Body Confidence

I seem to have had a bit of an epiphany recently. I have started to actually like my body! Seems crazy I know but in this image obsessed culture we live in, it's pretty easy to hate yourself.

Maybe I read too many trashy magazines, maybe I am a victim of the noughties way of thinking, but being bombarded every day with images of girls whose ribs you can count makes it very easy to convince yourself that size zero is the 'right' way to look.

I'm not condemning people who are naturally super skinny, my sister is one of those, it's people - especially the media- suggesting that this is the only acceptable body shape for women that really gets my goat. If you look back at Renaissance paintings, the women have a gorgeous creamy English Rose skin tone and beautiful curves that now would probbaly be shunned. It's been well documented that Marilyn Monroe, a gorgeous sexy woman, would be a size 16 in today's sizes.

I buy a trashy magazine every week - love that celebrity gossip!- and it never ceases to amaze me the hypocrisy of having on one page an article about the terrible effects of anorexia, turn over the page to find the 'ring of shame' circling Britney's 2 lb weight gain or Jessica Simpson's new curves. If you look at JLo, she doesn't have a particularly big bum. She just has a bum.

I'm proud to have hips, boobs, and a bum. It makes me who I am. It means when I walk across a crowded bar people look at me and, call me attention seeking, but I like that.

I don't know exactly what's changed - maybe I've watched so many episodes of 'How to Look Good Naked' it's finally allowed me to love my body and - dare I say it - have body confidence.

If you think young people need to be taught body confidence in schools sign this petition:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/bodyconfidence/

I for one am amazed this hasn't been done before. It's about time.

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