Beauty is said to be in the eye of the beholder. In a world where more than 1 billion adults struggle with obesity and eating disorders beauty is probably the least subjective topic of all. In the race to look thin and glamourous, the need to remain healthy regardless of your dress size, is lost. Weight is something that’s so personal and yet so public. Everyone’s buzzing about Karl Lagerfeld calling Adele a little too fat. He as a fashion designer is entitled to his opinion and shouldn’t be made to apologize for it. We need to stop focusing on a petty comment and work more towards battling what is soon becoming a global epidemic; obesity.
I, like every other girl have constantly suffered from body image issues, it’s a part of growing up i guess. Having a healthy body image i believe is a luxury only a few can boast of having. The problem lies with the basic thought process of people; either you’re thin or you’re ugly. Seldom do you hear people talking of a pretty but fat woman. After many years of struggling with the same issues that drive so many teenagers into developing eating disorders, excessive smoking and other dangerous habits, i’ve finally come to a place in my life where i can confidently say i’m comfortable in my own skin.
My journey, although a rocky one, has given me a very valuable insight on what the world perceives to be beautiful. Growing up i had a grandmother who always stressed on being thin. In her own way she was right for she was one of the healthiest women i’ve ever met to date. However somewhere i feel her approach, like many people today, was wrong. When we talk about being thin and fat we often leave out the main concern; health. When i decided to lose weight it wasn’t because of what people said or the fact that i was concerned about my health, it was simply because i wanted to wear all the cute outfits girls my age were wearing and not look odd. At the age of 16 i looked 20 and that bothered me. I was so motivated by skinny pictures of Nicole Richie, Hillary Duff and Lindsay Lohan, so motived by the fact that they had gone from being ‘fat’ to absolutely skinny, which in my mind equaled to looking good enough for people to finally get up and take notice which in turn would make me feel good. I couldn’t have been further away from reality.
A lot of my friends went through similar feelings of anxiety and concern. We all focused on what other people said about us. Actresses and models would be our inspiration and not regular healthy people. I wish now that i was educated better about the health issues concerned with unhealthy eating or the benefits or exercising regularly. You see no one told me that once i start running everyday i’d be able to concentrate on my studies better, i’ll be more energetic or that i won’t feel depressed anymore. No one told me that eating right would give me better sleep, would make my skin glow and would make me feel full for longer. Had i known the things i know today i probably would have had a much more positive approach towards weight loss.
There’s one thing i’ve realized in all my years of trying to reach my goal weight; being thin is easy, being healthy isn’t. The days i skipped meals, cut out carbs and drank less water i’d definitely feel ‘thinner’ but at the same time more depressed and tired. Losing weight isn’t the tough part, keeping the weight off is and that can only be achieved through a healthy lifestyle. People feel the need to starve themselves to look good, and they do look good but only for as long as they continue to starve. You can’t live your life on diet pills and zero carbs; it doesn’t take an expert to figure that out. Plus starving anti- obesity medication has a number of harmful side effects like hair fall, stomach ulcers, heart problems and break outs; nothing beautiful about any of them.
Being healthy and in turn being thin is more of a lifestyle choice and a state of mind, not what you see in the mirror. If you are healthy and you feel healthy then no remark passed by anyone will ever make you feel otherwise. Calling someone fat is wrong, but encouraging their unhealthy lifestyle is even worse. Losing weight has been my toughest battle, it only became easy the day i decided that this is how i’m going to live for the rest of my life and so no shortcut will help me achieve my goal. It’s as simple as this; no healthy person is obese and no frail person is healthy. Being thin is simply an added advantage of being healthy and not the other way around.
Neha's Blog 