LET'S BODY SHAME YOU

I was going through a site; the site had pictures of a female artiste on it. I went to the comment section and I saw comments like,

“Haba! This skinny look doesn’t fit her.

“Is she sick? She looks like she has AIDS.”

“Lepa does not fit everyone abeg what is this”

My mind went back to months ago when pictures of this same artiste had surfaced and comments were like.

“See her Christian mother hands.”

“She looks like an old woman ,see fat everywhere.”

“How will this one find husband when she already looks like a mother.”

Then the other day I was grabbing lunch, a comment I heard from another table made me look up.

"You can't have that!! You shouldn't even be eating. Every time you keep stuffing your face with food, why won't you be fat like humpty-dumpty. Do you look like anyone in the family? Look at your brothers! " A woman told her son.

We hear of teens committing suicide. Maybe they were picked on at school. I remember one who almost committed suicide when asked why, it was the space in the middle of her teeth, normally called gap teeth (diastema) that was the reason. That she looked different from other kids.

Do you know in the past, in the days of Michelangelo, skinny women weren’t the in thing? If you doubt me look at all the statues and paintings from that era. Time changed, and then skinny became the new. Now, the voluptuous body is back. Tomorrow, it will be a different body shape.

One question, “Who decides the trend on body shapes?”

A group of people would just sit somewhere and decide this is cool and you feel like you are not good enough because you don’t look that way, your nose isn’t that way, your lips aren’t that way etc.

Who decides the perfect body really? Is it society” Your friends? Faceless strangers on social media? Magazines?

What right do they have to tell you that your body and the way you look is not good enough? Did they create themselves? Have they ever created anyone? So, why should their opinions matter?

One thing I have come to understand is that God is the master creator. He created things in multiples, different variations, colours, make up etc. Look at birds for example. All birds don’t look alike! I am going too far. Look at dogs around you. There are different kinds of dogs. Even the ones in the same group, there are some that are different. All dogs in the world don’t have the same body, fur, colour, eyes, ears, tails etc. They are all dogs.

The dogs are beautiful in their difference. Imagine how boring the world would be if all trees, butterflies, dogs, birds, cats etc., looked alike down to the last detail.

Your difference is what makes you, you.

If you are skinny, people will complain, if you add a bit of flesh, they will still complain. If your nose is flat, they will complain, you go do surgery and make it pointed, they will still complain about it.

One thing I have learnt is that people can only body shame you when and if you let them. It’s not people’s jobs to love your body and go wow. It’s your job first. When you love you from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, the world will adjust and learn to love you too.

Loving your body is your job so what they think about your body, isn’t relevant. It is what you think about you that matters.

Another observation, that thing you don’t like about your body, someone else is looking at it and thinking “I wish I had that.”

It’s not a man or a woman’s job to love your body. If they don’t like it, then they better go look for the person with the body they want because you, my darling are a perfect and beautiful creation of God. So, never look in the mirror, look at comments beneath your pictures and think you are flawed, not good enough and something is wrong with you. Don’t change or make alterations to your body for people but for you, well unless the way your body is poses a health threat to you.

If you decide to lose weight, gain weight or whatever let it be for you and with you knowing nothing is wrong with how you are now but your body is your car and you want to take care of it and make it into how you want not coming from a place of insecurity and thoughts about how others see you but from a place of being the best version of you and taking care of yourself.

Every time you look in the mirror, remember you are God’s masterpiece and uniquely different. Don’t let society tell you otherwise with her changing and confused perception of beauty and what the perfect body is.

There is no perfect body just like there is no perfect human. The journey to self-love starts from your body then within. The world can only body shame you when you don’t love you.  When you do, you can brush off comments and thoughts about your body and who you are with amusement because they don’t matter.

Remember, we can’t all look the same. No one’s body is better and more perfect than yours less you think so. Society’s perception of beauty is always changing. Who is the decider on beauty and the perfect body? Everyone, even those body-shaming you have something on their bodies they look at sometimes and wish were different.

Don’t let us body-shame and create body image issues for you, body-love yourself.

I leave you with Philippians 1:20,

“I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or death.”

Genesis 1:26-27,

“Then God said, “And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small.” So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. He created them male and female.”

 Thank you for reading my thoughts. What are yours?

Image cred: idiva.com