What is body positivity?
Body positivity is all about acceptance of one’s body shape and colour, impartial of the society’s indulgence of proposed aesthetical body patriarchy. The cardinal idea is to embrace the difference in one’s physique over others and hence realize health/fitness is not merely indicated on the scale of your body tone. Also, it revolves around an idea like disconnecting the linkage between health and weight. Hence it’s a way of living that allows you to accept, love and take pleasure from your body throughout.
Why it’s important to know about body positivity?
Everyone has an emotional connection with their body and when being labelled by someone or when we label someone on this cause, it harms our mental wellness and on recurrent occasions of this, it may trigger hate themselves paving way for low self-esteem, depression, etc. Thereby they feel forced to move along the pace of pre-proposed body visionary.
Consciously and unconsciously many times, we fall on either of the sides, forgetting how impactful this is going to be. There’s pure joy in being confident on our skin when acceptance of our body shape happens, this exciting feeling drenches your heart and lifts your soul ahead. How delightful would it be to allow yourself and others to feel it then?
Here’s my favourite quote on body positivity
“you have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens” – Louis L Hay
Incredible transformations take place when people start to love themselves. There prevails conjunction between self-love and body positivity, imagine if body-shaming is the diagnosis, then self-love is the therapy and body positivity is the medication. At least once in a lifetime, we all would have swanked saying “I am my favourite person”, ever wondered what would be the take away of truly loving yourself? The following could be those
- Positive attitude towards life
- Greater life satisfaction
- Reduction in validation seeking
- Improved mental health
- Empathy and acceptance of self
But how are these connected with body positivity, to dispass the predetermined standards on the shape, it’s necessary to have a positive attitude and develop a mental strength which surpasses the act of seeking validation or approval of self, hence negative body image or bullying has real zero impact.
Negative body image and its habitants:
Media has been the critical contributor for negative body image, glamorizing young, white, thin men and women and perceptualizing them as acceptable strands. The beauty and weight loss complexes are hence there to make money. Using this dissatisfaction complex of individuals to purchase products and hence promising happiness.
Even the celebrities who showcase this complex are the victims of their own limelight, being constantly bullied on social media and struggling to keep up the glamourized perception.
And because of standards set by media, a lot of us, you, me and many more have felt insecure and vulnerable of not fitting to this.
However, deep inside we might have longed to wear that favourite shirt, skirt or any wardrobe that was close to your heart but couldn’t sneak into them worrying about the bully or mental abuse that we might undergo.
This is high time, that we realize beauty lies inside and remind yourself that you glow differently when you are happy. Let happiness be your glow cream, let self-love be your favourite wardrobe that you will love to wear every day.
Here are few tips to work on self-love and body positivity,
- Treat your body with respect– thank your body for its amazing work every day, for helping you breathe, walk, etc.
- Eat well-balanced meals and take up exercises- because it makes you feel good and stronger, also health is not just skin deep, do mindful eating.
- Find a short message on body image and stick it in visible places like in your mirror, vision board, etc. That this positive thought gets ingrained deep into you, making self-acceptance easy.
- Look at yourself in the mirror as a whole person- give that stretches, marks, cellulite friends some love. Embrace them.
- Be mindful of choosing your wardrobe, technically your clothes should fit you rather than you trying to fit your clothes.
- Stay around the right people- who help you grow as a better person emotionally. Speak out your insecurities to them, stay vulnerable around the right people, remember vulnerability is also power.
- Practice self-love habits like cooking your meal, penning down your thoughts in a journal, writing a letter to self, taking a long shower, dancing and singing on your favourite song.
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