Project Perfect

My last post about body image had a really good response and so when my friend Mandy wrote a piece for her blog talking about her body likes and dislikes, I thought I'd follow on from my last post and write about my personal body image issues.

As she said in her post, I'm not fishing for compliments- this is about sharing the fact that not everyone is "perfect" and we all have body hangups which just makes us human. Every part of our bodies, whether we like them or not, are what makes us unique and gorgeous!

Here we go...

1. Post a picture of yourself
2. State three things you DISLIKE about yourself
3. State three things you LIKE about yourself

I dislike-
1. My height- I'm 5 feet small (152.4cm). It's impossible to find jeans that fit and skirts and dresses always drown me and make me look even shorter. Also, my stomach is pretty much non-existant.
2. My thighs- They're short and they're big. Shopping for jeans is a nightmare- nothing will fit over my thighs!
3. My eyebrows- They're big, messy and ugly. I even I have big gap in one of them which is a chicken pox scar and it just looks weird. I pluck and pencil them in but I guess I'll never be completely happy with them.

I like-
1. My waist- I have a tiny waist and I love it! When tops and dresses nip in at the waist and really show off my curves, it makes me feel extremely confident.
2. My eyes- I love my eyes. They're big and brown. They're so dark brown that sometimes it's impossible to find my pupils.
3. My boobs- I'm not going to go into any specifics but I have massive boobs. Although, it means there are a lot of clothes that I simply can't wear, with a good bra and the right clothes I can make my boobs look awesome!

So what are your body likes and dislikes? Write a similar post if you like and share!

Hannah

Body Image

The UK newspaper, The Guardian, often holds 'comment is free' competitions where they pick a controversial issue and ask readers to write 250 words about it and then the best ones are published.

Back in January the topic was 'body image' and I felt compelled to write something about this because I have quite a strong opinion on this issue and it affects so many people. I know my writing style isn't very professional or journalistic so I wasn't surprised when my entry wasn't picked. However, I still think it's an important message to spread so I'm going to share it with you here.

[Disclaimer: I talk about female body image here, this does not mean I'm saying that men don't face similar problems, because they do.]


Girl body image is complex, frustrating and baffling. Everybody worries about the way they look, and if you disagree and say that you’re completely happy with your appearance then I’ll tell you that you are lying. To make ourselves feel better we’re told to be comfortable in our own skin and that appearance doesn’t matter and it’s what’s on the inside that counts. However, that’s not true is it? At least not for women. Society places an unhealthy amount of importance on aesthetic and no matter how much you dye your hair, do your make-up or dress differently at the bottom of it all a person cannot change how they look. So why do we measure a person’s worth by something we are born with and can’t alter?

 It’s no wonder that women, at all ages, feel pressurised to look a certain way. I feel like I’m lucky in a sense being a petite size 8 with large boobs, however, there are other parts of me that are ‘wrong’, which to me says that if I want to be a T.V presenter or in the public eye in any way shape or form I’d need to be a lot taller, in fact I’d actually need smaller boobs and skinnier legs would definitely boost my chances of success. 

 Naomi Wolf’s ‘Beauty Myth’ still exists and makes women critique themselves so harshly because they believe they don’t fit the mould that society has deemed ‘beautiful’. There needs to be ways to help women who punish themselves for not looking how they believe they should. One way would be to represent more ‘real’ women in the media. However, we can say with a lot of confidence that it’s very unlikely. How successful do you think The X Factor would be with two short, size 14 women with un-plucked eyebrows sitting on the judges’ panel?

I'd love to get a discussion going so please let me know what you think in the comments. Is the media distorting our perception of 'beauty'? And let's not just keep the debate focused on women, we should open it up to the effects of the media on men's body image too.

Hannah