Change One Thing About Yourself

Whilst procrastinating on buzzfeed I came across youtube video (watch it here) which was both funny and sad. 50 people were asked one question: "what would you change about your body?" And whilst the adults were very quick to list flaws, the children were a little slower. Some couldn't find fault in their body, whereas others opted for wings and mermaid tails. It left me with the sinking question: when did we learn to hate ourselves?

I think social media obviously has a huge role in this for both genders. For a long, long time there has been the 'picture perfect' ideal of what we should like like - and whilst we all know that this is largely an unattainable goal, we all still strive for perfection that can only be achieved by filters and photoshop software. Body shaming is rife. How often do the words 'fat' and 'lazy' accompany each other? A recent viral photo clearly depicts the unrealistic body images that we're faced with daily.

The girl on the right is a size 8/10, and as you can see the mannequin has legs so skinny you could probably drive a truck through her thigh gap. My younger sister with her infinite thirteen year old wisdom confined in me that her legs were ''childhood sweethearts'' and she wasn't going to ''try and separate them for the sake of fashion''. I don't know what I was more proud of; her healthy attitude or her use of extended metaphor. 

But it's not just 'fat' people who are subjected to feeling like they ought to change. Two current chart hits have something in common: they body shame skinny girls. Nicki Minaj in 'Anaconda' repeatedly shouts ''fuck the skinny bitches'' whilst Meghan Trainor reminds us all that boys ''like a little more booty to hold at night'' and it adamant that all the ''skinny bitches'' ought to know that she's got ''curves in the right places''. Well, what if I don't have curves in all the right places? Why does my arse become a comfort blanket for a man at night?

So if we're to believe the media stereotypes:

fat = lazy 

skinny = bitch

What does that make me? My body has been likened to that of a false widow spider (seriously), and I have curves but I'm not sure if they're in the right places at all. Like most of us, I'm my harshest critic - but when did I get so negative? When did we decide that we weren't good enough in our own skin? And most importantly, are our attempts at looking 'perfect' impacting our health negatively?

So fuck it, the next time someone asks me what I want to change about my body I'm not going to list several things. I'm going to tell them I want a magic tongue that speaks all the languages in the world, and matching ears which understand them. Sounds more useful than a flat stomach to me.