I once read somewhere that truth is sexy.
Pictures are popping up
everywhere with "big" vs. "small" or "fat" vs.
"skinny" women. Asking questions like "Since when did this
become sexier than this?". (See below picture for reference). In
my opinion there should be no “vs.” involved.
When we sit down and reflect on the people that appeal to us as sexy it
is generally not just their physical appearance but instead a deeper sense of
spark they have. Something we often refer to as confidence; the way the hold
themselves, speak, or smile.
Confidence
by definition is :
full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or
thing
belief in oneself and one's powers or abilities
certitude; assurance
I strongly believe this
needs addressed. Articles are constantly popping up about what a proper
body should look like, what proper eating should look like, what proper
exercise looks like, but we are still not getting to the root of the issue
here. To address the physical, we must
also address the mental / emotional.
There are many different
perspectives on what sexy is, and thanks to the media we have exploited skinny
as sexy. Perhaps the worst part is that
we have followed suit for many years, promoting this appeal by buying the
clothes, the magazines, the advertisements, and so on. We, in part, are responsible for this imaging
and the distortion that it may hold.
As an on and off model I
will say that the behind the scenes of being that skinny involves sacrificing
your soul and continual verbal abuse. Being
that I weighed 110-120lbs at 5’9” and you could count my ribs through my shirt
I often found myself being insubordinate to my agent. However they still managed to pinch, prod and
click their tongues that I should shoot heroine between my toes for a few days
to slim down for a casting that could be potential big bucks. I have seen girls drugged, slept with, black
listed, verbally abused, and made plastic by surgeries for the price of what
our magazines want to portray as “sexy”.
In fact we all have.
It took an 11 year old
girl saying to me that she wanted to look just like me before it hit me just
how shit that industry is. It is
important to note that there are companies out there that do not require such
things of the people that model their clothes.
But they are fewer and farther between than the ones that do.
Now as we are beginning
to wake up to the disgust that we feel for the lines drawn in the sand about
“sexy”. We are becoming proactive in
saying that sexy is dependent on the eye of the beholder, and we will continue
on this path of making it more balanced, because it is time we took a healthier
approach to our lives.
Meaning no more anorexia
and no more obesity… accepting ourselves at a body weight that works for us and
putting the effort in to eat healthy and stay active.
Truth is sexy, and that
truth differs from person to person.
There is no cure all diet, no perfect exercise program, no right way to
apply your make up, or to dress. Instead
we have opportunities everyday to take care of ourselves by eating the foods
that give us energy and make us feel good, whether that be a carrot or potato
chips. We have the chance every day to
go for a walk or stretch, or do some jumping jacks. It is in these processes we learn about
ourselves and our bodies, we create the space for us to connect to what works
for us rather than what our neighbor said they did to “get the weight
off”.
Humans are
brilliant. I mean look at the things
that we create on a daily basis and through the centuries, and yet we fail to
embrace a healthy lifestyle. We blame
our jobs, our busy life, our money situation, our emotions, and our health when
really we are in charge of it all. We
set the boundaries in our own life, in each and every situation. And when we go to the store and we buy a
shape magazine with a little “perfect” body on the cover we support the idea
and the definition of what is sexy and appealing. We literally buy into it every time we spend
our money on it, proving to the people behind the scenes that this is
okay. So, ask yourself, do you really
think this is okay?
We can become sexier by
putting in the effort and creating the confidence that we are able to take
responsibility and accountability for ourselves, because that is truth,
individual truth., and that is a sexy that no one else can possibly mimic. It eliminates over eating, under eating,
stress eating, and laziness because we listen to ourselves and our needs, and then
we act on those needs.
Grow your own food, or
at least some of it. You can grow herbs
and veggies in just a pot if that’s all you have space for.
Go for a walk, we all
have spare minutes in our day. Just get
off the phone, off the computer, off the couch and see where you go, even if it
is laps around the living room.
Stretch. Bend over try and touch your toes. Bend from side to side. Twist and turn. There are endless podcasts out there and
endless information on the internet.
Don’t by fashion
magazines, diet pills, exercise gimics, and “guaranteed to fix you”
information.
Only you can fix
you.
Tell your boss, your
family, your friends what you need.
Create boundaries, it builds respect.
Dammit, I didn’t want to
create a list of “fix it” ideas. I just
wanted to give you ideas for how you can take charge in your life.
Rather than a size or a
weight wouldn’t we prefer if sexy was a state of mind, an empowered state of
mind. I am not talking feminist “I am
woman hear me roar”, I am talking about “I know who I am, I will honor who I
am, I will act on my beliefs, I know how to take care of myself”. Thank you and have a great day.
Be sexy in your own
right, because you deserve it and the world deserves it. No 11 year old should think that “skinny” is
the definition of sexy.
