Positive Body Image
Thursday, June 30, 2016
"And I said to my body softly, "I want to be your friend." It took a long breath and replied, "I've been waiting my whole life for this."
When I asked a few of my friends what having a “Positive Body Image” meant to them, I got a variety of answers, some I was expecting, some I wasn’t, but one answer caught my attention. The answer was “being comfortable in one’s own skin”. Now this, and the idea that your body is your home and its the only home that you will truly live in, got me to start asking some questions I’d never asked myself before:
• If we put so much effort into being happy with our surroundings, then why do we not put the same effort in to loving and being happy with ourselves?
• Why does someone else get to decide when my body is finally “good enough”, and why do we allow external opinions to influence and affect the way we see ourselves?
• Why, when our bodies work so hard to keep us alive and healthy, do we try to "fix" them, sometimes to the point of damage?
After answering all of these questions, I realised that the main reason why we do all of these things, is the unrealistic images of how women and girls “should” look, that our society and the media feed us on a daily basis. They deliver photographs of airbrushed models in magazines to our doorstep, videos on “the right exercises to get a celebrity body” to our fingertips, and articles on “How to get perfect skin” are common reading material in any doctors’ waiting rooms. And the irony of it all, is that our bodies are all different, and yet we try to force them into a “one size fits all” pair of gloves, rather than celebrating the diversity of our ever-changing, ever-growing, ever-beautiful bodies.
Now don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in working on yourself, but I believe in doing it for yourself, and not because someone told you, or made you feel like you are not good enough. Do it for your own health and happiness. Do it because you love and respect your body. Do it because you are perfect the way you are, and if people don't see that, then its their problem, not yours, because you know that the things you love about yourself and the things that you would change, all come together to create the amazing woman that you are right now, and will be in the future. So I’d like to challenge you all to take the first step today, and choose self-love, over self-judgement.
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