I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs when it comes to how I feel about my body. It’s far from aesthetically perfect as far as SOCIETY’s standards go.

• At 13 I already had stretch marks from my one and only growth spurt. To this day I still have stretch marks, behind my knees, and on my inner thighs. I used to hate them and hate looking at them and always try to hide them. I’m being honest with you when I say they do not phase me at all anymore. 
• Not only do I have stretch marks, given to me uncontrollably by nature, I also have scars. Lots of them. On my arms mainly. Those werent given my nature, but are the result of self harm I participated in from the ages 11-17. They arent the most noticeable scars in the world but they are there, forever reminding me of the pain I dealt with those years and for a long time I used to look at them with disgust for my own stupidity but now it’s just a sign of survival. I got through those times.
• I have a naturally curvy shape. I’m not stick thin -I have never been. Even when I was a “skinny” kid my legs were curvy. I used to hate them. I used to never wear shorts in the summer because I was ashamed. It’s so stupid and  I know I’m not the only girl who did/does this. But I dont anymore. My legs are beautiful, and are just one part of my body that shows I am healthy.
• I don’t have much of a mid-section at all but I have wide hips. I can wear a size small shirt but I will never fit into pants smaller than an 8 (and that is a difficult deed in itself) but I can slip comfortably into a 9 or 10.  SO FUCKING WHAT. 
•  My hair (on my head). I have curly hair. I have forever had problems with how I feel about my hair. It’s not convenient in the times of sleek straight hair to have curly frizzy hair. But I do. I spent a whole year of my life straightening it every day and it was not worth it. I dont ever straighten my hair anymore. I’m not going to damage my hair to match what society and ads and all these bullshit “role models” in the media tell us is beautiful. Looking back on photos, I look much more beautiful with my natural hair than my straightened hair. I cant even tell you how many HOURS OF MY LIFE, literally! I spent straightening my hair. Bullshit.

So how did I come to where I am today?  It hasnt been an easy road.

• I havent had the best influences. I grew up in a family of beautiful curvy aunts on my maternal side and a curvy mother. I got my mom’s shape, curvy legs, hourglass shape and HIPS (in fact my hips are bigger than my moms were when she was my size so maybe I got a distant curvaceous relatives hips :P). It’s how I’m built. I grew up listening to the women on my father’s side of the family ridicule my mother’s shape and tell me I had my “mothers legs” in scorn! Because they are all thin, tall and bold legged. While I, like my mother am short, curvy and well.. my hips touch..fabulously. Needless to say I am not close to those members of my family, but right from the beginning I was made to feel like I wasnt what I was supposed to be.  
• My mother had an eating disorder before I was born, after she had my brother. She used to starve herself on top of other things. She damaged herself, and I believe thats why she hasnt had success loosing weight since her miscarriage (which damaged her as well) and my birth. She still to this day is trying to loose weight (in somewhat healthier circumstances thankfully). It makes me a little sad because she doesnt see that she is beautiful and has been at every weight she has been. It bothers me when on tv my mom calls the Kardashians “thick” and Coco Austin “fat” (yeah.. I’m a victim of reality television -besides the point). I correct her every time, telling her that I think their bodies are gorgeous (which I do).. I dont think I’ll ever change my moms views on body image and it saddens me but if I can in any way maybe it’ll be by showing her that I am happy in the body I’m in now. I dont want to continue a cycle of being unhappy and unhealthy and make my future son or daughter pick up a negative self esteem as well. It’s hard to conquer once you’ve got it and I dont want that to happen to them.
• Lastly, a lot of my “friends” in high school had horrible ideas of what you’re “supposed” to look like, and though I try not to be influenced by other’s opinions..it got to me after hearing it day by day, and hearing them say basically all girls should weigh 100LBS. Gladly I am not associating with them much more -for my health on top of many other reasons.

