Body Image Issues

I remember looking into the mirror at six years old and declaring to everyone, “I am so fat.”

I grabbed the roll on my belly and sulked in the mirror, wishing it would go away. This is where my body issues began.

I wish I could say that I’ve grown past this, but this feeling has followed me through my adolesence and early adulthood so far, and I am not sure when it will leave.

It doesn’t really matter what my body looks like because it’s never good enough for my standards. Little comments over the course of my life have stuck with me, impacting how I view myself and how I treat my body.

“Well you’re not skinny.”

“If you keep eating like that, you’re gonna have a fat ass.”

“You should exercise more.”

“We can only hook up if you shave first.”

“Why do you have hair there?”

“Of course I want my girlfriend to have a supermodel body. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Women shouldn’t have tattoos.”

“Your hair would look better if it was long. Why do you want it to be so short?”

“You eat so much, you’re like a bottomless pit.”

Everything from my weight to body hair to physical appearance has been critisized my whole life. When I look in the mirror, the flaws are the first things I notice.

Growing up I was always on some sort of diet. I tried to watch what I ate at all times, constantly fluctuating between anorexia, bullimia and binge eating. I felt guilty if I enjoyed food too much and found some sort of satisfaction in the hunger pangs that came when I starved myself. I tried to count calories to an obsessive degree and if I saw I gained any weight, the negative thoughts would swarm my mind.

I tied so much of my value to my physical appearance because, generally speaking, this is what girls are noticed for. Their intellect or talents are thrown to the side, and the majority of compliments go something like this:

“You’re so pretty.”

“Wow beautiful!”

“You have a nice smile.”

Etc., etc.

The boost in confidence I felt when I received these compliments caused me to rely so much on the superficial aspects of myself for meaning and value. This is what made the insults so damaging.

I tried to fit into the mold of “beautiful” by our society’s standards, but these standards are fluid. Beauty in one country is perceived differently from another. Every time period has a different concept of the “ideal body.” So maybe I can be beautiful in specific ones and ugly in others. It’s all relative.

The first time I truly felt beatiful was when I decided to ignore these standards and treat my body with kindness. My body became a canvas for art and tattoos. My clothes began to reflect my personality instead of just continuing to be a culmination of whatever style was popular in the moment. I felt beautiful when physical beauty didn’t matter so much anymore. I felt beautiful when I spoke my mind and started to pursue my interests and passions full force.

But, of course, there is always going to be a bit of friction when you go against the grain. It’s hard to handle this at times. It’s hard to know that sometimes feeling good about yourself can evoke anger and discomfort in those who supposedly care about you.

But maybe they also are buying into these standards, too, without being fully conscious of it. Maybe they are unaware of their own social conditioning.

And so if they see someone going against the norm, appreciating a body that isn’t what we deem to be “beautiful,” they’re confused.

“Why would you get THAT piercing??”

“Tell me you’re not getting anymore tattoos.”

“Why did you dye your hair that color?”

“That low cut top makes you look like a slut.”

These comments are damaging and trying to push you back into the norm. But, why do we have to fit into normal beauty standards at all?

I started to realize that my body image issues stemmed from the fact that I was desperately trying to fit myself into a mold that just was not me. I was beating myself up so much because I didn’t have a supermodel’s body, and I never will. I didn’t want to dress in the popular style. I wanted to get tattoos. I wanted to get piercings. I wanted the outside to reflect the inside as much as possible.

When I started doing this, things began to change. I saw myself differently. I started to feel more comfortable in my own skin. I don’t need random people to tell me I’m beautiful because it only matters if I believe it.

All of our bodies are different. Short, tall, skinny, fat, black, white, brown, long hair, short hair, purple hair, brown hair, covered in tattoos, empty of tats, some have wheelchairs, some do not, hairy, bald, big boobs, small boobs, long legs, short legs, the list goes on.

These differences make us interesting. None are perfect because perfection doesn’t exist. Once we stop hating our bodies, we’ll also stop living our lives constantly pursuing impossibe beauty standards that we see in magazines. Until we stop chasing after an image that isn’t real, can we live authentically with what we have already.

Maybe I’ll never be a six foot tall, photoshopped supermodel, but that doesn’t mean that the way I am is anything less than beautiful.