Recently I stumbled across this picture:
Supposedly, this is called “thinspiration,” or “thinspo.” At first, it bothered me. Then I realized, I wasn’t annoyed. I was angry. What kind of response did the creator of this picture want? What did they expect? Maybe it’s the term “thinspiration” in general. It may be that my intense dislike for the word itself is what bothers me so much about pictures like these. The word itself makes it seem as though the most important thing in life is to be thin. As if the most redeeming quality is your weight. As though skinny is better than generous, kind, supportive, confident or healthy. If I were to meet the person who coined the word, my first question would be: How dare you? How dare you try and convince others that they are more worthy if they are skinny?
The picture asks, “Do you want hipbones or pizza?” I could just roll my eyes and say, “Yes, of course pizza because #pizza4lyfe.” Except that this goes so much deeper than that. There was a point in my life when I valued the hipbones. I valued the collarbones, and I needed the gap between my thighs more than I needed a Valentine from that boy in the third grade. It wasn’t until I had them that I realized they aren’t worth stressing over.
My collarbones don’t help my sister with her homework. My hipbones didn’t watch movies with my friends at 2 a.m. There is some bizarre misconception that skinny means healthy. That skinny means beautiful. That skinny is the only version of these things. All I have to say is that these are wrong. They are so wrong.
So many of the things I write here are corny, and I know that most of you have heard these things before. However, I believe all of them, and among those cheesy clichés is this: There is no general standard for beauty. I am a small person. I wear kids’ clothes and tiny shoes. I am learning to love my body, even on days when I feel that those days at the gym haven’t done much, or when I want to just crawl into my sweatshirt and go to sleep forever. Some people are born confident, and their confidence radiates from them like the actual sun. “Thinspiration” pictures make me angry because they are a testament to the things that drain self-confidence. These are the things that made me scared to eat pizza at parties or donuts at my high school homecoming.
We do not need to be inspired to conform. We do not need a textbook definition for beautiful. We most certainly do not need to be shamed for decisions as trivial as drinking the occasional soda or eating a slice of cake. A number on a scale should never be the determinant of our worth. We deserve to take up space. There always seems to be some type of negativity that stems from appearances. Among the most hurtful and ridiculous things are sayings like “Real men love curves, only dogs go for bones,” and “She is so fat, it literally freaks me out.”
No one deserves to be ashamed of their body. No one has the authority to tell us what our bodies should look like. Nobody has that right. I love my body. My thighs, gap and all, help me run and walk and bike. My sister loves her gap-less thighs because they remind her of Beyoncé’s: long, tan and no gap in sight. So, here’s my response to that picture: Screw you.
I love my hips. I love my collarbones. I also love sweets, cake and ice cream. The only thing that you “inspire” me to do is to not give up on myself. Skinny is not perfection. You know what is near perfect? My little sister’s chocolate cheesecake recipe. As a bigger “screw you” to that picture, I found a similar version that I’ll leave right here.
Photo Credit: pinterest.com, readystartblog.blogspot.com