Whether you like to admit it or not, we have all been through that “Freshman 15” phase in one way or another. Whether it was avoiding it at all costs or falling victim to that unlimited meal plan you just HAD to get. Maybe you tried to take control of your weight gain and turned the gym into your temple. Maybe you just didn’t want to or couldn’t bring yourself to go to that refreshing (but wretched) place. If there is one thing I want you tak away from this, its that no matter what the situation is or was, you are beautiful, just the way you are (cue Bruno Mars).
It’s almost impossible for us, as college girls surrounded by beauty in every single shape and size, to compare ourselves to that girl’s frame, this girl’s large chest, or those big butts. I’ll be the first one to admit that I have found myself wishing I could just shed some pounds off and look as thin and fit as the girls that I see walking across campus. It wasn’t until I actually started going to the gym that I came to the realization that I didn’t need to change my body just to look as good as everyone, I was doing it to feel better about myself– healthier and brighter. I thought that maybe if I lost weight, that guy from Tinder wouldn’t be disappointed and would want to keep seeing me. I have too often seen and heard women my age, and women of all ages complain about their body weight and the size of the clothes they wear, all to gain the acceptance and affection of a significant other or their friends. Apparently there’s this stigma that girls need to be thin and pretty in order to be comfortable and desirable in their lives. I reject that. Completely and wholeheartedly. You can be thin, you can be curvy, you can be both and in between. My point is that beauty is subjective, and it takes that acceptance to really find your own true beauty.
Yeah, Kim Kardashian has a nice butt and Ariana Grande has a flat stomach, but that is their beauty in their own way. You cannot be them and they cannot be you. I promise there is so much beauty in you. Your body is rockin’, and that is not calculated by some ridiculous, fake system that reduces who we are to a number. Own your body. All those curves, scars, and bumps are B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L, and no one can take that away from you, except your own mind. Can I get a “yas queen”?
However, If you do decide that you want to lose or put on weight–and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that– then do it for yourself. Not for anyone else or what you think someone expects from you. No one knows your body better than you do, so that decision is ultimately yours. Think of it as having the power to veto any negative opinion about your body. So in other words you’re pretty much the president of your body. That’s got to mean something, right? And no matter where you end up down the road of body acceptance and positivity, no matter who you are or what that number is on the inside of your clothes, you are without a doubt, indescribably STUNNING.