Maybe I’m far off from the point and all jumbled up here with explaining what I’m trying to but what I’m trying to get at is, how did I begin to change my feelings/views? First off I HAVE to give my utmost respect and gratitude to Annie Elainey and her blog : http://stophatingyourbody.tumblr.com/ 
StopHatingYourBody was TRULY the first step in feeling better about myself. 
Initially it made me think that wow I could have it much more worse than I do. Which..was a step in the right path as far as realizing my body was beautiful, but I wasnt quite there yet.
It was when I began to look at those posts of beautiful, heavy, curvy, thin, FABULOUS women (and men) and see them ALL as beautiful humans. All body types.

It changed the way I feel about beauty.

The media pounds us hard every day with advertisements -intentional (makeup, hair products etc) or subliminal (how come theres always a CERTAIN girl playing the “hot female lead”?) of supposedly “perfect” people. If you stop and realize whats happening, and that most NORMAL human beings do NOT look the way theyre projecting these “perfect people” to be, you can so easily be tricked into thinking that that is how you are supposed to look. 

Our culture is so media/fame focused and people are getting brainwashed so easily and once you take a step back and realise that there is a huge difference between reality and the media, you, or at least, I started to see how ridiculous it is to care about all those petty “imperfections (according to…? the MEDIA.)” I listed above. 

If your body WORKS, if you wake up every morning breathing you need to be thankful. You’re body, despite the verbal and physcialy abuse you might be putting it through, is WORKING and keeping you alive. What does it matter that you have stretch marks (because you GREW, what did you want a child’s body forever?), frizzy hair (who said it can’t be beautiful? only the media because they never portray it positively. But what makes THEM right?) a bit of a tummy (You live in a first world country. There are other countries who idolise heavy bodies because not everyone can afford to EAT). What does it matter? There is NO aesthetic perfection besides what you were born to be. We are born perfect. Everybody is beautiful, the media doesnt want you to believe that. Don’t waste your life being a victim to advertisement. I wasted enough time, I’m happier now than I was when I weighed 113LBS. In fact even then I wasnt happy with how I looked or especially how I felt. I didnt eat enough, I was moody and unhappy. Now I eat normally I dont overeat or starve, and yes due to a lack of excercise I had walking the halls in school, I’ve gained some weight. But I am happy with how I look, and especially how I feel. 

I’m not knocking any body type, there are people naturally thin and there are people naturally (yes) heavy. There are people who never loose baby weight, there are people who loose it immediately. There are women with big breasts and no hips, there are women with small breats and no hips, there are women who are have proportional breast to hip measurments. Every body is beautiful, and once you understand and believe that truth, you will start to see the beauty in not just yourself, but every once. 

Lastly, I’ll post the few women in the “media” that I do admire, for having positive body image. (I will not post Kim Kardashian because despite her gorgeous body, she promoted diet pills which confuses me and could rupture my point)

1: Gwen Stefani - Not only has she been a childhood hero for having a beautiful voice, great lyrics that I relate to and for being a humble women in the crazy world of celebrity, I also respect her for respecting her body. Gwen has had up’s and downs in her weight like any normal women, and regardless she has never shy’d away from showing her body off.  Gwen also asides from her two pregnancies, always been flat chested and has resisted the media/celebrity pressure to get a boob job which is a good thing for girls to see a famous woman resist, because as much as I despise how people are depicted in the media, girls and boys, women and men are still going to see it and I’d rather see some positive people around rather than none.

 

2: Secondly is Jayne Mansfield- Well I’m not going to lie, her body was out of this world and NATURAL, unaltered unlike today’s celebrities with “similar” shapes (except they get boob jobs and all that to look the way she looks naturally). So as far as that goes, wanting to look like her is unrealistic (as it is to want to look like anyone else but yourself) but what I truly love and respect about Jayne, is that after having her children she still went out and showed off her, now marked by motherhood, body. She had stretch marks and tummy flab but unlike celebrities of today who loose it all mysteriously (and unrealistically) she shamelessly (as it should be) showed them off:

 

and that concludes my post. I hope I got my point across here.
Be happy with the body you have. You are beautiful, and it’s up to you to see that. Society is unrealistic and it only controls how you feel about your body if you let it.