Superstitious to Pernicious
Ms Mihika Dhamankar
The Somaiya School,
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
‘Maybe the reason nothing seems to be “fixing you” is because you’re not broken. Let today be the day you stop living within the confines of how others define or judge you. You have a unique beauty and purpose; live accordingly.’~Dr.Steve Maraboli
From where social media becomes a place where you start to share your negative thoughts to where you become negative just because of something someone posted. The transition might just seem like a phase in our lives but honestly, it's much more than what we go through and can have deeply impacted our health (physically or mentally) much more than we think it has. We can't always blame the victim, all the societal pressure, and that perfect look portrayed by social media of ‘that girl’ has affected the health of so many people around the globe. Some have healed from it but millions are still fighting. This fight might not even seem like a fight to them because they think it's the ‘new normal’ being skinny, having those big lips and snatched waist is the new thing we have to adjust with.
Come on, it's 2021! And now all types of shapes, sizes, races, genders have become the first cover page of every single magazine, so why be laid back in our thinking?
Why can't we just go back to the time when people didn't even think of their body or their weight(body neutrality)?
Why not actually face the situation and fight it together?
We hear it everywhere now, that ‘body positivity is everything’ and unknowingly we might even be promoting body negativity in that manner. Body image can affect our mental health severely and it can change the way a person feels, thinks, behaves and views their body. We experience feelings of negative body image when the body that we want to have, does not match up with our actual body. Now we can't just go ahead and say ‘social media is toxic, and it affects the way I feel about myself, so I am quitting it’ Instead we should fight for it, you know the saying ‘Losers quit,’ so why be a loser and shy away when we can fight, and inspire others to fight back?
In contrast, positive body image is not simply the absence of negative body image. But rather, it is the active acceptance, care and love for our bodies. In conclusion, we should actually be stronger, healthier, more positive and view ourselves based on our judgement and not what others are like, behave like, or want us to behave like.
A common cause is workout addiction or Eating disorders. As it is rightly said ‘anything in excess is not good’ Whether this implies the economic cause or for anything as personal as bulimia or anorexia. I recently saw this video, of a girl refusing to eat because food contains something called calories and fats. But it never occurred to her that it can be healthy fats, proteins or even carbs which gives us the energy to go ahead and move.
Yes, in this circle we can't just gain 100 kilos and say it's all about body positivity because sometimes it can affect our overall health, we should be healthy, not thin. We should be fit, not addicted. We should be ourselves, and not what others want us to be.
The one thing we should all be is media smart. We have heard the saying of being ‘street smart’ where that person doesn't get carried away and is mindful plus smart in what he/she does. Similarly, if we don't get carried away with all the portrayals and advertisements for changing the way we are, we could become better individuals. Basically, it's all about willpower- if we control ourselves from being healthy in an ‘unhealthy’ way- we can never control this urge lifelong. Nothing is permanent, people come and go, and so do these phases. Yes, we may get influenced by the wrong means in life, but in the end, we learn, we grow, we prosper, we inspire and we become better individuals.
Body shaming is very prominent, we all have body shamed for some or other reason in our lives, at least once, whether as a joke or just bullying. But this can lead to social anxiety and can influence you to follow these various fads to either be the perfect person in the bully’s mind. But mind you, people will always find flaws in you, just because they aren't perfect in their heads, so if we are never are going to be perfect for others' expectations, why can't we thrive to be perfect in our expectations. So before we have an epidemic of beauty sickness let's, ‘strive for progress, not perfection.’ You are beautiful in how you look at it because beauty lies in the beholder's eye. Be it beauty in yourself or beauty in someone else.
Just accept it, that’s how the world's acceptance is needed while ignorance isn’t. To conclude, ‘butterflies can't see their wings, and they cant truly see how beautiful they are, and we are like that too, so appreciate the wonder, and the only time in this situation positive seems good, is being bodied positive and appreciating instead of depreciating.
About the Author:
I started writing because I had very bad handwriting in grade 1 and my dad told me to improve it. I would have to write one paragraph a day on any topic. As time passed, I became fond of writing things I come across.
Peer pressure or social media can affect our lives in both positive and negative ways and I have always been suffering from body shaming, I came across various people who suffered from the same and decided to raise my voice about it. I have always been fond of opening up since I might not be the only one suffering from something, so talking about things always has helped me. The blog I have sent is something that helped me keep going during the times I felt down, and I hope that people reading it would help stop this stigma and help spread awareness!
Visit Mihika Dhamankar's blog for more interesting articles by the author.