Dear…

I’m so sorry you’re struggling with body image right now.

Sometimes being human & having a body can suck. 

And, I really wanted to tell you a few things I wish I knew when I first struggled with body image. 

1. It’s okay. There’s nothing you need to do/ or can do to “fix” your body. Your body is NOT the problem. 

          a) it’s how you are made to feel about your body that is the problem.

          b) No matter what you do to “fix” or change your body you won’t feel better because your body is not the issue. 

i) Think of a day where you had the best day at school perhaps. You probably felt really good in yourself that day & if you looked in the mirror that day you would have “liked what you saw”.

ii) Now, think of a really bad day. Maybe you fell out with your friends. Looking in that same mirror, you didn’t feel so good. NOTHING, in your body changed between the two reflections. But how YOU FELT ABOUT YOURSELF was different. That’s basically body image. It has nothing to do with your body. & so my darling changing your body is never the answer. 

AND what’s more it comes at so, so many costs. Costs my darling, I wish more than anything to spare you from. 

Here are some of the costs associated with trying to look like the “associated ideal appearance” 

1. It’s an illusion. The biggest lie you have even been sold. 

    a) Even if it is possible to reach, it NEVER lasts because of nature. We age, we get sick, we go through changes in lifecycles (puberty, pregnancy, menopause so many more). Bodies are supposed to change, age & not stay the same. 

BUT, 

 i) even if it is possible, getting there can be a dangerous pursuit. 

ii) it can lead you down a path of yo-yo dieting, disordered eating at best & at worst my path a miserable life of an eating disorder. Or dangerous disfiguring surgeries. 

iii) Your body image gets worse and worse because there’s “more” to “fix”, “more” to conform to, it’s never enough.  Your relationship with yourself, your body and food gets completely fractured. 

The psychological costs are astronomical. 

– Once you start you might feel good. (I’m not going to deny this) but that doesn’t last long, because here’s the thing, if you change something about your body & it’s not where your body is meant to be naturally, it WILL fight like hell to get to where it wants to be. Where it feels safe, where it can do all the amazing things that make you special. Your body doesn’t care about the fake “ideal”, it cares about you. 

BUT, hard truth, when your body goes back to  its own happy sweet spot you will NOT feel happy. You will feel like something is wrong, like a failure & then you’ll want to “fix” it again & so it goes on and on. You never really feel happy with your body.  But you see, if you’re following you don’t need to fix anything. Your body is and will never be the problem. 

What makes you special and the reason we love you, has NOTHING/ zilch/ nudda not one iota to do with the body you live in. Your earth suit. We love you for all the things that make you, you. 

Another cost, specifically of dieting; food is something that if diets didn’t exist- then it’s fun, it’s away to socialize, share memories with friends and family or fuel your body to allow it to do all the amazing things you do!

    a) But diets introduce morality to food. There’s NO morality, food just is. It cannot be “bad” or “good”. But, dieting corrupts your brain & teaches you to believe foods can be “bad” or need to be “earned” or avoided. NOT TRUE. ALL FOOD IS EQUAL. ALL FOOD HAS VALUE. 

     i) Dieting confuses your brain. It makes something that is simple become harder than quantum physics, introduces maths when there’s NO need. 

ii) the more you diet, if you “trip up” you feel you failed & few bad about yourself. You can’t win. It all results in you feeling worse about yourself. When you zone out.. none of these things are to be fixed or in our control to begin with. But they all lead  you to feel crappy.

Trying to “achieve” the “ideal” appearance:

Takes you away from what really matters, it draws your attention away from things you actually care about. It’s makes your life smaller. 

It isolates you and that can make you lonely. 

It makes you boring. (Participating in, talking about diets, plastic surgery, etc is really boring) 

It makes you less “you”, less authentic. 

It takes you away from your true values. 

It also robs you of the opportunity to really get to know yourself and discover all the wonderful possibilities life has to offer.  

And while you think you need to shrink yourself to fit in, the opposite is true. You have the right to take up space, unapologetically. To be bold, to create your own path in life, and to enjoy the freedom that comes with it.

The more you try to “fix” the more you fixate on the “problem”. The problem that’s not even there. But it magnifies and you see it get bigger. This makes you feel more negative about yourself. You obsess over it and this only makes you feel worse. 

This striving for the ideal- lends itself to you beginning to compare yourself to others. 

     A) You have NO idea what anyone else around you, on Instagram, TikTok, tv, at school is doing to “achieve” this “ideal”. They might be very unhappy, living with dangerous ED’s, disabilities you don’t know about, you don’t know. But when you compare yourself to them you feel “bad” not “good  enough”  because you don’t look like that. 

Again zone out. 

i) Most pictures you see on TV, instagram or ticktock aren’t real. They’re made up/ curated. If you saw the person in “normal” day to day no make up/ filters etc they wouldn’t likely look like that all the time.

ii) let’s come back to the “ideal” according to who. Every single person on this planet is different which is really cool if you think about it. What you like in someone/ or are attracted to might be very different to the “ideal” and that is very cool. You can be who you want, like who you want.

Now, this is not specific to you, but important to EVERYONE. Conforming to ideals makes it hard for everyone to have and exist in a body. 

Because,

It perpetuates the narrative that -ANYONE- outside of this “ideal” is a “problem” & needs to be fixed. This in turn fuels:

               -Racism

              – Ableism 

              – Fatphobia

              – Homophobia 

              -Transphobia

       ** we don’t want to continue this! ***

You see, NO one needs “fixing” to be good enough. 

When you think of your favourite person,

What’s the first thing you think of?  What is it about them you like?

I bet it has nothing to do with how they look. 

Now, I bet if the same person told you they “hated” their body/ how they looked,

You  would remind them of how much you love them and all the reasons why.

You my darling, are perfect as you are. You are loved for who you are and always will be. And deserve to take up space in the world, to be seen and heard.