I was walking into work the other day, and some guy has walked past me and told me to “put on some fucking weight”. Apart from being disgustingly rude, this person didn’t know me or anything about my life. I could be seriously ill, I could be stressed because something traumatic happened, I could actually have an eating disorder. I don’t, but for some stranger to be so ignorant and judgmental towards somebody is disgraceful. And this is the problem I have with the whole “real women, real bodies” movement. It’s not promoting healthy body image, it’s just shifting the idea of beauty. Body image has nothing to do with what you look like, it’s how you feel about the way you look. So regardless of whether you’re bigger, average or smaller, you should aim to be healthy and be happy about the way you look. Being a “skinny girl”, the whole thing about how the media is portraying girls that aren’t real, sizes that aren’t achievable and aren’t unhealthy, is personally offensive. They are, but it’s not just regarding weight. My entire life I’ve been small, and have had real difficulty putting on weight- which I mostly tried to do because people gave me crap for the way I looked - too skinny. I’m not too skinny, I’m healthy. I eat a balanced diet, I try to exercise, and I try to feel good about myself. I don’t think that I’m not real because of the size I wear or the amount I weigh. Not does it automatically give me an eating disorder, which is a type of mental illness. As much as unhealthy body image is related to eating disorders, it’s not to say that a size 20 girl (or guy for that matter) can’t be anorexic, and a size 6 can’t have a binge eating disorder. I think that promoting “real women” just changes the ideal body, and is still unattainable for many people. It focuses on size, which isn’t the entire part of the way you look. How many “real women” portrayed so in the media have bad skin, stretch marks, other so-called imperfections? Not many. So rather than shifting our ideal, I think we should shift our mindset, to one where we can not only appreciate others, but accept and appreciate ourselves, and be confident enough in the content of our character that we don’t need to base our self worth on the way we look. Because no matter how controlled our diets are or how much we exercise, we will never be perfect, and I don’t think we should be aiming to be.

I don’t know what the fuck I’m waiting for

This is who I am, and I am proud of that.