Love yourself. Love your body.

The image of a beautiful girl generally involves a fair woman with a slim and tiny waist. This has made many girls ashamed of their own body and leads them to take desperate measures to fit the mold set by the society. But, to what extent is it right? Generally, girls are berated for being fat, and it is considered difficult to find a guy for her marriage. She is looked down upon not only by the society and her colleagues but also by her own family. In India, a lot of girls join the gym before marriage because their fiancé thinks they are fat. But is it actually right? Some women’s worst fear involves getting overweight and they do anything in their power to keep themselves thin. Agreed that too much weight is dangerous for our health but we should not make weight gain such a big issue that our whole life starts revolving around it.  Many girls starve themselves which leads to anorexia or cause bulimia, and other eating disorders and then there are those who get addicted to medicines and drugs that promise to shed all that extra baby fat. This is not getting healthy but actually ways of killing yourself little by little. But the question arises why do they do so? Losing weight to become healthy is one thing while losing weight to suit the beauty standards set by the society is not right at all. Especially when it harms your health. Yes, the society has always liked the girls with little to no fat, but we have to realize that being fat is not something to be ashamed of. There are many reasons why some people are fat, and others aren’t and unlike what people think some reasons are actually out of control of a normal human being.Hormonal changes and genetics do play a significant role in determining the body shapes. Then some diseases cause us to gain weight. So, we have to realize that being fat is just something like being fair and dark, tall or short. It’s a descriptor, not a dirty word. The society has made us think that being fat is equivalent to being ugly but that is wrong, and we have to stop telling ourselves that it is wrong to be fat. There is nothing wrong with, a few extra calories until and unless they jeopardize your health. Plus, it really doesn’t matter if people think someone is beautiful or not. Beauty standards differ from person to person. Some like curves others don’t. But this doesn’t mean we should change ourselves for others and therefore we should stop looking ourselves through the eyes of the society. You want to lose weight – go ahead exercise, eat healthy, walk, mediate anything but under no circumstances play with your health. So, girls embrace your body and eat whatever you want because it’s not other’s who define if you are beautiful or not but yourself.

———— ABOUT THE AUTHOR: This article is written by Pragya Dhir, our intern.