Body Image - Am I Good Enough?

GIRLFRIENDS, June 2007, by Jenifer Merifield

BODY
IMAGE

My butt’s too big. Do you think I’m ugly?
I wish my hair was different. I’m too short.
My breasts are too small…

What’s up with al this negative self-talk, girls? Why aren’t we feeling good enough? Is it the media; music videos, fashion magazines, t.v, movies the celebs? We are bombarded with pictures and messages about how we are 'supposed to' look/be/act. But ask yourself this: “What am I doing to contribute to that?” As much as we may disagree with the airbrushed photos, the super skinny models, the degrading-to-women music videos… let’s face it, we support it all by entertaining it. We buy the mags, watch the videos, gossip about the celebrities. And well, truth be told, it’s all very intriguing and almost addictive, isn’t it? We don’t want to support the negative messages. But we sure are curious, aren’t we?

Who are you now? Who do you want to be? Spend a few moments taking a personal inventory. If we all looked exactly the same, what would be your most attractive qualities? How often throughout each day would you be talking or thinking about something else in place of something to do with appearances?

I met up with the 'tres cool' girls of the 'Metamorphosis' after-school group, from Langstaff Secondary High School the other day. Just so you know, these girls were a variety of REAL BEAUTY… various cultures, shapes and sizes.

Facilitator, Danielle Sugar, who created and leads the group, let me come in and ask questions about body image (names have been changed to protect the privacy of the girls).

I wanted to know what impact the media had on how girls in high school felt about body image.

“Media makes me feel ugly” said Natalia. “Ya, it makes me feel like the pretty girls are the ones that have the good things happen to them,” agreed Amber.

The girls all seemed to agree that so much of the messages we see just aren’t real. However, as Amber mentioned, “that’s fine, but GUYS don’t seem to realize it’s all fake. They want us to be hot like the models and we feel like we have to live up to those standards.”

I wasn’t surprised to hear that one of the biggest influences on body image was that girls worried about how guys saw them.

Crystal, a charismatic and level-headed 16 year old who is proud of her virginity stated, “Once when I wanted a guy to like me I tried to impress him with how I looked. But when changing didn’t work, I decided if he likes me, he likes me. If he doesn’t, I’m still me, and someone else will.” Sabrina added, “you should never have to CHANGE to impress someone, just be yourself!”

Ashley said her confidence was low because she never had a boyfriend and almost everyone else did. She feels pressure about looking a certain way and recalled a funny story, “My friend and I went to the movies once at the last minute on a slow night and we didn’t wear make up or dress the way we normally would. We actually got hit on by two nice guys! We so weren’t trying and it just happened.”

Go figure! That just proved to them that when you are being you – your true self – your beauty really does shine from the inside out.

Maybe if we spend less time focusing on the dozens of minor details of looking good, and focus more time on feeling good, we’ll be more content and satisfied with ourselves, caring less about what others think of us.

I asked the girls: “be honest, who here cares what other people think about them?” Slowly, every hand rose. That’s quite normal, and I hear it from almost all of the teens I speak to.

Catalina had a good point: “If people don’t want to lose weight, they want to gain weight. Or if it’s not weight, it’s something else. Some strive for perfection.”

“So girls, what exactly is perfection?” I questioned. Amber: “There’s no such thing.” Ashley: “Being happy where you are.”, Jasmin: “Being trustworthy”. Crystal: “Just being real”.

If we grew up in another culture, we would have different views of beauty and body image. Some cultures believe that skinny is unattractive and means you’re poor. Those people may consider that our culture takes abundance for granted in our strive for skinny.

Sabrina very eloquently stated that: “Sometimes the bad times can make you stronger and build your confidence.” We all agreed that confidence was the most attractive quality we could have, and that we should be grateful for making mistakes so that we could learn to be our true selves.

Overall, we had an awesome discussion! We decided it was important to encourage each other to be true to ourselves, and to recognize that we are all sisters. We all have feelings and fears and doubts about ourselves. We are not alone and together we can make change happen.

Try this with your friends: for a whole week, only talk about non-material things… no appearance stuff like clothes, makeup, hair, pimples, weight, body parts… none of it. And compliment and encourage each other as often as you can about personal qualities, talents, abilities and personality. Do the same to others you don’t know.

We may not be able to change the whole world overnight, but we can change our own worlds right now! Be real girls, be you.

~ Jenifer

Girls Can Do Anything Magazine

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Body Image - Am I Good Enough?

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