Jenny’s Body positivity

This week is our first theme week ever. Every now and then we want to dedicate one week to a certain topic, this week it’s about body positivity.

I wanted to start with explaining what body positivity is. So I googled it and the urban dictionary defines it as: “Accepting your body as it is and attempting to make everyone else feel comfortable in their own skin as well“. Well, easier said than done, isn’t it?

I started to do some research on this topic to really know what I’m writing about and get a better idea about everything and I landed on the heart of leadership Website. There they got a site full of facts/statistics on body image, self-esteem and parental influence. There they wrote that over 90% of girl at the age between 15 and 17 would like to change something of their physical appearance. Could we all please take a step back and think about that. Less then 10% of girls between 15 and 17 are happy with their physical appearance. I don’t think I need to address that’s basically nothing. Going along that 80% of girls at the age of 10 have already dieted. 90% of high school junior and seniors girls diet regularly. Teen girls are less afraid of nuclear war, cancer or losing their parents than of becoming fat. 13% of girls at the age of 15 to 17 acknowledge having an eating disorder

and nearly a quarter of girls that age would consider undergoing plastic surgery. 7 in 10 girls also believe that they’re not good enough or do not measure up in some way including their looks, performance in school and relationship.

I guess all of the facts speak for themselves and I basically don’t want to analyse them because everybody got their own opinion on why it is it like this and if they think its right.

But body positivity is about feeling comfortable in your body and I guess I can write down my opinion in that.

I don’t want to say that I’m perfect and I’m one of the 10% that is happy with their body, but I wish I would. Since I’m little I always struggled with my look and with body confidence and acceptance, so maybe I’m not the best person to write about this topic, but I want you guys to learn from my mistakes.

Think back to when you were a little kid. When you played in the sandbox without thinking about anything beside of the fact that you wanted that sand toy that your sibling has. And when another child came up to you and wanted to play with you, what did you think about? Right, maybe what toys they’ve got. Now think about yourself now, you sitting at a Café waiting for your friend to arrive. A person asks to sit next to you and wants to start a conversation. What do you think about the person now? I bet 99% would answer about how the person looks like and certainly the majority would decide if the person could sit with them basing on their looks. But why has this changed so much? Well, because we constantly surrounded by perfect people in the media, advertisement, films and basically everywhere we go. We compare each other to famous people or even to the people around us. No matter where we go, we always want to look good. I’m no different.

A lot of times my friends tell me to shut up when I start complaining about how I would like to look like or about my newest diet plans. Well, deep down I know they’re right. We all don’t need to look like Kendall Jenner or Gigi Hadid because what would the world look like if we all would look exactly like them? Pretty lame I would say. The diversity we all got, makes us us. When I think about, when I think of like these people I always think about one special feature they got, and I bet every person of us got his one special feature. Somebody like the perfect person isn’t existing. And if you haven’t known it already but it isn’t physical possible to have a body of the measurements of 90x60x90. It wouldn’t even be possible to stand up, let alone to walk.

So, back to the one feature I was starting to talk about. We all got that one special feature that another person would like to have. Some people would like to have your eyes, or your mouth, or your hair, or your long legs, or the shape of your legs, or all you other body parts. I guess there is no person who is the perfect person and if you even think that Kendall Jenner or Gigi Hadid is perfect, I can tell you they aren’t. They also got a body part they would like to have from somebody else. You also have to remind you that they got personal trainers, stylists, make-up artists and people who edit their photos from photo shoots. So of course they look better than me when I’ve just woken up and scroll through Instagram and I see a picture of them and comparing it to how I look at the exact moment.

I think we all need to be more aware of that. We don’t need to be perfect to feel secure and comfortable in our body. We all got that one body and we need to work with that.

You’ve got that one special feature and you should make this one stand out, because people will look at this one and they won’t see your feet you’re not happy with, or your knees or your ears which you’ve hidden behind your hair.

And aren’t making these little imperfections everybody perfect?

I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got a day that I feel not like myself and I could need a bit of a confident boost, I’ve always listen to a few certain songs that makes me remind that I’m perfect the way I am and I don’t need to hate on my body. So the other girls and I created a playlist on our Spotify of songs we like to listen to. If you want go and check it out! 🙂

So, I’ve got one task for you now: go to your mirror and find the one feature you like the most about yourself. And then try and think about how you can make stand out that feature tomorrow and do so. You see you will feel especially confident tomorrow when you remind yourself throughout the day that you’ve got that one special feature that nobody else got! 🙂

Lots of love,

Jenny xxx

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