"If tomorrow, women woke up and decided they really liked their bodies, just think of how many industries would go out of business." - Gail Dines
I was scrolling through Instagram the other day when I read this quote, and it has been on my mind ever since. I myself once used to fall victim to the sickening marketing strategies companies use to make money. I once thought that I would be much happier if I changed all the parts of my body that I was insecure about. That was until I realised that how someone feels about their body is not caused by how they look, but instead by how they think. My confidence is determined by how I am on the inside, not the outside. Changing my appearance was never going to get rid of any negative feelings I had, because I knew that my mindset was what really needed changing. Now, I am proud to say I roll my eyes when I see all the ads aimed at insecure women and men, trying to convince them the only way to be confident is to buy their product.
We are conditioned from such a young age to hate our bodies, and wish we looked different. We're told we aren't skinny enough, we aren't curvy enough, we're too hairy. And when we show even the tiniest bit of confidence, it isn't healthy. We're either promoting obesity or eating disorders. We edit pictures of ourselves so much that they don't even look like us anymore and convince our followers on social media that that's genuinely what we look like, because we're scared of the hate we might receive if we show the unedited version. That amount of pressure is completely shocking, yet we are so used to this lifestyle that we hardly even recognise it as bad. As soon as people put us down and make us feel like there is something wrong with our bodies, we're given the perfect opportunity to 'correct' those flaws through buying the products advertised to us. We're shown 'before and after' photos promising us amazing results within just four weeks. And of course, we jump at the opportunity to feel better.
That's until we realise it isn't so easy. Less than 10% of diets are actually successful, and there's a very simple reason for that. Even if they seem to work short-term, they often leave people in a much worse place than they started. Like I explained in my last post, Are your New Year's Resolutions actually helping you?, you are far more likely to improve your lifestyle if you gradually make smaller, more realistic changes, rather than putting all that pressure on yourself to consistently stick to a strict routine. I find it ironic that there are specific diets aimed to improve mental health, whilst diet culture in general can make it so much worse. As well as increasing levels of stress and feelings of failure, research suggests that people who diet are almost 5 times more likely to develop a serious eating disorder, as well as those who practice extreme dieting increasing their risk of developing an eating disorder by 18 times. So... are the 'amazing' results really worth it?
Even if you manage to stick to an extreme diet that you believe will make you so much healthier and more attractive, there is no promising that you will look like the people in the pictures. False advertisement is real...and it's a bitch. No two bodies work in exactly the same way, due to many reasons that we cannot control. We can work our butts off and put in even more effort than someone else, only to compare ourselves to them afterwards and realise they still have bigger muscles and a smaller waist. Even if we all ate exactly the same things, and followed the exact same exercise routine, we would still all look different. And that's okay.
The Body Positivity movement is something that has really helped me learn to love my body in the past few years, yet there is still a very long way to go. Whilst it can be extremely reassuring to see people of all different shapes and sizes celebrating their bodies, those who outwardly express their acceptance regarding how they look on social media are often immediately shamed for promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. Back when I wasn't too familiar with the true meaning behind the movement, I admittedly understood where these comments were coming from in terms of the whole 'health' thing, despite obviously disagreeing with the unnecessarily rude nature of most of them. But after educating myself on the topic and dedicating more time to reading the stories of body positive people, I have realised that you should never judge a book by its cover. You have no idea what anybody is going through; there are so many reasons why someone looks the way they do and it is hardly ever as simple as just changing their diet or exercising more. Even if they are unhealthy, they may have an underlying health condition that causes this, or they may be struggling from mental illness that prevents them from being able to make healthy decisions or dramatic lifestyle changes. They may simply have just been born that way, and have the same body type as most other people in their family. Whatever their situation is, it is never okay to try to knock someone down simply for feeling good.
Now, if you think what I'm trying to say here is that you shouldn't be trying to change your body, you're missing the point. It's your body, and if there's something you really want to change to make you more comfortable in your skin then nobody should judge you for doing so. But please, do so safely, and remember that your body in its current form is still equally as worthy of love and appreciation as it would be if you tried to change. It works so hard to keep you alive, so you need to listen to its needs rather than punish it. You can't tell how healthy someone is just by looking at them, so never let anyone tell you what to do without knowing your story.