There’s something that happens when you are in body positivity long enough where fat bodies become normal. Disabled bodies become normal. Trans bodies become normal.
Your measuring stick that you used to measure beauty ideals gets altered.
We all started this journey with the fear of fat deeply engrained, the fear living out in our own life and then projected onto other people every time you encounter another fat body. That judgement every time you saw someone that the world deemed unhealthy. That pity anytime you saw someone less capable of you.
But being exposed to it, you face that discomfort. You stop seeing the fat and see the human. You stop seeing the wheelchair and start seeing the individual. You stop seeing the body and start seeing the emotion. You stop seeing the acne on their makeup free face and instead focus on the smile OR you still see all those things alongside their beauty.
You stop taking 10 selfies because 1 is enough.
You stop editing your selfies because YOU are enough.
You stop tracking your body by its measurements and start measuring it by its accomplishments.
And most of all you stop body checking.
Body checking is a term used in the psychology industry when it comes to EDs + BDD. It’s when you wrap your thumb and forefinger around your wrist to see if you’ve gained weight or whether you can wrap one or both your hands around your thighs. It is a way of tracking yourself.
For me, mine was my back fat. How big were the rolls? How much do I have to turn to create them? And most of all, the promise that one day, they will disappear.
I would take photos similar to this to check and obsess. I would see how uneven both my sides are and lament over the fact that my surgeries mean the two sides are so uneven because I got taught my society that beautiful bodies are symmetrical.
BUT THEY AREN’T!
Bodies move, bend, stretch, fold. Whether it’s your back, stomach or thighs, your folds are human. They might be edited out in images on billboards and magazines but they exist! Skin folds, skin beds, skin stretches.
So PLEASE stop using your own body as the measuring tape to self abuse with. #scarrednotscared