Emaciated Cultured Fashionable Fantasy: A Reality Check
by A discussion on body image and our condition mentally towards it, set by cultural backgrounds and norms.
36-24-36. The ideal body image of a woman. Ideal? Up to what age for crying out loud? This is tricky. This is where it ends. I mean once you lose those magic numbers there is no going back. In this endeavor some women are successful most are not. All it takes is giving the human race another member and you’re thru. Out of the ideal body radar no matter how hard you work for it (unless you happen to be 25 years old and below when you got pregnant and your metabolism is still running smoothly and you still have an elastic skin). However, once you consult any fashion or beauty book or magazine or any article on the net they’d give you the ideal weight and height and ideal body proportions. Watch tv and you’d realize that the only ones appearing pleasantly to the naked eye on the screen are the ones having a manufactured “ideal” body.
Who can blame them? Who can blame those people for showing off the result of such tremendous discipline and sacrifice? Why discipline yourself in the basic means of survival (that is eating) when you can’t show off the emaciated result? Yeah…but the ones who can (and should) adhere to this recommended body image are the ones hoping or are currently making their living out of their looks. That’s like a mere 0.01% of the global population. The ones who are living an ideal life: the students, working girls, working moms, even the stay at home moms that constitute the “ideal” no. of the female population cannot, in reality, adhere to this upheld body image.
So what gives?
Why is there a never ending quest for something that cannot be anymore? Diet formulas keep sprouting up like mushrooms. Trainers came into existence out of the blue. The world’s most beautiful women are one time or another been rumored to have had an eating disorder. The ones on the cover of every magazine are the ones having a BMI of a 14 year old girl.
As I struggled for almost an entire day to give this article any credibility on the authenticity of a reason on why it should be written, I finally figured out the answer. And it is something I hold dear. It applies not just to body image but as to everything else: If it bothers you then you have something to do with it.
Do you? Do you have something to do with it? How many dieting pills had you bought in your lifetime? How many diets did you try? How many clothes did you buy the minute you lost a mere unrecognizable 3 lbs.? How many announcements did you make when you figured out you went down a one dress size? We all have a thing to do with this disillusionment that sometimes causes the headaches of our very own doing.
I do. I have something to do with it.
We complain and complain and complain of the very vehicle that holds this very own special self. Our very own special self cultivated by time, seasoned with love and made more special by the fact that we had learned a lot and can give a lot. Mere body image is something we can and we should just shrug off.
True, taking care of one’s self is reflected on the size of our body frame. But we can only do so far…
Liked it
