It's swimsuit season, and a time of the year when people typically head for the beach in swimsuits and shorts. For many, this is no big deal at all, but there are also many others who feel self-conscious about weighing too much or not enough, being too muscular or not having enough muscles, or having stretch marks and scars. There are many things, a lot of them natural, about our bodies that we are often made to feel ashamed or bad about.
Stretch marks, which are actually a normal part of puberty for most guys and girls, are often photoshopped out of pictures. There is endless advice on the internet about how to "get rid" of them.
One time, I overheard a conversation between a group of people who were talking about how women who were overweight shouldn't wear crop tops or bikinis because it didn't suit them. And I know boys that have been made fun of for being too skinny when they were as young as 11 or 12.
How many times have we heard people making fun of other people's appearances in public? How many times have we heard our friends make negative comments about their own bodies, talking about the things they wish they could fix instead of the things that they like?
We judge people for having imperfect, flawed, and human bodies. And yet, when people decide to have plastic surgery or otherwise fix those "problems" in some ways, we make fun of them for that too.
Life is too short to worry about whether your body looks perfect or not. To let other people's judgement deter you from feeling the warmth of the sunlight on your skin at the beach. My mom once told me that what's really important is that you're clean and presentable, and it's something I still agree with today.
There are many different types of people in this world. People with arms, people without arms, people with scars from all they've been through, people of all different kinds of weight and skin colors. But what matters most is that we're all people.