Body Positivity
Body positivity. What does that make you think of? It may be that you think of someone feeling confident, inspiring. It may that you think of someone being comfortable in their own skin. It may be that you think of someone who has fallen completely in love with themselves. Body positivity includes all the previous statements but mainly, body positivity is a celebration of all bodies- tall, short, fat, thin and all in between, disabled, all genders. Every single person has the right to celebrate their body and fall deeply in love with themselves.
The majority of us have negative self talk. We point out the things we don't like about ourselves, things we loathe about ourselves, things we think are not considered beautiful. Why is this? Because of society. Society and media tells us that we have to achieve an unattainable body type and anything else is not considered beautiful. Diet culture tells us we have to sacrifice our wellbeing in order to achieve this "perfect" body type. Let me tell you something... This body type does not exist. Those pictures and movies you see? They're digitally altered. They're skewed. Every part of the body is pinched, shrunk, moved, elongated, airbrushed. Dark people are made to look paler, pale people are made to look tanned. Tiny waists, big and perky breasts, washboard abs, etc. Everywhere we turn, there is this non-existent body type; it's there on TV, in magazines, in the newspapers, on the billboards. It is shoved into our faces and embedded into our minds. Inspirational figures and celebrities are people we all look up to, aspire to be. Everyone has a role model. If these figures are considered to be beautiful because of their digitally altered non-existent body type, then where does that leave the rest of us? At the bottom of the self-esteem bucket, that's where. We end up questioning ourselves because we don't look like this unattainable person. We scold ourselves for not being thin enough, toned enough, tanned enough. Sot then we become sucked into diet culture. You've heard of it. Weightwatchers, Slimming World, Slimfast, Jane Plan. We're being encouraged to deprive ourselves. We can even get pitiful sized meals delivered straight to our doors. We're being encouraged to work our arses off in the gym until we reach our "goal weight" in which will never look like the non-existent body type because it's not real, leading us to no more happiness or contentment even when we've lost weight. And because this body type is unachievable, we're still left feeling inadequate, insignificant and unhappy. We also realise that we have been doing this for a long time, and it never makes us happy or any better off.
What would happen if we decided to accept and love ourselves? What would happen if we truly fucked off diet culture for good and stopped society from dictating what's beautiful and what's not? What would happen if we CHOSE to be our own kind of beautiful? You know what would happen? Body positivity. Now, it's not easy. It difficult work, because we've had the diet culture, the beauty standards and the ideal shoved down our throats for the entire time we've been alive. We have to unlearn all the habits we've grown into and we have to learn new ways of accepting ourselves for who we are. Not only does this apply to our physical appearance, but also our minds. In our modern culture, we're used to mentally screaming at ourselves for the slightest thing and many of these screams throughout the day build up and completely wear us out, give us anxiety, depression, eating disorders. We have to start small on this journey to self love, because that's what it is- a journey. It doesn't happen overnight. We have to give it time, but it IS possible.
That belly you've been scolding and hating on, give it a rub, feels the rolls and squishy parts, feel how soft it is. Those legs you've been self conscious about for years, thank them for carrying you throughout your life.
PERSONAL STORY
I started my body positivity journey in 2016 when recovering from anorexia and bulimia. I never considered myself to be bulimic but now looking back I used to purge in a few different ways- self-induced vomiting, overexercise, and I also used to binge.
I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's been incredibly difficult. Firstly I had to deal with eating more when I was stuck in filthy habits and rituals. I had to overcome fear foods, slowly reduce my purging and gain weight. Being weight restored was the hardest thing I had to deal with. My new body was alien to me. At first I absolutely despised it and once again wanted to go back to all my habits and lose the weight again. But something clicked in me. I realised that I had been doing this for years and no matter how much weight I lost, I was never any happier. It was all a lie. Eating disorders LIE. They make you believe you'll be happier at such and such weight, or size, or look. They make you believe everyone will love you when you reach such weight. They make you believe you're not worthy of food and you deserve to be punished. All of this is a complete and utter LIE. I finally realised this in 2016, and I became furious. I was angry that I was sucked into this lie for so long and I was never going to get that time back. Time when I should've been enjoying my life, exploring and getting to know myself. Instead I spent that time stuck in my house day in day out weighing myself and making any sacrifice to lose weight. While I was angry, I was grateful at the same time for having this new found realisation. It was then that I decided enough was enough and I really focused on recovery. I battled through my terrifying fears, I pushed through the anxiety attacks, I got through the self hate and disgust. The rose tinted glasses fell off and it came to my attention that I didn't need to be society's definition of beautiful or perfect, but instead I could make my own beautiful. This year I started writing self love lists. The negative thoughts still come but I choose to let them go and I replace them with positive self talk. I started to accept my qualities and try to turn my weaknesses into strength. I still have my insecure moments, and I'm not fully there yet, and I'm still battling other mental health issues, but like I said earlier, it's a journey to self love and self enlightenment, and I will never EVER stop fighting and following this path.
