Body positivity means accepting your body despite its flaws. Feeling confident about your body, accepting yourself the way you are and loving yourself immensely is the essence of the concept. Body positivity is accepting the body you have as well as the changes in shape, size, and ability it may undergo due to nature or age throughout your lifetime. It’s about breaking the stereotypes created by the society.
Society has shaped us in many ways, possibly more than we realize. Since our childhood we see our people including our parents and friends criticizing and making comments on our weight because of which many of us become insecure and conscious. Media has set an idealized beauty look by featuring ultra-thin and fair tone models in magazines which leads to lower self-esteem and depression. Social media users choose to share the best parts of their life with world, they cover their flaws by filters and beauty editor apps. People compare themselves with others and begin to feel that they are not good enough. There is no such thing as a perfect body, the concept of perfection is in itself a flawed concept. Real beauty comes from within, the most beautiful people in the world are those who have a good heart. It’s a high time for body-positive initiatives. One’s self-esteem should never be dependent on one’s appearance. Appearances aren’t everything. Characters, values, skills are attributes one must seek to acquire and develop. Don’t try and emulate someone else’s looks or personality. Be authentic, that’s what will make you stand out.
Body positivity also aims to help people understand how popular media messages contribute to the relationship that people have with their bodies, including how they feel about food, exercise, clothing, health, identity, and self-care. By better understanding the effect that such influences have, the hope is that people can develop a healthier and more realistic relationship with their bodies.
The first steps against body positivity tend to start at home. Women are told from young ages that being pretty will help them thrive, they are to act feminine, and that how much they weigh will be a constant presence in their life. Teenage girls and boys are constantly bombarded with images of celebrities who are skinny and have Eurocentric features. The message is clear: this is what success is supposed to look like. It is skinny, but not too skinny, girls, who have perfect hair and makeup, or extremely masculine boys without any hint of low self-esteem. Despite this, the past years have shown body positivity movements and campaigns that have grown, as well as efforts for more diverse model spectrums that have made strides in society.
As individuals we need to stop pressuring ourselves to change the way we look to fit society’s standards on how we should appear. We need to appreciate ourselves and our bodies. Everyone is born to be different and that means not being perfect. We shouldn’t change ourselves to fit in society’s expectations of our appearance. We are beautiful, we are special, we are unique and we shouldn’t let anyone else tell us otherwise. Let’s break the idealized beauty standers and the stereotypes created by the society. Everyone is beautiful in their own way and what matters is the inside beauty and not the outer appearance.
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