Unacceptable

Self Acceptance.

There has been a lot of talk over the past few years in terms of body image and the concept of self acceptance. From a social stand point, it is based around the idea of dismantling the underlying messages that images in magazines and on the internet portray. Directed towards young girls and women, self acceptance seems to be about knowing that the way you look is okay despite the fact that you don't look anything like the model in the picture.

Why is it that 'perfect' looking women are so revered? It may be because she is the same sex as the audience that a campaign is mostly aimed at and therefore has more of an impact on those looking at her. If so, what is the underlying message that the picture is saying?

What is shown is a perfect body, face, skin, teeth, hair. A perfect everything. She is wearing the designer clothes, she is surrounded by other women who look the same as her, she is usually happy or oozing sex, she is surrounded by handsome men. She has money. She has men. She has friends. She has it all. It may be because her body is what is emphasised that girls and women take in these messages from the picture and associate her 'success' to the aesthetic of her body. She has value and she gets what you want. In many cases this translates over into the models personal life as many go on to date handsome, rich, famous men.

As a result, if you don't have what she has, it is because you don't look like her. Queue in fad diets, constructive clothing to give you the desired lines, the exercise regimes. I believe that a lot of people are actually aiming for this ideal rather than aiming for a fit and healthy body.

This certainly has a lot to answer for in terms of girls and women being unable to accept their bodies for what they are. However, I believe that the difficulty of accepting your body is also directly related to the difficulty of accepting who you are as a person. For me, this started as a child.

I have always struggled with myself. To like myself. To find myself interesting. I know exactly what I am and what I'm not, but still find it hard to go easy on myself. Usually when I have done something wrong or maybe over something I didn't do for example. I have always been this way, just like I have always been very sensitive.

As a child (and still as an adult) I took a long time to be at ease around new places and people. I am on the unusual side. My sense of humour is very specific, my imagination is always running (so at least I'm never bored), a lot of the time I can be a bit of a loner and I'm very quiet. No kid really wants to go and talk to the girl who's sitting on her own smiling to herself. So I've always found it hard to make friends and, at times, keep them. I went through a very long stage of loneliness as child and for a while considered my cat and dog my only friends. My peers weren't accepting me so it became very hard for me to do the same (especially when you have a sibling who has never really struggled in this area).

My mother has always said that you only need a handful of good friends to get you through life. I truly believe this to be accurate as I did eventually find a small group of friends as a teenager and then again in university. But during my childhood and early adolescence I did see the large group of kids as the group that I needed to be part of. Most kids like to talk, they like other kids who can make them laugh and they usually are very similar to each other. Subconsciously, on a couple of occasions, I tried to change and be like them. I tried to make jokes (usually didn't do too well with those), I tried to talk a lot and to make myself heard (a challenge when you're naturally softly spoken). Children are pretty harsh so if you're quiet you're usually left behind.

This didn't work while at primary school but it did for a time in my early teens. However, as time went on, I found myself becoming distant from the big group of friends I thought I had. Perhaps it's because talking for the sake of talking isn't really my thing and eventually I reverted back to being my quiet self.

As a teenager with your hormones on the loose running riot, you become very aware of your body as it changes and also noticing the changes in those around you. You become attracted to a certain kind of person and you become aware of the certain kind of person they are attracted to. This kind of attraction is like the way in which you meet people who you would like to be your friend. You end up comparing yourself to them and those around them. This is then influenced by the women you see in popular culture. The models, the actresses, the singers, the women who have it all.

It has carried on to a certain extent into my twenties. I am jealous of another woman at work who is the sort of person everyone wants to be their friend. She is fun, funny, happy, chatty, very smiley and happy and to top it all off, she has an amazing figure and sense of style. I'm am not going to try and be like her in any way but I can't help seeing how people are so drawn to her and praise her so highly, especially when she's not around. There have also been a lot of times when I have said something while she is having a conversation and she hasn't heard it.

It can be very blinding and overwhelming to be in a world where the skinny person is the 'ideal' and feeling as though, if you're not like her, you won't be as widely accepted as she is (this is slowly changing with more plus size models coming into mainstream consumption but it still has a long way to go) How we feel about our bodies is related to how we feel about who we are which can be related to how we were accepted as children before our different body types were thought to be important.

The women I know who accept not only their bodies but who they are as people, are in their fifties, don't really care what other people think of them and have found success in their own individual ways. They know that their bodies are what they are so why try and modify it to look like a twenty year old?

I feel that maybe if I was okay with being who I am then I would be okay with my body and walk around with more confidence. I would be fine with the fact that my thighs and many of my other bits are a bit big, my stomach is round and I have an extremely long neck (at odd angles it makes me head look very small). There are some days where I think I look pretty but the days where I feel pretty are very rare. I have never seen myself as beautiful. I think that has a lot more to do with my internal dialogue with myself rather than with what I see in the mirror.

Here's hoping we manage to accept ourselves and our bodies. I hope I'm not alone with these feelings.