This blog is on hiatus while I take time to re-evaluate my blogging direction.

Body+

22 January 2013



In a nutshell this is what Body+ (body positive) is all about. It's about being positive about your body, loving it for what it is and does.

Today women are slammed with thousands of images that tell them they aren't perfect, good enough or beautiful. Society has such a narrow definition of what beauty is, which is really quite sad. We coach our children from an early age to believe that to be beautiful they need to conform to a certain set of standards. Thing is we're not all the same, we can't be and never will be. Those beauty standards are so unattainable for 99% of our society, so why are they the "norm"?

I've always been on the fat side of the coin. The only time I came close to the other side was when I was 18. I was smoking and drinking instead of eating, not exactly the picture of health, but never the less the smallest I've ever been. You know what though, at the time I though I was fat. My head was so fucked up with the misconception of what was beautiful that even at my thinnest I was my own worst enemy. Not surprising really after all the gobbledegook that had been shoved into my brain my whole life.

It's takes a lot of hard work to undo years of engrained self loathing. As a kid and especially as a teenager I always despised my little sister for getting the "good" genes. She had this beautiful clear skin that would tan the moment she stepped into the sun. She had gorgeous straight brown hair that always looked so pretty. I on the other hand had red frizzy hair and the closest I got to a tan was when my freckles multiplied and connected together over the summer. I was always complimented on the colour of my hair, it was the one thing people seemed happy enough to comment on. I remember a relative saying to my mother once "She's got such a pretty face. If she just lost some weight she could be so beautiful". This was said about my sister, I don't think she heard it at the time, but I did. Even though it wasn't said about me, I internalised it. My brain converted it to "They think she's pretty even when she's fat. You're not pretty your just fat". I still think about it today, obviously, and can't quite believe that it was said or the amount of damage that that one sentence did.

Body+ is about dispelling all the bullshit that we're fed about what beauty is. This movement is slowly spreading. More and more people are becoming aware of the different groups that work to promote a change to a positive body image. Body+ is my way of contributing to the movement as well as reinforcing these new beliefs for myself. 

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