I read a post the other day, and it really got me thinking. The post was titled “Why ‘Healthy’ Needs To Be My New Beauty Standard." It discussed how, in today’s society, the beauty standard is ‘beautiful and skinny’, not healthy. After I read the post, I started asking myself if healthy was my beauty standard and I was very displeased with my answer. I realized that healthy wasn’t my beauty standard, that ‘beautiful and skinny’ was.
Before I get into my story though, I want to point out a few very serious and important things. Statistics show that body image is one of the biggest battles that both males and females struggle with. Body Image can be defined as how one perceives his or her body. Distorted Body Image refers to an unrealistic view of how someone sees his or her body. Poor body image comes from negative thoughts and feelings about your appearance, and a healthy body image is made up of thoughts and feelings that are positive. Body Image is a MAJOR factor in self-esteem, which is the way you think and feel about yourself as a person.
According to the National Eating Disorder Association, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life. In addition, many individuals struggle with body dissatisfaction and sub-clinical disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, and the best-known contributor to the development of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa is body dissatisfaction. Dieting and weight control are some of the strategies that many individuals experiment with in order to cope with their body dissatisfaction. These strategies reflect how dissatisfied an individual is with his or her own body size and shape. Besides being associated with the onset of eating disorders, these behaviors alone can be dangerous to one’s health. Many men and women also suffer from excessive exercising or Orthorexia, which is the desire to eat only ‘healthy’ foods and avoiding entire food groups.
It’s crazy to think that these things affect so many people, and it’s also crazy to think that so many people let their body image affect their well-being. Now, if you are one of the people who suffer with body image, body dissatisfaction, or anything along those lines, please, please, please don’t be embarrassed, discouraged, or ashamed because I will be the first to tell you that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. My body image is something that I have struggled with since before I can remember, but that struggle has seemed to intensify since I have been in college. In today’s society, almost every day we are faced with the pressure to look beautiful and be thin. I compare myself to other people, convincing myself that I am a not today’s beauty standard. My struggle has become so intense because I have let ‘beautiful and skinny’ be my beauty standard, when it should be ‘confident and healthy’. I became so uncomfortable in my skin that, a year ago today, I decided to do something about it. A year ago, I grew the courage to step foot outside and run just one mile. I also gave up unhealthy eating habits that I felt would help boost my body image and confidence. That one run led to an everyday occurrence, an everyday occurrence that I could not be more proud of now. One mile led to two, two miles led to three, three miles led to six, and six miles led to thirteen miles. Thirteen miles led to personal records, and personal records led to goals. It sounds awesome, I know, but let me be the first to tell you that awesome is the exact opposite. Don’t get me wrong, the running was and still is awesome, and my personal image and health slowly began to get better, but my body image struggle was still planted in the back of my mind. Everywhere I looked I saw this ‘beautiful and skinny’ beauty standard. On top of my daily running, I began to do the evil little thing known as calorie counting. The calorie counting became an obsession, and the obsession continued getting worse and worse. So much so that it began to affect my health and happiness. Six months into both my healthy and unhealthy addictions, I had lost 25 pounds and three pant sizes and yet I still was not satisfied. I was letting my obsession with ‘beautiful and thin’ begin to consume my thoughts and control both my life and my health in the most negative way.
It wasn’t until recently that I finally realized the effect that my negative body image and beauty standards had on both me personally and my health, and let me be the first to tell you that IT IS NOT GOOD.
One year through this journey I have finally realized that ‘beautiful and skinny’ SHOULD NOT be my body standard. ‘Confident and Healthy’ should be my body standard, and it has become an everyday goal to make it that way. Everyday is still a struggle, but every day I have the wonderful reminder of Psalms 139:14; my body is fearfully and wonderfully made. We need to remember that no matter our shape or size we are beautiful, that we are all wonderful works of our God. The struggle of body image may never go away, but it can certainly get better if we let ‘healthy and confident’ be our beauty standard instead of ‘beautiful and thin’.
One year, 13 miles, new PR’s, and a slow, but steady road to a healthier lifestyle, I will no longer let ‘beautiful and thin’ affect the way I perceive my body – I will strive to be healthy and I will do it the right way.