The majority of us have negative self talk. We point out the things we don't like about ourselves, things we loathe about ourselves, things we think are not considered beautiful. Why is this? Because of society. Society and media tells us that we have to achieve an unattainable body type and anything else is not considered beautiful. Diet culture tells us we have to sacrifice our wellbeing in order to achieve this "perfect" body type. Let me tell you something... This body type does not exist. Those pictures and movies you see? They're digitally altered. They're skewed. Every part of the body is pinched, shrunk, moved, elongated, airbrushed. Dark people are made to look paler, pale people are made to look tanned. Tiny waists, big and perky breasts, washboard abs, etc. Everywhere we turn, there is this non-existent body type; it's there on TV, in magazines, in the newspapers, on the billboards. It is shoved into our faces and embedded into our minds. Inspirational figures and celebrities are people we all look up to, aspire to be. Everyone has a role model. If these figures are considered to be beautiful because of their digitally altered non-existent body type, then where does that leave the rest of us? At the bottom of the self-esteem bucket, that's where. We end up questioning ourselves because we don't look like this unattainable person. We scold ourselves for not being thin enough, toned enough, tanned enough. Sot then we become sucked into diet culture. You've heard of it. Weightwatchers, Slimming World, Slimfast, Jane Plan. We're being encouraged to deprive ourselves. We can even get pitiful sized meals delivered straight to our doors. We're being encouraged to work our arses off in the gym until we reach our "goal weight" in which will never look like the non-existent body type because it's not real, leading us to no more happiness or contentment even when we've lost weight. And because this body type is unachievable, we're still left feeling inadequate, insignificant and unhappy. We also realise that we have been doing this for a long time, and it never makes us happy or any better off.
What would happen if we decided to accept and love ourselves? What would happen if we truly fucked off diet culture for good and stopped society from dictating what's beautiful and what's not? What would happen if we CHOSE to be our own kind of beautiful? You know what would happen? Body positivity. Now, it's not easy. It difficult work, because we've had the diet culture, the beauty standards and the ideal shoved down our throats for the entire time we've been alive. We have to unlearn all the habits we've grown into and we have to learn new ways of accepting ourselves for who we are. Not only does this apply to our physical appearance, but also our minds. In our modern culture, we're used to mentally screaming at ourselves for the slightest thing and many of these screams throughout the day build up and completely wear us out, give us anxiety, depression, eating disorders. We have to start small on this journey to self love, because that's what it is- a journey. It doesn't happen overnight. We have to give it time, but it IS possible.
That belly you've been scolding and hating on, give it a rub, feels the rolls and squishy parts, feel how soft it is. Those legs you've been self conscious about for years, thank them for carrying you throughout your life.
PERSONAL STORY
I started my body positivity journey in 2016 when recovering from anorexia and bulimia. I never considered myself to be bulimic but now looking back I used to purge in a few different ways- self-induced vomiting, overexercise, and I also used to binge.
I'm not going to sugar coat it, it's been incredibly difficult. Firstly I had to deal with eating more when I was stuck in filthy habits and rituals. I had to overcome fear foods, slowly reduce my purging and gain weight. Being weight restored was the hardest thing I had to deal with. My new body was alien to me. At first I absolutely despised it and once again wanted to go back to all my habits and lose the weight again. But something clicked in me. I realised that I had been doing this for years and no matter how much weight I lost, I was never any happier. It was all a lie. Eating disorders LIE. They make you believe you'll be happier at such and such weight, or size, or look. They make you believe everyone will love you when you reach such weight. They make you believe you're not worthy of food and you deserve to be punished. All of this is a complete and utter LIE. I finally realised this in 2016, and I became furious. I was angry that I was sucked into this lie for so long and I was never going to get that time back. Time when I should've been enjoying my life, exploring and getting to know myself. Instead I spent that time stuck in my house day in day out weighing myself and making any sacrifice to lose weight. While I was angry, I was grateful at the same time for having this new found realisation. It was then that I decided enough was enough and I really focused on recovery. I battled through my terrifying fears, I pushed through the anxiety attacks, I got through the self hate and disgust. The rose tinted glasses fell off and it came to my attention that I didn't need to be society's definition of beautiful or perfect, but instead I could make my own beautiful. This year I started writing self love lists. The negative thoughts still come but I choose to let them go and I replace them with positive self talk. I started to accept my qualities and try to turn my weaknesses into strength. I still have my insecure moments, and I'm not fully there yet, and I'm still battling other mental health issues, but like I said earlier, it's a journey to self love and self enlightenment, and I will never EVER stop fighting and following this path.
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