Disclaimer: I absolutely vouch for staying healthy and getting some physical exercise but only for a healthy lifestyle and absolutely nothing more.
I sometimes wonder, how many times in a day we are told, “you have too many pimples or you must not get tanned, start dressing like your gender, you are too tall/too short, the one that I have to personally deal with the most – “you’ve put on too much weight” and for some others it’s “you’ve become too scrawny.” For quite a few years, I’ve been this chubby goof ball who is trying to bring a smile to everyone’s faces. In the bargain, I’ve only been told to stop sitting like a guy, cover myself up more so that my fat is not seen, to start being more feminine and the list only goes on. Everyone kept asking me, “How do you exude so much confidence?”
Today, I’ll tell you what my mind deals with every single day of my life.
I’ve seen so many men and women go through this and no matter however smart or thin they are, what really gets noticed is, whether they are visually appealing. Most often than not, I’ve been told that I’ve put on too much weight as though they are breaking it to me that I have cancer! The exact words being, “you’ve become huge! What happened to you?” For God’s sake, I know I’m not the most thin I could be and that’s a struggle I go through EVERY day of my life. After a point, it does not become a struggle that I have with other people around me but a struggle with myself. My folks were so worried about my weight that they voluntarily chose to test my thyroid and diabetes! Guess what? The results were normal! I was healthy. But then why all this fuss about losing weight? Sometimes, I found myself doing as many things as possible to make my folks proud but in the end of the day, the only thing that I thought would make them truly happy is if I lost weight! Even if I turned out to be a fairly good human being or even if I’m a smart girl who is passionate about what she does, I felt, the biggest sin that I committed is by being overweight!
I was once told by someone, “your arms are the size of my thighs, you’re not date-able material.” When I began to speak about how they’re body shaming, they said, “I was just kidding! Stop taking everything seriously.” Well, NEWSFLASH! It’s not funny at all. My sister had once told me while I held her tight and cried for a good half hour, “only those with their own insecurities pick on you to feel better about themselves.” That line was enough for me to sleep through one night but in the following days, I was back to struggling with myself.
Wherever I go, the first thing I am told is, “you’re a girl! Learn to maintain your figure.” Why? So that, I become ‘marriage material’ or in their eyes, basically look like Angelina Jolie or Ryan Gosling for the men (no pressure at all). What I want to tell anyone who shames someone based on their visual appearance is, what you see on screen is not the reality. It is their job to look visually appealing and it is not mine! However, if you didn’t think of a particular standard for ideal beauty, probably we’d still have actresses who are comfortable with their belly fat and their uni brow (Kajol in DDLJ – back in the 90’s). Please, stop doing this to people who begin to love themselves only to be shattered by your minuscule comment that actually could affect someone to a great extent!
Finally, this is to all the women and men included, please don’t feel like anything you have that is considered out of the ordinary by the society is your problem. Instead, carry that off like it’s the new fashion statement! Because the truth is, no matter what you do, you will always be picked on for one flaw or the other – therefore, embrace those flaws and stay flaw-some!
More power to you. 🙂
Picture courtesy: Pinterest
Life of a Maladroit Ambivert. 