Food for thought.

This is not okay. 

With the new year rolling in to town, I've seen more of these so-called "motivational" pictures than ever. And it honestly makes me feel sick to my stomach. How have we become so obsessed with the idea of becoming skeletally skinny? What has happened to our brains to lead people to think that THIS is the ideal? 

Let me start by saying that living a healthy lifestyle is something we should all strive for. When I eat right and exercise regularly, I feel happy, healthy, and full of life. When I overindulge and behave like a lazy bum, I feel sloppy and uncomfortable, and sometimes even sick. I enjoy running hard and pushing my body to do hard things. And truthfully, I feel much better about myself and have a much easier time maintaing a healthy level of self esteem when I am at a healthy shape for my body. 

That being said, there is so much more to life than the size of your waist.

For just about as long as I can remember, I've felt self-conscious about my body. I can remember smiling with my mouth closed in pictures, because I was embarrassed about my under-bite, and turning bright red when I had to order a bigger sized school t-shirt than the rest of my friends. I remember those painfully awkward years of feeling so bad about myself, and I just want to reach through time to hold that painfully insecure girl tight and tell her that there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. I was a normal little girl. I played outside, my mom packed me healthy lunches, and my little belly was not any sort of endangerment to my health. And yet, at 9 years old, I was already convinced that I was fat. How did that idea even get into my head? Who has the right to tell a little girl that she is not the right shape? As my shape has bobbed around over time, I've felt euphoric happiness as weight drops off, and complete devastation when a pound or two should find its way back on. What right does my weight have to control my happiness? And more importantly, why in the world would anyone strive to look like they are quite literally starving themselves?

In middle school, I remember learning about African women who wear spiral metal coils around their necks in order to elongate their neck. We were all so scandalized by this idea. Self-mutilation to preserve some bizarre ideal of beauty? Who in their right mind would put their body through such torture, to such pointless and bizarre looking ends? This fixation on becoming alarmingly thin is equally horrifying to me. Women on the runways today have body compositions suggestive of anorexia. As they drop to such unhealthy weights, their hair can fall out, their immune system weakens, and their reproductive organs completely shut down. This is not health. This is not even pretty.

I see the young girls around me and my heart breaks to think of them worrying about their size or their shape. It starts so young. Not only does it make my heart ache to think of these girls being robbed of their childhood, it makes me mad. It makes me furious to see young girls who are perfectly healthy feel fat and not pretty. They are selling string bikinis and halter tops on the rack for tiny girls. We are teaching them so young that their value is relfected in what they see in the mirror. According to popular culture, being heavy is not only unattractive, but it is a character flaw. Surely heavier people look the way that they do because they lack the self-mastery to curb their raging appetites. It's like having the will power to subsist on celery sticks and weight loss shakes puts you on a higher moral ground than those weakling plebeians that need food to survive. This is a lie! Food is not a sin. Food is meant to be enjoyed. Life is meant to be enjoyed. There is no victory to be found by starving yourself to reach some illusive ideal. We will never be skinny enough.

I feel so strongly about this issue, I can hardly organize my thoughts into anything coherent. I just want it to stop. I don't want to see these skeletal women on the cover of fashion magazines. I don't want to hear my friends complain about every part of their body that they think is flawed. I don't my future daughters to cry when they develop hips.

Our bodies are incredible. Whether they're a size 2 or a size 20. My sister had her first baby two months ago, and the first time I held my new baby niece, I was just in awe that her tiny heart was pumping away. Her brand new lungs were working perfectly. She is perfection. And she will always be perfection. I can't stand the thought of this new and perfect baby being thrown into a world that will tell her all of the reasons why she shouldn't think she is perfect.

You hear that Gandhi quote thrown around all of the time: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." So, it starts with me. However unorganized and poorly written this little rant is, it's a step forward in saying that I believe in something different. I believe in eating healthy food to make my body work better. I believe in eating cheesecake on my birthday. I believe in taking my dog on walks. I believe in running hard and appreciating my hard-working body with every step. I believe in wearing a swimsuit to play in the ocean, and not worrying about how I look. I believe in standing in front of a mirror every now and then and noticing everything that is beautiful about the way you look. I believe in spending some time without looking in a mirror, and noticing everything that is beautiful about who you are.

And mostly, I believe that most people truly believe these things too. They just need some help remembering.