“She’d be prettier if she wasn’t so big.”
“She’s so skinny! She’s like a twig!”
“He’s got man boobs! How funny!”
“He needs to start working out. He’s way too skinny.”
“Don’t wear that. It looks terrible on someone your size.”
I grew up with two ideas about beauty. Out of the two, one has become all I can think of every time I look in the mirror. I was often told that real beauty was on the inside. A beautiful person was someone who was kind, caring, and confident while an ugly person was selfish and rude. It was simple way to define beauty, and I tried my best to be beautiful growing up. I’d love to say that this idea of beauty is what stuck with me as I went through elementary school, middle school, high school, and even college. Unfortunately, this idea of beauty was thrown away long ago and replaced with what the media taught me about beauty.
Beauty became defined by the size of your waist, your muscles, your breasts, your butt, and perhaps the most common, your stomach. All of these together make the most beautiful person. Too much of one or not enough of the other and your were given the phrase of looking “okay”. This idea of beauty became what I focused on growing up. My problem? Well, I was too big in the stomach region to be beautiful. I tried to put the insecurity behind me, but some didn’t let me forget it. I was told that I’d be better looking if I was skinnier. I was asked if I was pregnant in front of my whole class due to the “belly bump” I appeared to have. This is just my experience. Perhaps you became the punchline of jokes or were made fun of for what you wore because it didn’t “flatter” your body type.
Body shaming is a serious issue, and although a high focus of body shaming is on women, men are feeling just as much pressure to strive for a look. They are expected to be muscular with no flab, and all abs. No one deserves to be judged so harshly on how they look. However, body shaming is thrown at everyone, but in some instances the worst of body shaming comes from our own thoughts. Looking in the mirror and focusing on certain aspects that we don’t like about ourselves. We only see the bad and nothing else. This way of seeing ourselves needs to change. Shaming ourselves, allowing others to shame us, possibly even shaming others needs to stop.
I ask you to take a moment and look at yourself in the mirror. Find what you consider to be your biggest physical flaw, and answer this: why do you call this your biggest flaw? What brought you to see yourself this way? Now look again. Look at yourself and within yourself. What do you love about yourself? It’s time we change the definition of beauty. Beauty will always be who we are and never what we look like.
