According to a Glamour survey, 97% of us admitted to having an "I Hate My Body" moment, with young women in particular recording an average of 13 negative thoughts about their bodies each day. With that in mind, I decided to start a new series, promoting body positivity in all ages, genders, shapes and sizes. During this series, I aim to tackle a number of issues, including The Beauty Industry and Celebrity Culture, Ageism, Inferiority and the importance of self-love in all genders. In this first instalment, I wanted to address the fact that we are not alone. The majority of us have negative feelings about some aspect of our appearance every day, including myself. It has almost become the norm to hate on our own features and discuss physical features of other people in a derogatory manner. Promoting this self-hate only leads to further insecurity and mental health issues, as I'll be discovering during the series.
The first thing I wanted to address was my definition of the term 'body positive'. In the media, a lot of voices have expressed their doubts, branding the movement as a 'false' and unhealthy way to promote certain body types. I saw a lot of posts claiming that being body positive is a forced emotion that limits your acceptable emotions as you're essentially banishing your human instincts by telling yourself to ignore how you're feeling. And I agree. It is unhealthy to ignore your emotions, and it's totally normal to have negative thoughts and doubts about yourself, or to want to make some changes. However, for me, body positivity is a way to work through those emotions by acknowledging them, and then changing the way we see ourselves. A lot of people also found that the body positivity movement was exploited by companies to promote predominately curvy and/or plus size figures, when in fact I find it to be an inclusive movement that works towards normalising all body types in their varying conditions. It is not a way to promote an unhealthy lifestyle, it's a way to promote self love and encourage us to respect our bodies. As a teenage girl, I grew up with the mentality that I was 'out of proportion' because society had deemed me a 'pear shape'. Magazines recommended styles of clothing to compliment my figure. Shops sold me padded bras to balance me out. Peers advised me to wear slimming clothes to create an illusion. This was just part of the every day for me, and so I developed a form of body dysmorphia. When I looked in the mirror, I saw fat where I didn't want it and bone where I was told I shouldn't see it. The shape of my body seemed so severe. I felt like people were staring at me, laughing at me, noticing my imbalance. I compared myself to my friends, as is only in our nature, and I decided to diet. When my body changed again, people noticed the weight loss and made comments about it. My family were worried. We went to see a doctor and was told I was very underweight for my height. I had to bulk up. As the years went on, my body changed significantly. A combination of a diet change, an ageing metabolism and the introduction to alcohol resulted in me gaining weight, which people again noticed and commented on. I now had different body confidence issues, but issues all the same. I started to feel conscious of my thighs and my stomach, and even started researching techniques to lose weight from my face. I started seeing my friends less because I was embarrassed to go out and worried what they would think. In actual fact, I was still a pretty healthy size 10-12, but I felt bigger than that. Throughout my life, I have been 'too skinny', and I have been 'too fat', and everything else in between, but never have I been deemed 'just right'. So I've decided that a clothing size is just a number, so whether you are a size 0 or a size 24, you're not defined by that number. You just have to focus on being happy and healthy enough to live your best life. Throughout my body positivity process, I found it extremely helpful to find people I could relate to on Youtube and watch them try on clothes. I found Lucy Wood and Helen Anderson, who are similar shapes and sizes to me, and I watched them trying on clothes I would never have dared to try, and my first thought was, 'wow, she looks amazing in that'. Not for one second did I hone in on the parts of their bodies that they later described as their insecurities. I didn't even notice the things they pointed out on themselves. All I saw was an incredible outfit that I was really jealous of, and through that I rediscovered my love for clothes. I started shopping for things I liked instead of things that would 'compliment my shape'. These girls that I've never even met made me realise how in my own head I was, and that was a real wake up call to me, realising that the things I thought about myself really weren't that big of a deal. And I have since decided that if someone were to point out a flaw in a negative way, then that's their issue anyway, not mine. So welcome to my first instalment in my body positivity week! As Keith Lemon would say, 'so what's the message?' And I guess the message of this first post is to appreciate the body you've been given. It's got you through a lot and we owe it our respect. The main thing is to appreciate your own skin and be healthy. In my next post, I'm going to be talking about the Beauty Industry and the expectations we have to look a certain way, but also the positive aspects of the beauty industry and how we can use products for the right reasons, to create and express as opposed to hide and oppress. The pros and the cons, if you will. It's all about the mentality you choose to take. Until next time, beauties!
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
December 2022
Categories
All
Author
Part-time student/bar-associate |