Bio Assignments and Body Image

This was inspired by a pre-class biology assignment on health and body image.(This is why I love BYU)

I can't tell you what it's like to be fat in this world

But I can tell you what it's like to be thin.

The truth is, I don't know where to start. I am naturally thin, though I don't exercise. I don't eat a whole lot either, but right now that's due to supply rather than demand. Either way, I've been thin my whole life. And it's not easy. Especially because I don't conform to typical fashion standards. Imagine being that girl, the one who should look like that, who's told that she's so thin all the time, as if it was somehow better. Even though she was never desirable, or rather desired, because everyone went for (goes for) those girls with the perfect hair, the great fashion, skinny jeans and blond hair and leggings, scarves and jewelry and purses. But at least she (this theoretical girl) was thin right?

What good is thin, really?

Because she still sat lonely, and because it had been told her so much that she was so pretty - and skinny - she noticed how bigger girls were still more desirable, those girls with great fashion, and she wondered what was wrong. After all, she was thin right? And that was all she ever heard was beautiful about her. And in this society, you aren't allowed to notice your own beauty, or you're conceited, narcissistic. So she began to notice her too-large nose, and her close-centered eyes, and her square chin, and the weird faces she was always making in pictures. She noticed her thighs and how they jiggled and jounced, and ballooned out to whale-like proportions when she sat down, or so it seemed. She made it all a joke, though inside it tore her apart. And she forgot about what her parents had told her, about her bright eyes and the light from inside, and she fell, collapsed in on herself in a haze of "not-good-enough" because in a world where thin people were praised, she wasn't.

But as she grew older she began to grow brighter. And she began to realize that it didn't matter as much as they said it did, that she was thin. She began to see that she wasn't willing to put in the effort to look like the other girls did, because in the end, she realized, finally, that she'd rather be different, herself, and undesirable, than a clone, finally noticed for being pretty in the exact same ways as everyone else. She would actually rather be different. Because they never tell you, in this society, that who you are is more important than wearing the right sweater, jeans, leggings, boots, scarves, jackets, bags, whatever. But we know it. Somewhere deep inside us, we know it. And our souls cry out, with that small voice that is all we've left them, "Don't listen." Their words will not hold you through the night but these will: You are beautiful even if no one acknowledges it.

And if you need someone to acknowledge it, I will.

Because there is so much more to life than what you see in the mirror. "Skinny" is not all that I am. I am not defined by my hip-to-waist ratio or how well I dance. I am not defined by how I move, or the way I do my hair. I am so much more than that. And you are too. If you can read this, if you are reading it, if you have even a shred of potential to be able to read this, then you are more than you can imagine. And you are beautiful.

Even if the world refuses to acknowledge it.

(I'll tell you a secret: They're just a little bit jealous. You see, they have as hard a time seeing their own beauty as you do in seeing yours)