Body Image by Sarah Milliron
Body Image. Two words that describe the mental image of one’s body. We as humans are defined by these two words and these two words alone. There are two types of body image, positive and negative. Positive is when you accept your body. Negative is when you feel ashamed of it. You would be surprised that people don’t accept their bodies more than the ones that do. According to a poll conducted by Glamour, women are fifty percent more likely to say something negative rather than positive about themselves on social media. If you are one of these people, don’t worry, it’s most likely not your fault because everywhere we look we are shown what the “ideal” body type should be constantly. This causes people to get a negative perception of one’s body. Often at times, when someone has a negative perception of their body, they are most likely to develop an eating disorder which can cause emotional and physical health problems. They crack at the pressure of society because of the fact that they can't fit in with the other pretty girls. Many people feel like they have to live up to the expectations of society because society determines you by your outside body composition. This includes the color of your skin, the slant of your eyes, hair, height, weight, basically everything that is visible, rather than your personality.
When seeing a pretty model on the cover of a magazine you can’t help but to compare yourself to her, seeing her dressed a certain way or the way she fills out the dress perfectly. Then, you look or think about your own body and your self-esteem falls to the floor faster than the blink of an eye. We are not born with self-esteem, we are taught it. We are taught it at a young age that “thin is in”. It’s clearly expressed from billboards down to the barbie dolls we play with. In a University of Central Florida study, nearly half of the three to six year old girls interviewed were worried about being fat. With shows like Toddlers & Tiaras, who could blame them? Not me because they are given this false expectation of what beauty is and because of that, they think beauty is suppose to be like that. Back in the olden days, women were a little bit thicker and that was considered sexy. The world’s largest sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, wasn't thin and everyone loves her.