AVIWE

Body Image. For a while I battled with myself as to what I should write concerning this subject. Not only is it a very broad topic but also a lot has been written concerning it.

What angle do I take? Do I talk about my recent weight loss and give advice to women on how they too could shed a couple of kilograms? Or do I encourage women to embrace their curves, as society says “thick stays winning”, and in the process discourage those naturally slim and mind you healthy girls because they unfortunately aren’t thick?According to Psychology Today, “body image is the mental representation we create of what we think we look like. That is, it is subject to all kinds of distortion from internal elements like our emotions, moods, early experiences, attitudes of our parents, and much more. Nevertheless, it strongly influences behavior”.

For some reason, body hate is the new normal, and as a society we have become ok with someone hating some part of his or her body. We are more willing to share a new diet or detox juice with a friend, than we are to share an encouraging word to build their self esteem, faith, tenacity, will and spirit. We are more concerned with fixing what looks wrong on the outside of our loved ones than we are on fixing what could be broken on the inside.

We are a generation of people who give very little focus to our inner image because we want to be strengthened in our outer man. I mean we jog; we lift weights, go to aerobics classes and we twist and do all sorts of contortions in Yoga and Pilates. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing any of those things. I jog and go to aerobics on a regular but the problem is we focus on one part of body image, and neglect the other which is why we are never satisfied.

I’m talking face lifts, tummy tucks, painting our eyebrows, plucking them, turning them up, turning them down and all sorts of crazy things we do to our bodies in our quest to perfecting the outer man, and never do we consider the real problem.

I was listening to Beyoncé’s new song “Pretty Hurts” and I must say I was moved by the lyrics. Perfection is definitely a disease of our nation because everybody is trying to fix something about his or her appearance when the soul is what needs surgery.

I will say again there is nothing wrong with taking care of your health and going the extra mile to make yourself look good. In fact I personally encourage human beings to be health conscious and look after themselves. But I don’t encourage fixing the outside to repair or cover up the inside, if you know what I mean.

Honey, if you are not built up on the inside because you continuously neglect that part of body image, then trust me life will kill you. You don’t work on the outside to fix the inside because when all hell breaks loose your muscles and your mascara will not help you.

Everyone has some vulnerability in them and I bet you your “makeup” isn’t helping you with yours.

Life is not a runway where you’re being tested for the perfect nose. When life gets tough, and you need to draw strength from somewhere in order to survive, those biceps, triceps and quads will not be enough.

So no, don’t embrace your curves because society says it’s good to be thick, don’t strive to be a size zero because Vogue says it’s the perfect fit, teach yourself instead ways to build your soul, because often if not always, you’ll begin to see that transformation radiate on the outside.

Love
V.