Principal body shames kids: 'You look fat'

Students and parents are fighting back against principal's body shaming speech. Photo / 123rf

By Bailee Dean

A principal has taken the school dress code debate to a completely new level and body shamed her high-school girls for wearing tights.

In a recording supplied to local news station WCBD-TV, South Carolina principal Heather Taylor said, "I've told you this before, I'm going to tell you this now, unless you are a size zero or two and you wear something like that, even though you're not fat, you look fat."

Yes, she actually said those exact words. You. Look. Fat.

To put the message in context, a US size zero or two translates to a size four and six in Australia and NZ - something unrealistic for many women.

Taylor allegedly held two separate assemblies for 9th and 10th grade students to deliver her advice at a beginning of year meeting, news.com.au reported.

Student Allison Veazy told WCBD-TV she found the remarks "very hurtful".

She said, "I felt like my size made me look disgusting towards someone in the clothes that I wear."

"I wear leggings outside of school and I wear leggings when I go and hang out with my friends, and to think that someone would think that I look like a stuffed sausage - that was kind of hurtful."

The main point of this being, Taylor has managed to teach a bunch of young malleable teenage girls a very damaging message about their self-worth.

She essentially sat these girls down and said no, don't dress in the clothes you like and you feel good in, you have to always be thinking of how others will be judging you. Weight matters.

After students reported the principal for her body shaming comments, Taylor claimed she had told them previously their figures had yet to develop so they could only get away with sport leggings.

You can imagine this speech sank quicker than the Titanic with parents and many took to Facebook to express their outrage.

Lacy Thompson-Harper, whose daughter attends the school, provided her private Facebook post to Scary Mommy.

She said, "When I spoke with her, she talked around the issue, and made excuse after excuse, effectively calling all of the students liars."

Thompson-Harper said by the end of the conversation Taylor agreed to apologise to the 11th and 12th grade students during their assemblies and to call back both the 9th and 10th grade students to do the same.