My whole life I have been underweight for my height. People who didn't know me would make comments about my body. I specifically remember standing in line at magic mountain waiting to get onto a roller-coaster and the woman behind me said to the woman she was with that I was what an eating disorder looked like, I was thirteen years old. I was very active at this point in my life, yes I was thin but I was not unhealthy at this point in my life. It was shocking to me that some one would say that out loud where I could hear. I remember thinking how is it any of her business how my body looks. This is something I come back to over and over.
Why do we make other peoples bodies our business?
Why do we talk about our own bodies negatively vs positively?
The media has made other peoples bodies our business and most of what they say is negative. There is constantly talk of how celebrities have lost or gained weight, they are judged very harshly on their appearances, and the media has made it their/our business. This has translated into our culture and we do it to ourselves and those around us.
The media has also created an unattainable standard of ideal beauty. All of the images we see have been edited in one way or another. The people in the images we see don't look that way in real life. It is all fake, but we hold ourselves to this ideal. We wonder why can't we have their skin or their bodies. We beat ourselves up and say negative things about ourselves because we do not measure up to the fake images we are inundated with.
What would it be like if instead we saw real images of real people? People of all shapes and sizes, images with out photoshop. How would this change our standard of ideal beauty? How would this change the way we feel about ourselves? I believe we would feel much better about ourselves. I believe we would stop placing so much value on size and weight. I believe the conversations around bodies would change.
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