Be-YOU-tiful: A Reflection of Body Image and Body Positivity

By Amanda Cohen on June 1, 2015

Body image is a very “hot” topic in our culture today. More and more people are shedding light upon the issues of eating disorders, the idea of what a plus-sized model should look like, and ultimately what the perfect body looks like.

As a young adult female, I have seen the detriments wanting the “perfect” body has on individuals. I am writing to explain my views on body positivity and what it means to be secure in your own skin. However, before reading on I want everyone to realize that I am 100 percent for possessing a positive body image and I do understand that there are varying definitions of having the “perfect body;” I support each and every one of these definitions.

There are so many lenses that we can look through when interpreting body image and health. When people hear the word health they automatically think about kale and running on the treadmill, but I am here to tell you that there is so much more to health than eating your greens and getting in an hour of cardio each day. I personally like to break health down into two smaller categories, physical and mental health, and each of these groups can be broken down into even smaller groups.

Mental health is extremely important; however, it is unfortunately not taken as seriously as physical health. Our society has trained us to associate poor mental health with being “crazy,” but it is not that black and white. Mental health has to do with your opinion about yourself, your opinion about others, and why these opinions exist. I am not a licensed psychologist, but I do have enough knowledge to declare that every single person’s brain is wired differently. A person’s mind is like a fingerprint; even identical twins do not have identical brains or thoughts.

Mental health is too often only linked with depression, anxiety, and other psychological disorders. Mental health encompasses every thought that runs through our heads. Two people can have the exact same physical appearance, but person A thinks that she is fat and person B thinks she is too thin; it all stems back to their mental health and wellness.

Physical health, on the other hand, is what people get checked when going to their annual physical in the spring. When I asked a group of girls what word came to mind when I said the word healthy, they shouted out words like skinny, thin, model, and exercise. Being healthy and being thin are not the same. Yes, someone who is deemed as being thin can be healthy, but that is not a condition that needs to be met when determining your physical health.

When thinking about health, think about how you feel when you wake up in the morning. If you feel sluggish and unmotivated, maybe there is something off balance with your physical health. If you feel winded after walking from your bedroom to the kitchen, maybe you should talk to someone about how you can change so that you never feel winded again.

Being physically healthy involves how you feel, not with how you look. Let me just say that the contestants on the hit television show The Biggest Loser are promoting better physical health than a thin person who sits on the couch eating cheese curls all day (physical health is not all about what size you wear).

It is safe to say that physical and mental health involve how people feel about themselves; therefore they are ultimately one in the same. You might be asking yourself how this all relates to body image. Well, body image is all about how you feel when you look at your own body or when you look at another person’s body, and let me say now that it is very difficult to maintain a positive body image 24/7 because we are not chemically built to be happy-go-lucky all day, every day.

When looking at mental and physical wellness, it is impossible to ignore the one common denominator that affects each of the two groups: societal norms. Until recently, young people would see posters, television shows, and magazines with either tall, lean, toned, fatless women or buff, toned, flawless men. Constant exposure to these media sources conditioned people to believe that if they did not look identical to the unrealistic body images promoted by popular culture then they were fat and ugly.

In order to counteract these negative and untrue thoughts, more and more media sources have stopped using Photoshop to edit out cellulite and curves. Not only have images been shifted to be more realistic, but people have started to speak up about how all bodies are beautiful and how fat-shaming needs to be demolished.

I am so thrilled that attention is being brought to negative outlooks on physical appearance and even though I agree with some of the socialization methods, I do not agree with the entire movement. In order to promote the notion that having curves is something to be proud of, people have shed a negative light upon having no curves and being thin. Body positivity is all about being comfortable in your own skin, but not every woman is curvy and the world needs to recognize that. The Victoria’s Secret Angels should not be shamed for looking the way that they do and neither should a woman who wears a size 12 in jeans.

The new mantra of the body positivity movement should be “All bodies are beautiful … wherever you stand on the spectrum, remember that you are be-you-tiful.” So, ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls, stop thinking about body positivity as how a person looks, start thinking about body positivity as being physically and mentally healthy and, ultimately, being comfortable in your own skin.

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