I’ll be the first to admit, my knee-jerk reaction to a skinny model in a magazine is to say her body type is unhealthy and unrealistic. Just the other day, I saw a Victoria’s Secret ad with a stick-thin model who appeared to be devouring an entire chocolate cake, and all I could think about was how ridiculous the entire image was. Surely girls who are that skinny most definitely do not eat cake, let alone carbs – or probably anything, for that matter.
And that’s when I realized how incredibly awful I sounded. Making negative comments about a girl’s thin body is just as offensive and hurtful as making negative comments about a girl who is curvier. So why has it become acceptable to put down the former?
Answer: it’s not.
With the number of stick-thin girls steadily increasing in the fashion world, it’s no surprise that curvier women have unleashed backlash at the industry. Countless A-list celebrities such as Demi Lovato and Justin Timberlake have spoken out about how curves are better and more attractive. The idea that a skinny body type is unappealing has also been increasingly present in music by female artists, like Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” and Meghan Trainor’s “All About That Bass”. But putting down skinny girls should not be the solution for body image issues.
Many of us are guilty of doing the exact same thing; we see a skinny girl, and immediately start making assumptions about her that could very well be completely false. What some girls fail to realize is not every thin girl is counting each calorie she intakes, or throwing up after her meals. While it is true that some models stay skinny in unhealthy ways, there are girls who are naturally very thin, and have less curves simply because that is how they are built. Comments that put down thin women in an attempt to fight insecurity are, ironically, causing just as much of it on the opposite end of the spectrum.
The desire to be curvy can be just as detrimental to a girl’s mental and physical well being as the desire to be skinny. Girls with flatter chests or smaller butts will sometimes resort to plastic surgery in order to become curvier, because they feel their body is not feminine enough. The insecurity of being less curvy has even hit home with rising music superstar, Ariana Grande. On her 20th birthday, she tweeted about wishing for a curvier body; the next day, however, she realized her mistake, and encouraged girls to love and be proud of whatever body type they have.
Rather than focusing on what a “good” or “attractive” body looks like, we should be stressing the importance of staying healthy and happy. Skinny doesn’t mean healthy, and curvy doesn’t mean unhealthy. We are all built differently, and the goal should be to keep our own bodies and minds in a healthy and happy state – curvy or thin.