To the beautiful customers who do not feel enough,
I love my job, I truly do. My co-workers are some of my close friends and I love providing healthy and allergy friendly snacks and meals to the public. But sometimes I leave the juice bar a little sad, sometimes I look at a customer and want to tell them the unfiltered truth.
Your skin is already glowing, your hair is shiny and your body is perfect. Two legs, a healthy heart, strong arms and a working mind enabled you to come here. You are not unhealthily overweight, not even remotely close.
Sometimes you’re a mother, with a young child at your side. Proof of a miracle and the incredible things the human body can do. I admire your strength and your desire to fuel your body with the best. But I cringe at US Weekly’s headlines “Bikini body four weeks after giving birth! Find out how she did it inside!” and shake my head at the drastic photoshop on Kourtney Kardashian’s post-baby photo-shoot (why?!) Bond with your beautiful child, give yourself wrinkles from laughing and smiling, and yes, feed your body well. But do it for YOU. Not to “get back” the exact shape your body was before pregnancy. Your body is working, beautiful and just as perfect now.
Sometimes you’re like me, just out of the teen years and dealing with the challenges of low self-esteem. Everyone is wearing skinny-jeans and leggings. Crop tops and cut outs seem to be everywhere. A social gathering rarely passes without phones out to take selfies, Instagrams, new profile pictures, Snapchat stories, Vines, the list goes on. I feel this pain too. Comparison is the killer of happiness and compassion is hardest to give to one’s self.
You quietly inquire what is best to lose weight and lose it fast. I give suggestions for juices with metabolic super foods and a few high-fiber smoothies. I too love acai, smoothies and raw energy balls. I tell you this, and you joke that you have been in a “week-long food coma” since all the sweets on Christmas. I say that Christmas is for eating yummy sweets, spending time with family, laughing and enjoying time away from work.
But I understand, I too obsess over the number on my scale; I too stare at my thighs because they look an inch wider. And I know I am only one voice, there are seven others at the grocery store check-out, giving you “New Year, New You” diet advice, telling you the “Top 10 New Foods to Watch for in 2016” In fact, it is said that average American in a city will be exposed to upwards of 5,000 media images per day. Models in these images have modified waistlines, thinned noses, smaller frames and softened jawlines. When women try on clothes and they do not look as good as they did on the models, they begin to believe it is them that is the problem. If we just looked more like the model the clothes would look as good too! The cosmetic surgery industry in the United States is thriving and Plastic Surgeons report a steady increase in teenage patients.
So to the beautiful women who come into my work looking to lose weight, to have glossier hair, to look a little bit more like Miranda Kerr; know that you are not meant to look photo shopped. Fight against the messages targeted to make you and other women feel less than enough. Choose food to fuel your body and your taste buds. Drink juice if you like it and a Christmas cookie when you want it, but know that you are not defined by your weight, size or diet.
Your body is beautiful, working and strong, and so are you.