The Body Issue

I'm sorry about the lack of posts this weekend. Real life got in the way. I promise I will try to pick up the pace once again.

Today I wanted to talk to you about something that has caught my attention over the last few months. I will just call it the Body Issue. For a long time, it was thought that girls had to be extremely skinny in order to be worthy. Or at least that's how the whole idea was perceived. If you were skinny, you were beautiful. If not, you simply weren't. It was all very black and white. Because when are you considered skinny and when are you big?

In fashion, the deal was this; if you are not a size zero, you are fat. If I remember correctly, there is a shift in the fashion industry right now and more and more designers and magazines are banning unhealthy models from their catwalks and editorials because it promoted an unhealthy lifestyle, which would make young impressionable girls insecure about their own bodies. A good thing. H&M used a size 12 model for their swimwear campaign. Brilliant, because it is a more accurate representation of the average woman.

However, I have noticed that the swift may have gone a little too far. I keep seeing images on facebook claiming that real women have curves. Basically saying that those who are not blessed with cup DD are not worthy of being a woman. Bullshit if you ask me.

I agree that size doesn't matter. I agree that you don't have to be skinny to be beautiful. But honestly, saying someone who doesn't have curves is not a real woman is just as bad as saying someone who is big is not beautiful. Some girls can eat whatever they want without gaining a pound. They are just skinny. Not every skinny girl is anorexic after all. Just like every girl who is size 12 or up is not obese. There is a grey area which is so easily forgotten in our quest to justify our image of what is or what isn't beautiful.
We make the grave mistake that we consider a certain body image to not be correct, but what we are really rallying against is the excessive use of photoshop in magazines, which show us the ideal of a real woman. But it's not. Those pictures do not represent real women. They are mere images. The model in those pictures has just as much cellulite and pores as you and I have. Read this article.

I'm somewhere stuck in between. I have size 8/10, but I do have curves. I'm not really skinny, nor am I big. Where does that leave me? Bottom line of this all is, we are all women. We all have our strenghts and weaknesses but we are all beautiful. Everybody is different so there is no right or wrong when it comes to our bodies. I think we tend to forget that. Instead of insulting each other or claiming one is better than the other, we should compliment each other and boost each other's self-esteem. There is enough hate and division in the world as it is. We are all women. Instead of trying to hurt each other, let's help each other.

Oh and let's not judge the bodies of men in the process. They have feelings too ;).