A few weeks ago I saw a post shared on Facebook in an attempt to encourage equality and social acceptance. What it did for me was leave me angry and frustrated. I’m not going to share the post because I don’t want to give it the publicity, but it was of a plus-size model posing with junk food. Not only was she eating the junk food, but she was doing it in underwear, trying to pose and eat in “sensual” ways. The point of the campaign? To encourage society to believe that we are all beautiful, no matter what size and to encourage people to stop bullying and discriminating against overweight people.
First off, I agree with that mentality. We all have different bodies and each should be celebrated. No matter how healthy I eat and how much I exercise, I’ll never be 5’10 or a size 2. I’d have to shave off bones and remove organs. Not worth it. I struggled with weight loss for years and even though I ran 5 miles a day and ate what I thought at the time was a “healthy” way, society still viewed me as a twinkie-addicted couch potato. So this mentality needs to be changed and I support making a campaign to bring awareness to this problem.
HOWEVER, this was the wrong way to do it. This sends the message that it’s okay to binge on artificially flavored and colored, high fructose corn syrup filled, hydrogenated-oil fried, preservative-loaded food. It’s not!! We need to be more responsible as a society. We need to encourage health. Being a 90-lb anorexic model isn’t healthy and neither is spending the day eating junk food. As such, neither should be promoted.
If you eat healthy, exercise and can’t lose that extra baby weight, focus on loving yourself and find what makes you good (because body size doesn’t make anyone “good”). If you spend the day sitting on the couch eating junk food, make some healthy changes today, whether you’re size 2 or 22.
Yes we need to celebrate diversity. And yes we need to accept people for who they are. But we need to do it in a healthy way. We wouldn’t take someone with the obvious physical affects of drug use and show them posing with drugs as a reminder to society that we need to be more accepting. We’d never do that because drug use isn’t healthy. So why do we do the same with junk food (because food is an addiction too)?
We need to do our part to promote the idea that healthy is beautiful, whether healthy means size 14 or 2, blonde hair or brown hair, 5’10 or 5’0. If you want to promote social awareness, do it the right way. Encourage people to be healthy and love themselves. Compliment people on what you love about them because EVERYONE has something special that should be praised. And most of all, love yourself. You are the only you and that means you have something no one else has. Wear it proudly.
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