"You're so thin, you should eat a burger."
"You're... a size 16?"
"Guys want thick girls, it's over for the skinny bitches."
There are so many things wrong with today's society and body image is one of them. Lately, I've been hearing a lot about this topic. But it wasn't until the middle of my women studies class where I had a breakthrough.
When I was younger, skinny was the new thing. You had to be a size zero if anyone and everyone wanted to love you. You had to be short, skinny, and have this huge obsession people had called a thigh gap. It was this certain type of girl guys would chase after that made me feel pressured to be like this.
Then in high school, when I was battling this thought that nobody was going to love me because I wasn't thin enough, thick girls became the fashion trend. The media had completely done an 180 on me and told me that guys like thick girls and that thigh gaps are overrated. Which made me feel really great about myself because I was nowhere near having this thigh gap and having a waist the size of my pinky.
So since then, I've been all about my body. I'm not a size zero, I'm a size 14. I don't think there is anything wrong with who I am and what I've become since being in high school.
But as I'm sitting in my women studies class I realized that either way is messed up. That if you're idolizing thin girls, thick girls feel like they aren't good enough. But if you're idolizing thick girls, thin girls don't feel good enough. It's this constant cycle of one form of the body being on top rather than the other.
Why is that? Why is it we have this need to make one form of body type better than another? Instead of focusing on what other people want for body type, focus on yourself. You should be learning to love yourself and the way you are built. Instead of bashing a skinny girl for not being thick or a thin girl bashing a thick girl for being too thick to wear crop tops, LOVE EACH OTHER.
I never thought about how important the media plays in our body shaming. Paris Hilton was the rage and she was thin and then all of a sudden out of nowhere the Kardashians storm the media scene and every girl should be thick. These are girls that people look up to, strive to be. So instead of idolizing these girls and preferring one body type over another, empower one another.
One of my favorite quotes is, "empowered women, empower women." And it's true. When you learn to love yourself and you accept who you are, you can end body shaming and you can help bring down the way media portrays women. One voice can make a difference, that's one of the best things I've learned since coming to college.
At the end of the day, the topic of thick girls versus thin girls shouldn't matter. We are all beautiful in so many different ways and you should love yourself for who you are and what body type you are. You are loved, you are important, and you can do anything you set your mind to - don't let body shaming get in your way.
