Jameela Jamil calls out people who body shame after inappropriate gym encounter

Jameela Jamil found herself the victim of body shaming after a workout at the gym. Now the star of The Good Place is speaking up.

In a video posted to Twitter, Jameela Jamil shared the story of an encounter she had as she was leaving the gym. According to the actress, a man she did not know walked up to her in order to inquire about her workout. While that might seem innocent enough (it isn’t though), he then offered up some unsolicited and frankly rude opinions.

When Jamil told the unknown man that she had been cycling, he proceeded to body shame her by telling her without her even asking him that, “he’s seen me around and he always thinks ‘ah, what a shame, she could look so amazing’ and there are so many different things I could do to improve my body.”

In her video, Jamil made it clear that this is a form of body shaming that no one should be doing. As she pointed out, it is actions like this that make it so people don’t feel comfortable going to gyms in order to workout.

No one wants to be judged for the things they do, particularly when it comes to trying to be healthy and workout. And as Jamil explained, “I don’t like walking around now thinking that people are looking at me and analyzing and thinking what I should or should not look like.”

Perhaps what makes this entire situation worse is the fact that the actress shared her American dress size, and she is between a size 6 to 8. She is not a large woman, and yet someone at the gym went out of their way to let her know that she did not look “amazing” and could, in fact, be working harder to “improve” her body.

Even Jamil understands how frustrating and even disgusting this way of thinking is, as she pointed out, “if that’s how I’m being spoken to in the gym, you can imagine what people say to people who are larger than that.”

While the actress may have been the victim of body shaming, she wasn’t having any of it. And instead of just sharing what happened to her, she had a message for people out there who feel the need to impose their beliefs about appearance on others — don’t.

We shouldn’t have to have amazing women like Jamil reminding the world not to walk up to strangers to tell them how they can look better. No one wants to hear criticisms about their body, especially when they are at the gym.

Body shaming is wrong, and while that should go without saying, it seems like a lesson that still needs to be taught. There is nothing nice about telling people what’s wrong with the way they look, and like Jameela Jamil said in her Twitter post, “You’re not being nice, you’re shaming them for the way they currently look. You’re also being extremely weird.”

The fact that it came from someone the actress did not know, who approached her as she was trying to leave the gym just seems to make the situation that much worse. Not only was this clearly a case of body shaming, but it was also another instance of a man trying to impose his will on a woman he does not know.