Heyy Everyone,
The other day I was on Teen Vogue, and they had a survey about body image, which I decided to take and it got me thinking. The survey asked questions about what you thought about your body and celbs bodys, that sort of thing.
I personally feel that I have a postive body image. I may not like everything about my body, 100% of the time, but for the most part I am okay with my body. I personally feel like you wouldn't be able to find someone who likes every single thing about their body all the time. We all have those days where we hate certain parts of our body.
The media is constantly discussing stars and their weight. They can never win, they gain weight and they are fat, they lose weight and they have an eating disorder, there is never a happy medium. The survey asked what we thought was the best body type, and beside healthy they had Leighton Meester in brackets. I would personally consider her to be on the skinny side. I think that our perception of what is a normal healthy body weight has been affected by the media.
To me stars such as Selina Gomez and Taylor Swift have positive body images. They do not talk badly about their bodies and focus their attention on other more important issues. I hate how the media constantly looks at stars and their weight. Weight to me is just a number. What matters is how you feel about yourself. For me clothes allow me to feel good about myself. When I feel good in what I am wearing my confidence goes way up. It doesn't matter what the number on the scale is.
I find that many of these Teen magazines are very hypocritical. They have articles on the dangers of eating disorders and on have a positive body image. Yet you turn the page and their is a work out plan and a diet waiting for you to try. They are sending girls mixed messages about what they should care about. Don't get me wrong it is important to be healthy. To eat and exercise regularity. But why does exercising have to be running on a track or lifting weights. Why can it not be walking the dog or dancing? We seem to forget that their are other ways of being active. Eating healthy doesn't have to mean cutting out the foods you love. Yet we think diet and automatically its low carb, no sugar and no sweets. Why does eating healthy have to be considered a diet. Diet gives a negative image. Eating healthy doesn't mean cutting things out or eating less. To me at least it means eating more fruits and vegetables and eating fast food less often.
I think as girls we are hardest on ourselves and on each other. Why does it matter what size I wear. Or what size my friends wear? I think that we need to be less harsh on each other and recognize that everyone is beautiful in their own way. I have seen girls buy clothes a size too small for the fear of going up a size and in hopes of fitting into it later on. Why do we do that. What is this fear of buying clothes that fit. Why does it matter what the number on the tag says. When did the number become more important then the way we feel in the clothes.
We realize that their are body image issues among teen girls. Yet we do nothing to change it. Magazines do a feature on it and yet they still put work out routines in the same issue. Its something that I don't think is going to change unless we change. Girls need to realize that they are worth more then just the numbers, the number of their weight and the number on the tag. We need to stop judging other girls and realize the beauty in everyone. If everyone takes a stand things will begin to change.
Belle.
