I’m asking because today is Love Your Body Day. It’s sponsored by the National Organization for Women and its aim is to overcome negative body stereotypes. So, if you are normally critical of your body, just for today, I’m encouraging you to really make an effort to love it and appreciate everything it’s done for you. ‘Cause I bet it’s done a lot.
(Image created by Whitney Calvert of Linesville, Pennsylvania)
Really. Just stop for a moment and focus on and create a feeling of love in your chest. Now spread it out to your entire body. Doesn’t that feel better? How long do you think you could carry that feeling with you?
If you’re interested, you can go here for more suggestions of things you can do to celebrate your body. You can also look through all the posters and maybe even make one of your own to enter in the contest for next year's Love Your Body day.
Here’s my own personal love my body story.
At one point in my life, I stopped buying and reading women’s magazines and catalogs. As a teenager, I’d read them all and sometime in my 20’s, they just stopped being interesting to me. And then one day, after many years (including the birth of my daughter), I picked up a Victoria’s Secret catalog and was shocked. Who were those scrawny women with huge tits? They honestly looked like freaks to me. First of all, no one that incredibly thin has boobs that big. Secondly, and most importantly, they didn’t look like me. And my naked body was the only woman’s form that I’d seen in years. As far as I was concerned, my body was what a woman’s body looked like. Those *ideal* bodies looked weird and unnatural to me. And they certainly weren’t attractive.
At that moment, I felt like cheering. Ha ha, Madison Avenue, MY body is the standard, not your models’. And I don’t want any of your stuff ‘cause I don’t need it. I’m gorgeous just as I am. Suck on that.
Can I get an Amen!?
Ah but did you notice the shape of the body in the image? Looks fairly standard: young, thin, etc to me.
ReplyDeleteAmen, Wendy!
ReplyDeleteHallelujah and Amen!
ReplyDeleteI made the decision this year to stop buying fashion mags, as they really just made me feel, well, crap about myself. So instead I now buy home & interior magazines (so I can feel crap about my home instead!) Thank you for such a great post!
ReplyDeleteAmen! I live in L.A. - and I don't need to buy magazines to see bodies like that. All I have to do is go the grocery store, the mall, the beach, etc. I never cease to be amazed at how many women there are walking around here that look like that. I try to impress upon my daughters that there is no way that those boobs are "theirs". Women's bodies (or very, very few) do not look like that naturally.
ReplyDeleteI once made a comment to a male friend about all the women at the gym with fake boobs, and he asked how would I know they were fake, and I told him nobody who is a size two has 44Ds. Duh.
ReplyDeleteFor the record, I do have a friend who is quite thin and has naturally large breasts, so it does happen. But not nearly as often as the media would have us think. (And, that friend also has numerous health issues, so she may be thinner than she would be otherwise.)
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post. Every woman needs to know about this day!
E, I hear ya. Even on something like this, the figure's pretty thin. However, those hips are heading off into a larger form, I think. And while clearly those are young boobs, they're small boobs. (And I think some of this campaign may be aimed toward younger women and heading off a lot of the eating disorders that develop at that age.)
ReplyDeleteBonnie, after I wrote this, I realized that while I've never seen any naturally skinny women with naturally big boobs, I'm sure they exist.
Anyway, I'm glad you all celebrated the day with me!
Thanks.
AMEN, HALLELUIA, and BLESSED BE!
ReplyDelete