It is always the ditzy, morally and intellectually unsubstantial girl in a good ole high school rom com that is worried about her weight, while the more complex, intelligent female character isn’t afraid to order fries and be “one of the boys.” Regina George has supplied "Mean Girls" with infamous lines such as “I really want to lose three pounds” and of course, the ever-classic, “is butter a carb?” One of my personal favorite movies growing up, "A Cinderella Story," characterizes the conniving Shelby as she asks, “what can I get here that has no sugar, no carbs, and is fat free?” Even the deliciously dark, offbeat 80's comedy "Heathers" satirized Heather Duke’s bulimia and it is again using this part of a female character as a negative defining characteristic. Yet, the tragic reality is that most young girls who watch these movies will suffer with body image issues to some degree at least once in their lives, or at least they may feel the occasional pressures that come with merely watching television commercials or hearing their peers discuss body image and dieting. The same young girls, however, may also identify with Cady Heron's love of math, Sam's work ethic and big dreams, and maybe even Veronica Sawyer's internal struggles.
Why is being physically attractive so important to us that it affects our mental and physical health? Why is it that the number on the scale in the morning dictates my entire day, even if it is just the minuscule difference of a couple pounds of water weight? Why is it that I let the circumference of my waist determine my sense of worth?
Narcissistic. Shallow. Vain. Navel gazer. Judgmental. Self-absorbed. Superficial. Anti-feminist. These are the labels that society gives those who admit their physical insecurities or even choose to be happy with they way that they look and happen to be verbal about it. Any mention of one’s appearance is immediately deemed as negative, and for understandable reasons. As J.K. Rowling once said, leaving this world as “cruel” or “vain” is far worse and far more terrifying to me than being seen as “ugly” or “fat." Yet, being deemed physically attractive still remains extremely important to me and I wish it wasn’t. I will never forgive myself for letting my perceived physical appearance to occupy such a large part of my life. I have struggled with body dysmorphia and self-loathing, like an overwhelming amount of us, for a very large portion of my life and I feel guilty about it. I want to apologize to all the experiences, sensations, feelings, people, and blessings that life has offered for unconsciously choosing to focus on my physical appearance instead.
I have my health, my body enables me to run, dance, travel, taste chilling peppermint tea at midnight, hug someone who I love, jump on a trampoline, climb mountains, write in a diary, bike, and feel the dew accumulate on the grass on a cool summer night. Yet, more often than not I do not treat my body as a mere “vessel...a machine to help you function” as Savannah Brown so brilliantly stated, but something to be constantly measured, quantified, compared, and critiqued.
Even worse, is that a lot of the body confidence and how I perceive myself can be influenced by how I think males perceive me, and I know I’m not alone with this dilemma between my feminist ideals, person values, and at times, hypocritical actions. Youtuber Lucy Moon recently made an eloquent video about the conflicting feelings that feminists often have with body image that is stronger than anything I could write on the matter.
Another thing I have noticed is that body dysmorphia does not discriminate; we all suffer equally because even if we were able to be as nice to ourselves as others are to us, we still desire what we don’t have. For example, personally I am very tall, around 5’9” to 5’10” and I have always seen this as an undesirable, freak-like, defective quality. However, people who are on the shorter side of the height spectrum will often tell me that I am lucky, while I envy girls who are as short as 5’0” to 5’2” and would trade places with them in a heartbeat. But this “grass is greener on the other side” phenomenon is not only limited to height; it seems to apply to every body type. It is not uncommon to see women with smaller breasts wanting breast implants and girls with larger breasts looking into breast reduction surgery. Women with curly hair may straighten their waves, while those with a pin-straight mane may pray for spirals. Instead of learning to accept ourselves the way we are, we learn to focus on what makes us different and pick ourselves apart. I see my body as lanky and unfeminine, and wouldn’t mind putting on a few pounds in different places if it meant I looked more “womanly,” yet I have had friends and family members who have told me that they envied that I was able to wear a certain dress or style of jeans that they perceived as not looking “right” on their body types; they too suffer from the same unwanted, yet patronizing thoughts about physical appearance.
However, what I look like or do not look like is simply irrelevant. My body type is not “right” or “wrong” just like an opposing body type is neither “right” nor “wrong.” One of the biggest mistakes that the body positive movement makes in my opinion is its focus on building up one body type and making it an issue of “thick” versus “thin” instead of acknowledging that a negative body image or feelings of inadequacy about one’s appearance is possible with any body type, shape, and size. It doesn’t matter what another person looks like, it doesn’t matter what other people may tell or not tell a person about their body, the worst body shaming always comes from within, and it will always find its way to you. More often than not, the discontent with one’s self is so deeply rooted that we unconsciously find other parts of ourselves to pick apart.
Overall, I don’t know why collectively as a society we all care so much about how we look. I think the vanity of mankind is one of life’s greatest and most puzzling mysteries. I hate that it matters how I look and I hate even more that it matters much more to me than realistically it does to anyone else. Maybe this desire to be physically attractive stems from our desire to be accepted by others or a deep, subconscious fear of being alone. Maybe because physical attractiveness is commonly synonymous with health, youth, and vibrance, we want others to see us as better pieced-together and more in control than we feel we are. We have a desire not so much to be physically attractive but to be considered successful, to have an edge in nearly every aspect of our lives.
Perhaps our physical appearance consumes our thoughts and lives so much because thin privilege and similar phenomena and privileges are so prevalent in our society.
The fact that Hilary Duff in "Cinderella" would rather eat a Big Mac than a rice cake is fantastic and admirable, but maybe Shelby’s desire to order something so healthy that it is non existent and Regina George’s scrupulous weight loss goals were not the sole reasons why they were essentially terrible people.
