Body Shaming Comes in All Sizes

A couple of days ago, a lady with an impressive following on Instagram posted a picture of herself in bodysuit. In a couple of minutes, comments - very few really friendly - started to flow: she was accused that she is too slim, she might be a counter-example for teenagers changing their mind about self-acceptance, she might be anorexic and sick etc. 

The decision to show your body publicly is indeed very personal and always involves the risk of being the target of various comments, more or less laudatory. After all, regardless of your size and measurements, there will always be people that will not be happy with the way you look because in fact they are unhappy with their own personality, bodies and ways of being. 

Apparently, there is hard to make everyone happy and you - as a human being or a people included in the category of 'influencers' - cannot change this very human unhappy condition. My point is that even people who are very slim and underweight can be as often targeted as those fighting with a weight problem. I know this from my own experience. 

Although I have my own history of eating disorders - that I will maybe talk more about one day - there is also a genetic structure that I inherited. All the women in my family were slim and I am slim too. I do work with a nutritionist that advices me on a regular basis about what are the best foods and ingredients I need to have regularly on my diet. I do sports of all kinds and I according to my MD, I am perfectly fine. This is the most important thing: to be healthy and in a good shape, regardless of your weight. As long as your medical condition is fine, you don't have to worry and it is no one's business to check on you. But apparently, people rarely find serious hobbies to get themselves busy with, unless it concerns other people.

Another story, also collected from Instagram, was about a very big fashion and lifestyle influencer who dared to go out on the street without makeup. A lady commented to her daughter that without makeup, the influencer was not worth to look at. Just because someone does not look the way it shows in the beautiful glamorous pictures does disqualify that person as a human deem to walk the streets without being bothered by such comments? 

Probably, only more education and self-awareness can finally help people to accept the others the way they are, because they ended up not asking themselves to be more than they are.

How to start loving your body

In our teen years or later in life, with or without a reason, every woman goes at least once in her lifetime through a bad relationship with her body. Blame the society, the media, the stereotypes...the reasons do not matter always too much, but the effect on our self-awareness and even health can be devastating. Strict diets, psychological pain, tensed social relationships.

Although we cannot predict when this crisis will take place, at least we can learn how to cope with them in a delicate and constructive way. 

Based on her experience, not always happy, Laura Fenamore elaborated a couple of advices aimed to stop our negative way of treating ourselves. 'I went from being totally irresponsible with my health, and with my heart, to being completely devoted to self-care and self-love'. This wisdom does not come overnight and the author herself needed a lot of time and failures to find her way. But, the most important is to be positive and turn every experience we go through into an asset for our inner development. 'Though we don't always succeed at what we set to accomplish, that does not make our efforts failures'. Finding the right support either as a group or as an individual is very important in some stages of the development. 

For someone being victim of abuse and unhappy life occurences being a victim and keep being one the entire life is a logical result. However, it is possible to go beyond the paradigm of 'victim stories' that 'keep us stuck'. 'After recognizing that we are not in fact a victim of anything or anyone, we are able to take back our power and take control of our eating habits, lifestyle and ultimately, our happiness'. 

In this process, the laws of attraction are very important and my personal experience too proves the importance of a positive mind. Good things start simply to happen to those who are wishing for. Just because. 

Being in love with ourselves is the beginning of normality and of a meaningful life celebrating the present and using every moment of life for being grateful and happy. 'When we fall in love with ourselves (...) we begin to fell a deep sense of self-care and want to nourish our bodies with what is best for them'. 

A book recommended to anyone interested in increasing self-respect and understanding our bodies not like standards expected by the society but as a way of expressing ourselves. It is well written and can be easily read. My only regret is that there are not too many examples offered which can offer even more inspiration and guidance to the reader.  

Disclaimer: I was offered the book via NetGalley.com, but the opinions are, as usual, my own