Today is Love Your Body Day! This is a fantastic idea, especially coming on the heels of that stupid Fat Shaming Week some dudes started on Twitter. Here’s the gist:
Every day, in so many ways, the beauty industry (and the media in general) tell women and girls that being admired, envied and desired based on their looks is a primary function of true womanhood. The beauty template women are expected to follow is extremely narrow, unrealistic and frequently hazardous to their health. The Love Your Body campaign challenges the message that a woman’s value is best measured through her willingness and ability to embody current beauty standards.
(For a more comprehensive idea of what Love Your Body Day is all about, click here.)
I couldn’t agree more with this idea… but I also think it’s a tall order for a lot of us. I want to love my body, I really do. I want to believe that I am worth more than what I look like, and the fact that I don’t look like what the media says a woman should look like doesn’t diminish my worth. Some days, I knock that right out of the park. But other days, I struggle to believe it at all. Instead of Love Your Body Day, it’s more like Do The Best You Can Day.
The NOW Foundation, the clever folks behind Love Your Body Day, have some suggestions about what we can do to promote body love. Here they are:
- Help spread the word about the hazards of the media’s narrow beauty ideals and sexualization of women and girls. You can start by forwarding this page to friends and family and linking it on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites.
- Put your own thoughts about body image and media objectification into words on Facebook, Twitter, your own blog, for class, in letters to the editor — anywhere and everywhere!
- Take action using the many ideas featured on the Love Your Body site.
- Talk back to advertisers, members of the media, retail outlets and companies when you see images and products that make you mad.
- Urge advertisers and all media to embrace positive, healthy, inclusive portrayals of girls and women. Thank them when they DO use affirming, diverse images!
- Make a pact with your friends and family to stop judging your own appearance by the media’s narrow beauty standards and to avoid evaluating how others look.
- Model an attitude of self-acceptance and love, especially in front of young children.
- Encourage educators to incorporate media objectification and body image issues into health and comprehensive sex education classes.
- Encourage educators, community centers and other local resources to create extracurricular programs that help girls feel powerful and smart rather than focusing on their appearance.
I am totally on board with so many of these. I am getting really good at speaking out to the media, stores, companies, and advertisers about their body-negativity and fat-shaming practices. Whenever I encounter body negativity in my personal life, especially in regards to fat bodies, I try to teach people about acceptance. But I struggle a lot with not judging appearances (especially my own), and maintaining a true attitude of self-acceptance and love.
And that’s totally okay. It’s not a requirement to love your body. You don’t have to embrace what you look like every day. It’s a goal you can work toward, and if you slip a little now and then, that doesn’t make you a failure… it makes you human.
If you’re up for it, I totally encourage you to celebrate Love Your Body Day. If not, would you at least join me in Do The Best You Can Day? I’m going to celebrate that today – and every day for the rest of my life.
