On Body Image

Now that it's Spring and finally getting warm, it seems like there's a big obsession with body image. We start pulling out the shorts and tanks and shopping for swimsuits, which makes everybody start nitpicking their bodies.

It seems appropriate to do a post about body image, given that my Facebook feed keeps filling up with links to news articles about loving your body or photos of people with "real" bodies, which kind of implies that most people don't like the way they look. So many of these have to do with feeling good about yourself if you're not skinny. Seems the assumption is that if you're skinny, it's great, and you have no body image issues. Not true.

We all have things we don't like about our bodies, which is sad, but there's always something we should be striving toward according to the media. If you're skinny, you should really be working toward an athletic body or you need to get a booty. I am a skinny person, always have been. And, while I'm not complaining, I've never been content with my body either.

When I got married at age 22, I weighed 98 pounds (I'm 5'5"). I couldn't really do much about it. It's how I've always been. But being skinny doesn't make everything better or make people any nicer to you. I was picked on in school and called anorexic. (It didn't help that I was also nerdy with big glasses and extremely pale skin.) I've been called "sickly thin" many, many times and told to just "eat a cheeseburger." I saw a gastroenterologist at one point in college who told my mother that I had "warning signs" of an eating disorder because I chewed sugar-free gum and drank skim milk. The gum was at the recommendation of my dentist, and when I finally did start drinking whole milk, my cholesterol shot up, and I was told to go on a low-fat diet.

Sometimes it just feels like you can't win no matter what. Since having kids, I'm more comfortable in my skin and am focused on being healthy for my family. I've earned every imperfection I have, so why be ashamed? I research healthy foods and what I think we should be eating. I exercise to be fit and be more than "skin and bones." I am just as self conscious as anybody else, so I search for clothes that best suit me. That's why you will rarely see me in shorts other than bermudas in the summer, and I will usually have a cover-up on over my swimsuit.

As long as body image is ruled by marketing photos or simplified charts like BMI, we'll always feel inadequate. We all have beautiful parts and parts that we want to work on, but you should love more of yourself than you loathe. And, go shopping. Buy something that makes you look fabulous!