I recently saw on Instagram someone uploading an image of a size guide recommended by the clothing brand (the clothing brand was not named in the image) and the results were shocking. The guidelines showed a UK 8 size to be medium, a UK 10 to be a size large and a UK 12 to be an XL. Posts like this show me why eating disorders are common. Girls as young as ten are hating on their bodies, using lip fillers and having nose jobs because society is telling us who we should be and what should we look like instead of us girls and women loving the body we came in.
Now I’m not shamming on anyone who gets a little work done on their body like lips fillers etc, but this size guide is unrealistic. People are slated for being a size 8 or too skinny then body shammed when a size 12. It’s natural/ on trend to post on social media your progress of the gym and showing off the toned body you have but are things getting out of hand?
I myself love fitness, the gym and eating healthy. I would take a 10-12 on clothing (depending on the quality) but I’m smaller on the top half, always have and probably and I feel us women are always given a hard time for it. We feel we have to be on trend (sorry but do you have a pair of tassel earnings right now?), we feel we have to live the social media lifestyle and post about our achievements or when we feel #girlpower #galpals are going strong but we never post days when we feel bloated or anxious, that doesn’t come into account and I blame the social media bubble for this.
The bubble life of social media is created by the number of likes on an Instagram post, the comments on your new Facebook profile and the amount of Snapchat streaks we have. Also, did I mention you should be going on dates regular if not you’re totally missing out? This view to me is pointless and I HATE THE WAY girls feel they must live like this.
I tell my friends if they are ever giving out about not getting the number of likes they think they deserved from a recent picture or giving out about their weight on the scales, you’re not defined by the number on the scales or the test score. You’re not defined by how many likes your selfie gets and you certainly are not defined by the number of successful/unsuccessful dates you have had.
Society sets these unrealistic and pointless targets for women to live by. There needs to be more women empowerment and less of the body shaming and nasty comments. We’re all just girls finding ourselves in this world we call life, don’t make it harder for us.
Photo by Hans Vivek on Unsplash