For years growing up as a teenager reading magazines like Cosmopolitan and Seventeen, I’ve read about this concept of body peace. I’d always interpreted it as a way of coming to peace with your body size and shape, and basically being comfortable with who you are, but I had always taken this concept lightly. It was not until recently that I took the concept of body peace to mean something deeply ingrained within the acceptance and love of oneself, and all that one has to offer. My own body peace has come to mean many different things in regards to the way I view myself and ultimately love myself, but it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve truly been comfortable with my body, and the ways in which it truly makes me who I am.
Growing up “over-weight,” I had always received harsh criticism for my body type, and was someone who really struggled being a curvy Black girl going to schools predominantly filled with skinny, athletic white kids throughout my life. I was a girl who always huffed and puffed her way through the dread mile run that was required every year in gym, but could never quite seem to finish. I was a girl who hated yearly physicals, because I knew the doctor would make a comment about my weight, point to some chart, and tell me that I was obese, or on my way there. I was a girl who constantly got harassed for having “chubby cheeks” or “saggy titties,” yet was always left so confused because I genuinely saw nothing wrong with my body. So I started internalizing these comments. If someone called me fat, I would believe them. It didn’t matter what I thought, because the thoughts and perceptions of my friends, family, and peers were all that mattered. I loved team sports growing up, so when I finally starting playing them in middle school, I would only play goalie and defense in soccer and lacrosse because I knew they need a “big girl who could kick really hard” and “block stuff”, and didn’t have to do too much running around. When I signed up for track, I avoided all running events because even though my older brother and sister were track stars in highschool, I knew everyone would think I was too big to run the 100-meter dash, so I stuck to throwing shot put. I was a girl who spent many a summer determined that she was going to come back into the new school year with a completely new, skinny body that no one would be able to recognize. I’d run as much as I could, try every workout Comcast On-Demand that I could find, and would only really eat yogurt and string cheese. It was even up until this past summer that I was intent on coming back for my junior year with a banging body and completely new look, but this time, something in me shifted. At some point, I decided to come to peace with my body in a way that I have deemed reasonable and right for me.
To me, body peace has been wearing whatever clothes I want, no matter how tight, low-cut, or “revealing” they may be. Although I admittedly feel my best in a nice tight pair of spandex capris, I find something so liberating about wearing high waisted, short-shorts, no matter how much my thighs might jiggle. Making peace with my body has meant wearing any types of clothes that I want because I have the ability to control what makes me look and feel beautiful, and no one else. No matter if the clothing may look too daring, or tight, or appears to be something that looks better on someone who’s skinnier; if I want to wear it, I will.
Body peace has also meant loving my chest size because I choose to no longer be horribly self-conscious about how big my breasts are, or if a top I’m wearing might be too tight or giving me a “boob crack.” The internalized hate and embarrassment of my breasts has even led me towards thoughts of a breast reduction, but at some point I had to decide that these toxic thoughts could not control such a major life decision. For me, obtaining body has meant: “Yes, my breasts aren’t a size A a naturally perky, but, no, I don’t care.” In the same way I’ve learned to love my chest size and the way it can fill out a dress in ways some women would kill for, I’ve also learned to just not care, And not caring has sometimes meant wearing a really loose, low support sports bra, or just not wearing a bra at all if that’s what makes me comfortable that day.
Embodying my body peace has also meant flaunting a very important component of my body image: my hair. Like so many Black girls, my body insecurities were even further extended to my hair, for I constantly faced criticism for hair that was too nappy, too short, too kinky, or just “weird”. Growing up as a Black girl for me meant that a lot of times in school I was made fun of for having straight-backs, “doo doo braids,” or basically anything that wasn’t deemed to be in style. Unless my hair was neatly braided in 12-18 inch weave singles, or “fried, dyed, and layed to the side,” my hair was made fun of in a way that made me hate it. And I continued to hate my hair up until this summer. I remember freshman year of college, I tried to do a braid-out and it didn’t come out exactly like the shiny, silky-haired, natural hair queens on Youtube said it would. Self-conscious about my shrinkage and lack of shiny, soft texture, I threw away the hours I had spent braiding and conditioning my hair by throwing it into an angry bun on the top of my head. I attempted to wear my hair out again last year as a college sophomore for our annual Spring fling concert, and I was so excited that I prepped and washed my hair two days in advance. After my insecurities got the best of me and once again I resorted to the angry bun, a friend who had seen how much time I had spent on my hair sadly questioned why I wasn’t wearing it out. “I’m just not ready” I replied. But, if I was being honest with myself I was one hundred percent ready-it was my peers who I didn’t think were ready to embrace all that my hair had to offer. But one day this summer, I honestly had to ask myself, “What am I scared of, and who in the world am I trying to impress?” This sudden realization has not only pushed me to try to style my hair in any way I like (or can physically manage, since, at age twenty, I’m sadly still learning how to do my hair without my mom’s constant help). Any day I wear my hair out I have to honestly question what I have to lose, and remind myself that my hair is beautiful, no matter what style, shape, or color it is in. To me, making peace with my hair has meant everything from rocking different styles, to stepping out the shower and brushing my teeth in a bathroom full of white guys who may have never seen what freshly-washed, nappy hair really looks like.
Making peace with my body has been a long, painful, emotional, and dark journey that I battled my entire life, but I could not be happier to have finally achieved not only body peace, but body confidence. Not every day is perfect, and, like anyone, I have my moments when all I want to do is eat pizza all day, but still somehow get Teyana Taylor’s abs, but at the end of the day I know that I’m genuinely happy with who I am. I know that I might never get a six pack, or be as perfectly “slim-thick” as all of the Instagram baddies, or have bone straight hair that can easily transition into soft, perfectly messy curls, but I am completely okay with that. I am blessed to say that at twenty years old, and one day I randomly decided that I like my body. Not just like- I LOVE my body. I love my body and every curve, wrinkle, stretch mark, freckle, patch of cellulite, nappy edge, and saggy titty, and if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
