With the weather getting warmer, it's not uncommon to hear girls start saying, "Ugh, I need to start working on my swimsuit body." This usually means that people start working out to get slimmer, gaining more muscle, and eating healthier.
Now, this is how some women prepare for the summer, but not everyone chooses to spend March through May doing so.
When we start searching for swimsuits, we usually only see one body type; a super skinny and fit woman with large breast and a round butt. This can cause a girl to not purchase a suit they think is cute because they'd think "oh, that suit is only cute because it looks nice on someone of that body shape".
For a woman, being exposed to only one type of body repeatedly leads them to believe that that is what they need to look like to achieve the "perfect" summer body.
So ladies, let's start to remember what an actual realistic body looks like.
Girls are curvy. Stop letting girls think the only way they can be deemed pretty is if they're sticks. Curvy women can really kill it in a bikini, but for some reason, we shame it.
Girls have stretch marks. This can be from weight gain, weight loss, pregnancy, or for teenagers, growth spurts. These are caused by basic body changes for women, yet we shame them for this.
Not all girls have a huge butt and breasts. I'm not sure why this is one of the things that girls worry about the most during the summer. Not everyone has a butt like Kim Kardashian, or breasts like Kylie Jenner.
"When you go to the beach, pool, or even a waterpark, it's not like you see only one type of girl walking around. No, you see so many different types of women. All of these different types of women your seeing, they're all in their own version of a 'swimsuit body'. So, why can't we just start labeling it like that?"
This was the response of one of my friends when I asked her about the subject. She informed me that she used to struggle over the idea that she wasn't looking like these women that you see in magazines or advertisements, but anymore, she loves the body that she's in.
"Why should I need to be changing the body that I love being in just because it's summer? It's still the body I love being in, so of course, I'm just going to embrace it more in the warm weather!"
Instead of saying "I need to start working on my swimsuit body" and immediately think that this means being super skinny and fit, let's start thinking that every body is a swimsuit body.