “fat” and “ugly” are ones that many teenagers use to describe themselves. Nowadays far too many teen girls spend their time obsessing over their waist size. According to the National Association of Anorexia and Associated Disorders, an astounding 47 percent of middle and high school–age girls have said that looking at images of models in magazines makes them want to be a smaller size. “It took years to stop attacking ourselves verbally, and once we finally thought things might be looking up, Facebook decided to push us right back down,” wrote Vicky and Charlotte on the petition.

So far nearly 7,000 people have signed the petition. Facebook has yet to respond.