It's My Summer

Summer is coming up which means the flood of “bikini body” and diet posts are about to start trickling into your feed. I’m just going to take a moment to discuss why all of those articles and diets are harmful, hateful, and well, basically bullsh*t.

         

During the rise of social media, the beauty expectation for women has taken a dangerously unrealistic turn. The media is the biggest and leading influence in society today - meaning that it can have an easy impact on a global audience. Throughout history, each era has an ideal body type that women strive to be, but in the 21st century this ideal is nearly genetically impossible for the average woman to attain. With this new standard for beauty comes an increasing struggle for girls of all ages to accept themselves for who they are. The reason these expectations are so dangerous is because of the effect it has on people mentally. Studies found alarming relations between these effects and the rise in mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and eating disorders all caused by the urge to fit into the narrow mold of beauty both forged and portrayed by media.

Although we do have plus sized models that have widened the range of body representation, their sizes have decreased as well. A decade ago, plus size models were usually between a size 12 and 18, when now they have shrunk down into sizes 6 through 14. Which means that the majority of women living in America are considered “plus size” because the media never cared to take a step back and realize that the average size of women in America is a 16. But they didn’t stop there. Magazines companies are allowed to use photoshop in order to create this artificial beauty. They are allowed to take a woman's body, in which they have already picked apart piece by piece, and distort it as if her own uniquely crafted figure isn’t perfect already.

Dove launched a campaign in 2004 that has continued to grow and have effects today in 2019. The campaign had a goal to feature and celebrate women of all body types, and was the first ever campaign to do so. To show the alarming negative effects of social influence on beauty, Dove conducted a survey that revealed heartbreaking statistics. Only 4% of women all around the world consider themselves as beautiful. 72% of women feel an overwhelming pressure to be beautiful. And 75% of women believe that comments made by media that critique women's beauty are destructive to their self-esteem.

Yes, percentages like these are factual proof that illustrates how the pressure to feel beautiful is increasing while confidence of the female generation is rapidly depleting. But the proof that matters the most, isn’t factual but emotional. How many times a day do we look into a mirror? Once, twice, maybe a hundred times? At each glance noticing one more flaw that we allow to tug more and more at our confidence. It doesn’t help that commercials and advertisements are constantly telling us what we should look like. Not directly, but by only showing thin tall models the audience may get the idea that that specific body type is the only one that sells. A tiny waist, long legs without a single stretch mark, and a seamlessly flat stomach. I sit and watch and wonder, why should that be my hero? Then I think it’s because the beauty industry relies purely on us feeling uncontent with our bodies. They poison our minds to believe that beauty is defined from the outside in. Stressing on the body externally only causes suffering internally. Once these negative thoughts start to linger, it initiates an entire domino effect making us cave into them.

You see, thoughts like this creates insecurity. Becoming so conscious of what you look like walking down the street, you begin to watch what you eat, and count calories right down to the salt and pepper. It’s exhausting. Body shaming is everywhere we go, and it has become so much of a social norm that people start to believe the hate. All caused by the world society and media has created where it seems like having the perfect body is the key to happiness and success. But it doesn’t have to be this way. I refuse to believe this is the truth because beauty shouldn’t be defined by size but by your character, your opinions, your thoughts, your experiences; not your size. You don’t need to fit into a cookie cutter stereotype to feel self worth.

I need your help when I say we need to break out of this. Escape this world by which we are consumed with the expectation that size is all that matters. We need to take action so that future generations don’t follow our mistakes. The idea that companies aren’t allowed to use false advertising needs to be applied to the beauty industry. It should be illegal for magazine companies to retouch photos and use models all having the same body type because that is not the truth. Instead we should be celebrating our individuality through authentic imagery. Let’s create a movement where women are encouraged to help one another and build each other up to get over bathing suit fear. No matter if you have bigger hips, bigger boobs, a bit of a butt, or cellulite, who cares! That’s the body you’ve got, so show it off; why not! In doing so we can set an example of what we could be. We could be the generation of body diversity. The generation in which women never relinquish their bodies or their confidence to someone else. The generation of women and men who focus on who they are, not who they wish they were. If you want to wear a bikini, shorts, or a crop top, do it because your happiness shouldn’t be hindered by a fear of others irrelevant and unnecessary judgement. I invite everyone to help and create a body positive environment, in which we share things we love about ourselves and never feel like we are not good enough or unworthy. Wake up and say: It’s my body. It’s my summer. It’s my happiness. I am going to take it back.

I would love to see all of you beauties showing off! Tag me in your photos and use the hashtag #ItsMySummer!