With the pervasiveness of social media, its hard for someone coming from a lens of body positivity not to notice the amount of comparison happening. Even though social media is a great tool that allows us to connect with friends, express ourselves, and get inspired, it can also be a black hole of obsession, comparison, and self-hatred. The more you allow yourself to stalk tan, gorgeous, successful person after person, the more your unconscious mind tells you that you are the opposite. As humans, we are programmed to look for flaws. We scan ourselves and others by the minute, hour, and day looking for something "wrong".

This isn't just on social media. The saddest part is that comparison affects everybody. Friends, family, and colleagues size up the amount and types of food on each other's plates. Snide comments are made at family gatherings when someone goes up for a second slice of pie. Coworkers engage in mock "biggest loser" challenges, adding money to the prize bucket and engaging in less-than-healthy measures to lose more than their peers and take all the loot. Even close friends with whom I often have discussions about body positivity will still send me pictures of someone who they wished they looked like. In a society that tells you what you need to look like from head to toe, in order to be "enough", you have to understand that your body is worth more than just how it appears to people or how it "compares" to them. I follow Instagram accounts of girls who lift weights, and who post pictures of their physiques either for the sake of progress or pride. When scrolling through these types of pictures, tons of questions pop up in the comments: "how did you get abs/a big booty???", "damn she's my height, how does she eat that much?", or comments like, "you're my goal body." Slipping into the dark place of comparison is something we do subconsciously, as second nature. We glance at people and size them up without even realizing what we're doing.

Pitting ourselves against other women in an imaginary contest where you've given yourself immediate disadvantage as the weaker party will never result in a win. Comparing the body you currently live into a previous smaller or larger body you had will never make you more comfortable in your skin. Obsessively stalking the perfect life of an "Instagram girl" who might actually be self-harming, depressed, or hopelessly disordered will not bring fulfillment to your own life. If we can radically, emphatically reject the idea that certain body types/proportions/facial structures/hair colors, etc. are more valuable than another, maybe, just maybe we can lift ourselves and other women up instead.