The other day I was scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed because who doesn’t look through their newsfeed late at night? I follow Cosmopolitan and there was an article that caught my eye. The article was about how plus sized women recreated 6 high fashion ads that models such as Gigi Hagid posed for. They shared their insecurities, but also how recreating these ads empowered them. The first thing that popped in my head after reading the article and watching the video was: We need more body positivity.
Body positivity is not just about supporting women who are plus sized, but just celebrating all body types. I feel that some people think body positivity is supporting only plus sized women. This led to women who are skinny to be shamed. No body shaming should ever occur. We need to celebrate all types of beauty whether a woman is thin, curvy, blonde, brunette, short or tall. A woman is beautiful no matter what. Social media will portray women who are thin or now plus sized women as the standards of beauty. There should be no standards of who is beautiful.
When we place standards on beauty, then it just causes harm. It causes women to strive to look like certain models or actresses because that’s what society has deemed beautiful. It leads to body shaming women for not reaching those standards. It leads to women having low self-esteem. It can even lead to eating disorders for some women. This is not what we want. We cannot put a standard on what is beautiful. We can’t have girls growing up believing they need to look a certain way.
I’m not just saying all of this either, but because I truly believe we need to end body shaming and add more body positivity. I’ve experienced body shaming my whole life as I’m sure each of you have had experiences too. Growing up, I was picked on for being chubby. Now, you would think it would end in grammar school, but it went on in middle school as well. When I finally got to high school, I thought it stopped. I was wrong though because I still felt this pressure to look like the models on social media. It wasn’t that I was bullied in high school but I felt this pressure because while growing up, media made these models seem perfect. I strived to reach those standards, but realized that I’m beautiful the way I am. Yes, the slight insecurities are there, but it’s not longer about feeling ashamed of how I look.
This is why we need more body positivity, so girls later on do not share my experience of body shaming, or yours if you’ve experienced it. We need to teach the next generation that everyone is beautiful, Collegiettes! Every shape, size and color is beautiful. We don’t need to set a standard because honestly everyone is unique, which makes them beautiful. No one is going to look exactly the same as another person, which is why there can’t be a standard. Never strive to look or be someone else because your true beauty is just being yourself.