I have been thinking a lot about body image lately and how it has become such a buzz word and such a movement in the past year. Not a day goes by that I don't see #bodypositive hashtags populating the internet. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying that this is a bad thing. We should be promoting a body positive movement where we see beauty in every person ... however, when did it become the thing to do? What I mean by that is ... when did our body image problems become so detrimental that we need a body positive movement to make us think higher of ourselves?
Body image is something that I have struggled with my entire life. As the chubby child who didn't wear name brand clothes (I LOVED my home made jumpers thank you very much), and whose hair channeled Hermione Granger long before her inception I was often made fun of. Once I added on braces, loving school and glasses? Forget about it. I was every middle school bully's dream.
I grew up envying the "popular" kids around me who were thin, pretty and who could step out of the shower with hair straight out of a Pantene shampoo ad. But why? I was a happy child. I had friends and I got along with my family. So why did I envy the beauty of others rather than focusing on my own, albeit goofy, beautiful self?
The problem of course, or so I believe, stems from the media. When we look at movies, magazines, books, commercials and TV shows it has always been rare to see a "normal" bodied human being represented. Now, I put "normal" in quotation marks because what is normal? When I say normal, I mean that we are not representing a variety of people. Even when the goofy "duff" of a best friend is represented ... the purpose of the movie becomes to make her the belle of the ball. Take off her glasses and run a comb through her hair and voila! She is Cinderella in the flesh. But why can't the goofy, awkward, not put together best friend fall in love with the leading man just as she is? Why is it some major transformation that finally wins him over? Can't he love her for her brains and personality first and looks second?
When this is what we encounter as stimulus overload day after day after day how can we be expected to live a body positive life?
Body image is something that I have struggled with my entire life. As the chubby child who didn't wear name brand clothes (I LOVED my home made jumpers thank you very much), and whose hair channeled Hermione Granger long before her inception I was often made fun of. Once I added on braces, loving school and glasses? Forget about it. I was every middle school bully's dream.
I grew up envying the "popular" kids around me who were thin, pretty and who could step out of the shower with hair straight out of a Pantene shampoo ad. But why? I was a happy child. I had friends and I got along with my family. So why did I envy the beauty of others rather than focusing on my own, albeit goofy, beautiful self?
The problem of course, or so I believe, stems from the media. When we look at movies, magazines, books, commercials and TV shows it has always been rare to see a "normal" bodied human being represented. Now, I put "normal" in quotation marks because what is normal? When I say normal, I mean that we are not representing a variety of people. Even when the goofy "duff" of a best friend is represented ... the purpose of the movie becomes to make her the belle of the ball. Take off her glasses and run a comb through her hair and voila! She is Cinderella in the flesh. But why can't the goofy, awkward, not put together best friend fall in love with the leading man just as she is? Why is it some major transformation that finally wins him over? Can't he love her for her brains and personality first and looks second?
When this is what we encounter as stimulus overload day after day after day how can we be expected to live a body positive life?
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