Our Body Image

This blog is both personal and hopefully it will be personal to you, the reader.

Hello everyone!! I know it has been a while since I have written a blog (well only a week) but I felt that this subject is particularly close to some of us mostly because of how society has made it out to be like. I know many of you know what I’m probably going to write about but this is what I think about society and body imagery from my perspective and how I’ve dealt with growing in sizes myself.

First of all, I don’t want to offend or hurt anyone by writing this blog, the reason I really wanted to write about this subject (I know is sensitive to some) is because not only of personal experience but also to aid those that are probably feeling down about themselves and would like a pick-me-up.

I am a size 10, which varies on certain days from sizes 8-10-12 around the chest, waist, hip and thigh areas which means I go through a lot of sizes, I don’t mind the fact I am a bigger size for my hips and thighs than I am for my waist, but the fact I used to stick to one size when I was younger, before I started getting curves and stuff, I was a solid size 8. The thought that I was growing to bigger sizes made me super paranoid because going from a size 8 to a 12 in my hip area scared me so much leading me to thinking I was getting fat, which wasn’t the case at all. In no way at all am I calling myself skinny because I am far from that and in no way at all am I judging other people who are actually thin and have a skinny figure.

When I got to about 14/15 I started going through a rough time with being bullied in school, mostly mentally and verbally which to some people would seem harmless, but with being so emotional and sensitive at the time, it was a huge deal for me, so I moved schools to the one that I left from almost three years ago (omg wow). With the abuse thrown at me, which I don’t remember having anything to do with my body, just really cruel things, got to me hard, which lead me to losing my appetite a lot, so I hardly ate that much when I was having dinner, probably a quarter of my food would be eaten and that would be that so you could imagine I stayed a lighter size 8 than normal, this was all before puberty (ewwwww right). When I finally settled into my second high school I started eating properly (kind of) again, I was/still am an extremely fussy eater. I started getting more curvy and grew to a size 8/10 and that was that until I left school.

This is going somewhere by the way…

I won’t lie to you and say that life after school was easy and it really wasn’t, I went to college to learn beauty therapy and this is when my body image paranoia kicked in. We were given these awful uniforms which was a dress that came about 30cm above your ankles, it was the most unflattering thing I have ever been forced to wear and I HATED it!!! Although I did enjoy the course for about 2 weeks until I wanted to drop out (but I didn’t). To make myself happy about spending a whole year in this vile dress, I decided to try and make myself fit into it to make it look somewhat flattering, so I skipped most meals, drank a hell of a lot of energy drinks and didn’t eat many healthy foods, plus I was also on the pill (worst decision ever). Although I didn’t see a difference at all on the outside, thinking I was getting thinner in some way, I ended up becoming anaemic towards the last three months of the course, which if you don’t know what anaemic means, is that your body NEEDS iron, and in my case I needed it super fast, I don’t remember exactly what my iron count was but I do remember it being really low when your iron should be much, much higher than that. My iron has come back to its normal stage now but my immune system and metabolism aren’t as strong anymore.

When I was in college, I was aged from 16-18, which sucked because I was so naive about the way I looked, I never wanted to wear all white out because I’d think I’d look huge, I’d be too scared to wear a colourful top out to shop in because of what people would think of me, I was even too scared to wear lipstick to go to town to just hang around with friends because people may have thought I was trying to look slutty. Why did I think like this? Because I was an easy target, I was so so so scared of what people thought of me, and now? I couldn’t give a single shit. These people I saw in town were strangers, I have never seen them again, ever.

I wish the way I thought about the way I looked was different, because the way I look now is completely different, I’m not paranoid anymore, yeah I have the odd day when I’m like ‘ahhh yeah I could lose a little bit here and there’ but later on, not even think about the thought. So frigging what if my thighs slightly touch when I stand? So what if my stomach has a couple fat rolls when I sit down? So fricking what if my hips have a little bit of chub on them? So what if my waist is way thinner than my chest area? So what if my shoulders are (extremely) broad? So what if my feet look like children’s feet. SO WHAT?!

May I also add, I have had three pizza’s this week, do I care? NOPE.

I think we should all appreciate ourselves for what we are, you look like you because you are you and you are bloody amazing. Your flaws make you unique at the end of the day, there is no one on this planet that looks like another being. For example, your hands may be small with chubby nails, your legs may be thinner on top and bigger towards the bottoms, your hair may be extremely curly with an amazing vibrant colour that needs no dying, your smile may be slightly crooked, your nose may be slightly arched, you may have a beauty spot directly in the middle of your forehead, you may even have a big cranium etc. Whatever it is about yourself that you really hate, you should love the most because some of you may think other people from tv, magazines etc look perfect and you also want to look perfect but it is that one thing you hate about yourself that makes you amazing and the person you are today.

People shouldn’t judge others on their flaws or lifestyles or whether someone is curvy or slim, even based on what a person is wearing. We should never belittle someone because they are bigger than you or thinner than you. Don’t laugh at a person that is 6 sizes bigger than you and is rocking a crop top better than you, instead you should just be happy for them being so confident in their own skin, which takes a lot of guts.

So whether you’re an 18 year old guy who is a size 12 who is scared to wear a fitted shirt because of the slight bit of weight you have, wear it! if you’re a size 14 girl who is too scared to wear the cutest floral skater skirt because it will show off your thighs, wear it! If you are a size 6 girl who is scared to wear a mini skirt or a vest because your body may shock the public, screw them! If you’re a 13 year old boy who is paranoid about wearing a stylish shirt because of your puppy fat (which believe me, does go after a couple years, don’t worry!!) wear it!!!

WEAR WHATEVER THE HELL YOU WANT. YOU WILL LOOK FABULOUS ANYWAY.

Literally, screw what other people think, they’re no one to you and 9 times out of 10, you’ll probably never see them again. We should all be so happy in our own skin and its such a shame that a huge percentage of the population are so self conscious, me being a part of that. If you feel that you want to lose weight for summer or for a holiday or maybe you just want to tone up for your own benefit, that is great! But we should NEVER feel like we should change ourselves for society.

Feeling happy is the best thing in the world whether it lasts 5 minutes or 5 years and when we are at our happiest, we should flaunt that shit up. We are human beings at the end of the day, there are 7 billion of us, which means 7 billion different style choices, ways of life etc. We are all unique (and also made of stardust may I add), If you are happy being who you are and if you’re happy in your body then, fuck what anyone else thinks.

I’m not saying I personally have never ever judged someone by their outfit, whether it be good or bad because I have although I hardly ever do judge other peoples clothing because mine aren’t the best, and I know everyone in the world has judged others too, for example someone could be looking at a girls outfit and be thinking ‘oh my god that jacket is so nice’ or something like ‘those bright pink neon crocs do not go with that top’ or someone could think ‘she is too big to be wearing those leggins’ or ‘that girl is so skinny, you can see her rib cage through that top’. We do live in a harsh world when the smallest comment can hurt a person so much and the commenter wouldn’t have even noticed that they have insulted or offended someone so much. It is mental bullying to be honest and we hardly ever notice we are doing it whether the person knows about it or not.

This is getting far too deep right now and I think I will end the blog post here for now.

Thank you for staying this far into this blog and I love you like a Sophie loves chicken nuggets.

I like your faces!!!!!

(I apologise that this may be worded badly due to it being 1am. oops)

Soph xo