When I had more body hair than self confidence
body image
i’d say the meaning of this term is
fairly self-explanatory
body image is how we perceive our bodies
whether
it’s positive or negative varies from
person to person
one of the things that might negatively
impact body image is social media
yes seeing flawless influences is bound
to create self-taught especially since
we find ourselves comparing our bodies
to there so often
for me it almost makes me feel inferior
and like i’m not pretty enough
i’m sure a lot of us feel compelled to
compare ourselves to them
to their shiny hair to their glowing
spotless skin
to their size zero figures these beauty
standards are so difficult to escape
from especially since they’re
all around us but what we don’t need to
understand
is that a lot of this is filtered and
edited to make it appear flawless and
you cannot possibly
accurately compare your bodies to theirs
it wouldn’t be fair to your body
unfortunately a lot of these beauty
standards have been around even before
social media was as widespread
let’s go back a few years it was the
sixth grade and i like this boy
the first boy that i ever liked sounds
pretty exciting no
it wasn’t it was an absolute disaster
the boy did not fancy me and he wasn’t
afraid to show it
this didn’t bother me but he
was rude his friends and him would go
out of their way to mock me
and one of their focuses was my body
hair
which was not a problem for me until
that point in time
very soon a lot of my classmates picked
up on this joke
and well you can guess how seventh grade
went for me
i didn’t think too much of it and went
back to being my cheerful bubbly self
twelve-year-old me was a happy child she
did what she wanted she wore what she
wanted she did what made her happy
little did she know things were about to
change
to this day i cannot leave the house
if my arms aren’t covered if they aren’t
hairless
even if it’s 40 degrees outside and i
cannot help
but blame this major insecurity that has
weighed me down for so long
on a group of sixth graders that thought
it would be funny to mock my body
this brought a lot of insecurity for me
i think 10 times before leaving the
house because i think i don’t look good
enough
a boy once told me that he liked me and
i asked him why it brought so much
self-doubt and so much anxiety for me
but for a lot of other people it does
not stop there for a lot of people it
leads to
eating disorders for a lot of people it
leads to depression for a lot of people
it leads to so many unpleasant things
that i would not wish on my worst enemy
look at society as a whole dark skinned
people are shamed for the color of their
skin whereas people with lighter skin
aren’t who comes up with these
who said that having lighter skin is
better or more attractive
everyone is beautiful regardless of
their skin color their race
their gender and the list goes on
unfortunately our culture has these
beauty salons that families subject
their children to
which is why children think it’s okay to
go to schools and mock
their friends and classmates for their
body
sometimes families even use nicknames
that
highlight their kids insecurities
and these insecurities aren’t just
restricted to the person with the
insecurity they affect the people
with the insecurity the people who they
care about the people that care about
them
these insecurities don’t just vanish
with time they stick with you
and you’re bound to pass it on to people
around you
and they word to people around them it’s
an endless cycle
the thing with body images you think you
could control it but you can’t
well not entirely anyway
the body your body image is determined
by the people that surround you a study
done by the university of waterloo
suggests
that the way you perceive your body is
majorly influenced by the people that
you have daily interactions with
let’s say that you start spending time
with people who aren’t like quick to
point out your flaws
because let’s be honest all of us have
flaws nobody is perfect
but what we can do is learn to accept
them accept our own flaws
and accept others laws and i know this
is easy for me to say but
when we start accepting others flaws
this would be reciprocated and they
would accept
ours and these insecurities don’t come
into picture until someone points them
out
for example i didn’t care for my body
hair until someone decided to make fun
of it
only then did i get insecure about it
and only then did it start bothering me
so if we don’t point out other people’s
flaws and insecurities
they would not affect them
body image person’s body image becomes
negative when someone points
your insecurities out because until they
do
you don’t really think about it so when
they do your insecurities will worsen
so just be nice to each other just be
supportive and nice to each other that’s
all it takes
but when we when you are being nice to
others you need to learn how to be nice
to yourself
my therapist told me to look in the
mirror and tell myself
you are important and this felt really
weird and narcissistic at first
but as i started doing it it almost got
validating
and then i realized that i don’t need
the validation of others
the only person that i need the
validation of is myself
because it’s my body i need to take care
of it i need to live with it it’s mine
for the rest of my life so why not take
care of it and love it
instead of loading it
my therapist also asked me to keep an
appreciation journal to write down
things that i
appreciated about myself this also felt
really weird and narcissistic at first
but then as i got used to it and started
writing things that i loved and
appreciated about myself
it helped me like myself better
and this is something that we need to
learn we need to learn how to love and
appreciate ourselves
because each one of you is so beautiful
and you deserve the world
and you need to tell yourself this
i am beautiful you are beautiful
you deserve the world you are more than
you let yourself think that you
are thank you