By: Rachel Jakobs
A friend of mine was just telling me how she is constantly schooling her teenage daughter to love her own body, my friend believes one must love and adore their body before anyone else can truly accept you. This discussion transported me to a few years back when a ‘size zero,’ used to be the yardstick of measure for a woman’s beauty. With time and experience women have realized the importance of loving their own bodies, and the first step in this regard is to accept your body with all its ‘shortcomings.’ Gone are the ‘good old days’ when we used to starve ourselves just to shred that one last pound hovering around our waist. Today women are much more comfortable in their own skin. The Body Positive Movement has had an impact and the backlash against Photo-shopped glamour models in magazines has raised awareness. It is now firmly established that the standards of beauty set in fashion magazines is unattainable.
However, this metamorphosis has not taken place in a single day, in fact it has been a continuous and tiring struggle. Women across the globe today share a common goal of working to love themselves, this envious state of ‘nirvana’ could not have been achieved without loving our own bodies. Women today are generally more forgiving when it comes to their bodies and they’ve made their peace with being a real woman. This is a great sign as it symbolizes the ushering in of a new era in terms of the perception of beauty. There is no longer only one standard for beauty. Beautiful women come in all shapes, sizes and colors.
Today women are more in tune with their bodies than they were in the past, all thanks to contemporary science, everyone today knows more about how their body works and how important it is for each individual to take care of their body. The recent increase in featured plus-sized models is a clear testament to the fact that women are now challenging beauty stereotypes. Bold descriptions of curves in main-stream media has also played a vital role in this regard. Women who were previously shunned and snubbed as too big have now found an inspiration in women like Rebel Wilson and Tasha Jefferson.
The conventional perceived notion of beauty has been shattered by the modern torchbearers of feminism; women today are much contented with their bodies. However, I staunchly believe that this acceptance usually comes with age, even today more than 50% teenage girls are unhappy with their bodies. This is a staggering figure; there is a drastic decrease in this number as it crosses the age barrier of 25 and at 35 only 9% of American women are unhappy with their bodies. These statistics indicate that even in the 21st century young minds still uphold and believe in the conventional definition of beauty.
Many women today, finally feel comfortable in their bodies as they are being brought up in an environment where being plus-sized is not considered taboo. In fact, big ‘curves are the new sexy,’ and women all over the world are flaunting their curves like never before, and with the launch of dedicated plus-size brands, the hype is only getting started. With every passing day new flocks of women are joining the plus-size army and the overall response has been overwhelming. After many years women are starting to make peace with their bodies. Let’s hope this is a trend that is here to stay because truly accepting yourself has always been one of life’s great challenges for women everywhere.
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Photo Credits:
Matheus Ferrero Omar Lopez Moises Alex