How many times do you catch yourself questioning your self-worth? How many times a day do you check your appearance in the mirror? How many times do you look at another person and wish you looked like them? Well, it’s time to stop that.
In society today we are surrounded by imperatives telling us to change how we look. To appeal to the people around us, we try to incorporate these into our daily routines. Advertisements fill our heads whether that be on TV, social media, billboards, in train stations… it surrounds us with new fad diets to try, supplements, intense exercise regimes and drinks, which apparently magically cause you to ‘drop the unwanted weight overnight’. impossible.
The female body has been manipulated over time, almost malleable to any men in power. Once, women were most appealing when rectangular shaped in the 20s, the time of the The Flapper girl. Then in the 30s, women were pressured to conform to the soft-slender look, eventually in the 50s where the hourglass ideal was implemented by Christian Dior in his “New Look”. In the 90s and in some today, we abide by the rules implied by the supermodels where the less fat there is sitting on your hips or bust as a grown, adult woman, the better. Methods to reach our desires are unhealthy and are often involving restriction of foods, over-exercising that can lead to traumatic issues such as eating disorders, where the effects become your shadow for life.
In this age of social media and the continuing development of aesthetics and plastic surgery, amongst the cyclical peer pressure, various body types have become ‘trends’ and young people are constantly trying to achieve these unrealistic ideals which are mostly, only possible from surgery. The most influential people in the world have a greater impact than we think on changing the norm, affecting us all. For example, the BBL otherwise known as a Brazilian butt lift, quickly rising to popularity after the Kardashians used it to create their dream body type, transfers fat from one body part (usually the stomach or waist) and is transferred to the buttocks. This surgery allows an illusion of an extreme hourglass figure, involving a large behind and wide, rounded hips against the synched waist. Once this look had been completed on the Kardashians, the look became a trend, and BBL’s grew in popularity around the world. However, after a few years, few of the Kardashians had this removed and backtracked on their ideal body type, removing this to have a slim, fit physique once again.
Therefore my dream body, may be different to yours, and your body may be somebody else’s goal. So stop wishing on someone else’s. We are always changing, developing, and growing, and this is normal as human beings, it’s beautiful that we develop the way we do.
I think we should all be a little kinder to ourselves, as we will never be happy with our bodies within this endless cycle of expectations and trends, if we are always trying to conform and fit in.After all, do you ever look at somebody you love, a family member, a partner, a friend and think ‘I would love you more if you had a smaller waist’, or ‘I would love you less if you were bigger?’. It’s time to take back your power, stand for what and who you are. Appreciate the homes we were given and will be living in for the rest of our lives. You cannot escape it, so we may as well love it and take care of it, and eachother.