Dani ☮

17

Is it true hurt people hurt people?

Positive ones go on the wall, negative on the floor over there.” He points to this heap of ripped-up paper. “It’s important to get those down, but they don’t need to hang around after you do. Words can be bullies.

—All the Bright Places, by Jennifer Niven.

Body Shaming

Society is so corrupt and broken. Especially when it comes to younger people, teenagers mainly. There is always so much fuss about protecting us and us protecting ourselves but magazines and just the media in general, along with society, has made it so easy for us to feel bad about ourselves. Magazines promote big boobs and thigh gaps with flawless hair and gorgeously tanned, spot-free skin. That’s girls. And that’s all that most people see as wrong with the media when it comes to younger people. But then there’s the chiselled jaw, the 9 o'clock shadow and the deep-set abs with gorgeously tanned, spot-free skin for boys. That’s the media. Then there’s our perception. We shame people for having a bigger body but skinny shaming is just as bad. 

Someone who I was once friends with said that thigh gaps were disgusting. Now, I’m someone who has struggled with my weight in the past, but not for the reason you’d think. When I was younger it was so hard for me to put on weight and I was underweight for so long that I was under the hospital for it. Being able to see my ribs so distinctly was horrible to me. What was more horrible was that fact that I could breathe in enough that I could curl my fingers underneath them. But being told that having a thigh gap was disgusting angered me. And I guess it stuck with me.

What I’m trying to say is that the media and society is saying that being “fat” is horrid, but being “skinny” is just as bad. What’s worse is we believe them when they say this and when they promote this “perfect body”. The truth is there isn’t one. I have day’s were I feel stick thin, others when I look at myself and tell myself that I’m fat. I’m far from that. But I’m not a stick either.

I wish I could be happy and comfortable in my on body and my own skin. Maybe that’s my own problem, but I can tell you for certain that it’s been amplified my these views of the “perfect body”.

I wish we all lived in a world where there was no fat or skinny. No body shaming of any kind. We should love the skin we were born in, it is the only one we are ever going to get. We shouldn’t care about the size and shape of others. Everyone is beautiful, no matter what size, shape, race, ethnicity you are. Everyone is beautiful.