All too often you see the post about self love, or love your body. It is a an interesting thing to realize that some people have no idea how someone couldn’t love their body. This person sees your Instagram post and thinks “I wish I looked like that.” Or read a post about how you battled to find love for yourself and comment “you’re so beautiful and strong I love you!”
For me I’ve struggled with body shame most of my life. I was always the skinny kid that, “needed to eat more.” Then I didn’t realize how bad that hurt me. We often see the body shaming only referencing on the larger size but it isn’t exclusive to any one body type. It’s also unfairly heavily put on women, this also isn’t exclusive to just the ladies. I talked to two of my friends one I met in high school the other in my adult life, both are extremely honest in the comments about their bodies.
Both a male and female so we can hear from both sides of the struggle.
First to explain your background what’s your age?
~33 female.
~ 35 male.
If you had to put an age on when you started to pay attention to your body image, what age would you say it was?
She responded, ~at a very young age around the age of 8/9 I was “much bigger” than my cousin who was 6mths older.
I think this is unfortunately the norm it seems like for young girls comments start around that age. Adults that think they are being helpful or funny start a unhealthy cycle probably without even knowing.
This is where it seems different already with his answer~16 years old.
This is often around the age boys have their first experience with body shaming. I was a bit younger but definitely got the most harsh comments about my size.
I was thinking back and trying to remember if I had a thing tell me I was “too small”, so I asked them when you started paying attention to it was there a voice inside pushing you in one way or the other?
This is where the answers started to fall hard into what we know all too well... ~ yes my voice was telling me to get thinner, if I was going to achieve “model” status that everyone said I had the face for.
Too much and too often we tell young girls “you have the face of a model, if you could lose weight.” Again that hurtful cycle shows up. Beautiful and beauty isn’t directly connected to size. For me personally even from a young age to be beautiful you had to be a good person. Had nothing to do with size or even looks really. So I could never understand how people could be so mean and hurtful over someone’s size big or small.
His answer didn’t surprise me at all either. ~ I was always the tallest kid in school. I was also slender. I always wanted to build muscle and have some shape to me.
That everyone, is the idea of a man.. muscular and manly. I had a similar thought and felt less than because no matter what I did I was not getting any bigger. I think back to something that my dad said, “you don’t want to look like a gorilla in your clothes. That will make you a target to fight.” (Yes fist fight. It’s a whole other story) so I was always shown exercises that built lean muscle not bulk up, that with a struggling family of 5 it wasn’t like I could eat my fill. In my experience people often joked about my size or lack there of and I would laugh it off not showing how much it hurt.
Now that we understand how hurtful this can be I asked, with where you are now on your body love Journey what advice would you give that 10 year old kid?
~ I would say be conscious but don’t let it consume you, make right / healthy choices. Love your self 100% the rest falls into place. No two body’s are the same.
~ Stay active and take everything in moderation. Play sports, step outside of your bubble, spend time in the gym, and learn proper technique.
I find it interesting that both responded in a maternal and paternal way. It also says a lot about the way we still see the solutions to body image issues.
Jumping forward a bit, when it came to romantic relationships I wanted to know if they found themselves coming up with reasons on why a partner couldn’t actually find them attractive? She said what I see body positive posts talking about and how we need to stop doing.
~Yes daily I would pick myself apart in the mirror justifying if it ever ended why that would be.
His answer surprised me, but this is where I feel like more pressure is put in women than men.
~ I would have self doubt now and then, as everyone does. I always told myself that as long as I'm happy and having fun, that's all that matters. If someone doesn't find me attractive for some reason, that's their opinion. There are far too many people in the world for me to allow one persons opinion of me to dictate my life and feelings.
It seems a lot of time we see ourselves as less than. It causes us to attack ourselves and we start to really believe it. After that it’s hard to see anything but who/what we’ve created.
~ We are our own worst critic. We see every flaw so we fall in love with that. Where as our partners love us flaws and all.
~ In a sense, yes. It's easy to fall in the pit of self doubt. The thing is, in that pit, the view never changes. You must pull yourself out of the pit, take a breath of fresh air, explore and enjoy the vast world around you.
Both responses are positive and that’s the big message of this blog post, they are on the path to loving themselves everyday, they may have hard days but they find a way to take that next positive step.
Tell me about a time where a person made a comment that made you realize how little you accepted your own body?
Another good example of the comments made towards men and women. ~ I am still working on this. I accept the compliments, do I always believe them NO, bc my voice is wondering what the motive is behind it.
I love the “women support women” movement but never realized how it could come across as suspicious because of just how long regimented women are in being insulted with a complement.
Men on the other hand often hear.~ In my current state, I am vastly out of shape and overweight. Seeing people I haven't seen in a long time and hearing a comment along the lines of "wow, married life has been good for you" knowing they're referring to the weight I've put on. I just need to buckle down and work to get back in shape.
Again people being “funny” isn’t funny after all. Wrapping this up I asked about the media’s role in all of this. Both responded in the way I hoped. She tells me. ~ yes I think in today’s society men and women have many “idealistic” challenges, however I do believe many are trying to break “stereotypical” norms. He believes.~ I feel a lot of those stereotypes are pushed by media and marketing. Sadly, in the information age of today, it's nearly impossible to avoid it. One has to be able to recognize that it's all a marketing ploy, and see between the lines.
So it looks like we are onto the BS and no longer accepting it as our normal. No matter what size you are, you are you and beautiful.
Coming to the end here. I wanted to know what got them on the path to accepting who you are now both body and mind?
Her answer fills me with joy.~ I am a mom of a daughter who needs a strong mother who will truly help her love herself for her and not for what society thinks she should be.
His answer inspires me.~Overall happiness. Life is short, so don't spend it being unhappy and worrying about other peoples opinion.
If you find yourself reading this I hope you are another step forward on you body love path. I know I’ve made big steps in accepting me and loving what my body is and does. At the end of the day it is up to us to love ourselves, to believe we aren’t a number on a scale or size in a pair of pants. We are beautiful, strong, individuals that can be whatever we want to be. I hope you are all staying safe and working on being a better person today than you were yesterday and looking forward to trying hard tomorrow. -MH
This brought me to tears!
ReplyDeleteAww! Support and acceptance.
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