Mindy Kaling is everything mainstream media is not: She is bold, she is brown and she is big. She is the epitome of girl power.

However, as pointed out in an April 14 Time essay, even she cannot escape the media’s body obsession. Whether it’s Kaling’s fans praising her for having the courage to wear a crop top or one of her episodes featuring her breaking a chair by sitting on it, the focus on Kaling’s weight is not a good thing for the body positivity movement.

In a March 27 Vogue feature, the magazine referred to Kaling as a “curvaceous comedienne,” or their way of saying, she’s not skinny and we’re really OK with that. It seems like they are trying to say that a body type that is not a size zero can be beautiful too, but they don’t seem to believe it.

What they are actually saying is that it is amazing that Kaling and other celebrities can manage to get out of bed each morning having to face the fact that they are not Karlie Kloss’ twin. This sentiment also continues to put an emphasis on a woman’s body and reinforces the notion that a woman’s looks are a direct representation of her worth.

When celebrities like Kaling speak openly about their weight, it is a refreshing difference from the calorie-counting, gym-obsessed world that we live in. However, as they get more and more questions on their weight, these celebrities become defined by their weight, just like celebrities who are known for their thinness.

We are all walking around, patting ourselves on the back for being so forward thinking, but in reality, we are not. We are still zeroing in on a girl’s weight and looks. We are still examining that aspect of her as if it is her primary contribution to society. We are doing the exact same thing; the pendulum is just swinging in a different direction.

When she is not being asked about her weight, Kaling is joking about it on her show. I am sure she has positive intentions, but jokes that involve her breaking a chair by sitting on it or being asked if she is getting liposuction are not funny — they are hurtful. They may not hurt Kaling herself, but they do hurt the girls who look like her.

While it is great to occasionally use humor to take yourself and your body less seriously, it becomes a problem when people make these jokes too often. It only increases the focus on one’s body and ends up making them feel worse. All other aspects of a person — their talents, achievements, personalities — all take a backseat so that his or her body can take center stage. By constantly making fun of your body, you are simply reaffirming the notion that looks and body types are an indication of value and self-worth.

When it comes to our bodies, we should strive to accept them the way they are so that we can move forward with other things in our lives. When Time asked Evelyn Attita, director of the  Columbia Center for Eating Disorders, about this topic, she said it is encouraged for girls to get to “a place of neutrality,” when it comes to body image. She said, “Neither extreme satisfaction or dissatisfaction, just acceptance.”

There should be a wider depiction of women and I hope that there continues to be more of a variety of sizes and colors that represent the world we actually live in. But at some point, we are going to need to take the emphasis off of a woman’s looks and start paying more attention to her ideas, personality and aspirations.

Mandisa Shields is a freshman newspaper and online journalism major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached atmeshiedl@syr.edu and followed on Twitter @mandisashields.

Published on April 21, 2014 at 1:00 am