By Emily Chambers
Body image is an issue every girl finds herself at war with, no matter her race, religion, size or ethnicity. Although this battle varies from person to person, we have all felt slightly vulnerable and insecure at one point or another due to the pressures of society. I found myself on this front the first few months of college, when everything in my world was changing. No longer feeling in control of my life, I succumbed to the pressures of the voices around me saying I wasn’t enough. I watched models on television and saw beautiful girls on Instagram and aspired to be them. Instead of appreciating my own body, I gave into the all too familiar lie that in order to be beautiful, we must fit into some sort of box. I allowed myself to compare my own body to the bodies of people who were not built the same way I am, and who had completely different lifestyles. It wasn’t until I started severely dieting that I realized losing weight and trying to fit into the mold of someone I’m not was doing more harm than good. I soon realized that the standards I set for myself shouldn’t be determined by outside factors, but rather influenced by my own desire to better myself through self-acceptance.
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Accepting yourself is not an easy task. To be honest, I am not even completely there yet. The idea is that every step towards self-acceptance leads you to a better you. I mean, with all of the possible role models we see portrayed in the media everyday, not many of them are exactly genuinely uplifting. In reality, by focusing on what other women look like, we are downplaying our own worth. Many young women, including myself, often feel the need to meet the standards of men, the media or even their peers, but who is to say we need that approval? Self-acceptance is recognizing your faults and therefore making changes to improve them, whereas self-compassion is a combination of self-kindness, common humanity and mindfulness. For instance, instead of being super self-critical for eating that Ben and Jerry’s ice cream after a long day of classes, tell yourself, “You are doing your best, and sometimes you have to give yourself a break!” By acknowledging your struggle, you are showing yourself self-compassion, which can eventually lead you to make change towards a happier and healthier self.
Self-compassion not only allows you to accept yourself, but is also linked to better health conditions. For instance, by cutting myself some slack instead of focusing on the idea that losing weight would fix all my life problems, I was able to reach this level of self-compassion. Additionally, self-compassion actually became a motivator for me to improve health habits, rather than using self-criticism like many other young women believe. With this idea in mind, we should realize that by setting our own personal standards, we are better off. In fact, there are more young women who do not fall into the beauty standards of today’s society than women who do. The average size of an American female is a size twelve to fourteen, much larger than what is seen as the “standard.”
There are people who believe women should not be able to flaunt their body if they are overweight. But there are many people who eat considerably healthy diets and work out, but still remain above the average weight. The argument that women cannot be happy just because they are farther on one side or the other is just like saying women cannot be happy if they are fair skinned instead of tan. In that example, just like losing weight, some people can try to tan forever and get nowhere, whereas some are born with a natural glow. This is where self-acceptance comes into play; if an individual can accept their differences, the opinions of skeptics will mean little to their happiness.
The debate should not be which side of the spectrum is healthier than the other, the debate should be about why we are tearing these women—and ourselves—down. Countless articles have slammed curvy and thin models for their appearance, yet these women have the right to make their own choices. In order to form true self-acceptance, we must rid ourselves of all comparisons and shaming. Each and every person has a right to whatever lifestyle they choose, celebrity or not. The reality is, if we stop idealizing other women for their bodies, and truly develop self-acceptance for our own flaws, we will not be pressuring ourselves to change in order to fit female stereotypes.