Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time women were praised for being voluptuous – not just in their chest or buttocks – but all over. Extra weight was viewed as ideal and preferred.

 

Once upon a time women wrapped and bound their chests to flatten and hide their breasts – in an effort to be called beautiful.

 

Once upon a time women did everything they could to minimize their waistline, even breaking ribs to shrink a few extra inches.

 

Once upon a time women cut their hair short, and wore webbed girdles to lose their feminine curves and make themselves look like boys.

 

Once upon a time women powdered their faces to be as pale as possible.

 

Once upon a time women would avoid eating, vomit their meals, and have expensive surgeries to mutate their bodies into what the ideal woman is expected to look like. Oh wait, never mind, that’s true. That’s where we are now.   

 

It may be hard to believe, but once upon a time, all these statements were true. Every one of them describes an era in the short history of humanity in which certain attributes were endlessly chased by women in an effort to meet societal standards and expectations of “beautiful”. Women would take drastic and dangerous measures to meet the body image stipulations of society.

 

Does this scare you? It should. This means that women currently are, and always have been, sacrificing their health to become look-a-like soldiers of a “beautiful” army, rather than celebrating the uniqueness and individuality of the miracle they’ve been blessed with – their body and their life.

 

Women spend so much time worrying and stressing over their appearance that they forget that their health is a blessing, one that should NOT be sacrificed to become something that they’re not. Instead, women should learn to appreciate their own natural and unique body image, and make the decision to see themselves – how they naturally are – as their own ideal.

 

I’ve mostly been talking about women, but the same goes for men. Perhaps not as drastically, but expectations have shifted throughout the years. From the thin, slender, and toned runner’s body, to the massive muscle bulging body builder, the media has consistently exploited the male physique in advertising, just as much as it does women, putting extreme pressure on men to live up to what is “manly.”

 

I had the unique opportunity to pick the brain of one of these “ideal” men. Anyone that sees James Timberlake will immediately think, that’s a big dude – and not because he’s had “too many cheeseburgers,” as he might say – but rather because of the sheer amount of muscle on his body. Put any young man next to James, and it’s likely he’ll start thinking about how he needs to hit the weights a little harder next time.

 

James is a body builder. He competes for the love of weight lifting, the love of his health, and the love of competition. While he’s always been an athlete, and thus had the body type of such, taking the natural next step towards body building post-college sports has magnified the “ideal body image” that he embodies.

 

The interesting thing about James, though, is that while body building is a competition of muscles, it’s not really about that. It’s about the fun of the mere competition of seeing how you size up (literally and figuratively) to all the other men. It’s about eating right and working out – placing health as the number one priority. James allows his Catholic faith to enrich his competitive nature, knowing that his body is a “gift from God, and a temple of the Holy Spirit.” Keeping this in mind, he maintains his passion for bodybuilding in a way that keeps the dieting and weightlifting as a means of taking care of his body, and keeping it healthy.

 

We can all learn something from James. He knows “that if you put forth the effort you can train your body to perform in any way you would like it to.”  He understands the importance of keeping your body healthy, because after all, it is a gift from God.

 

I wish we would all learn a little lesson from James and realize that when people advocate “loving yourself for the body you have,” they aren’t saying “go ahead and have that cookie, and love yourself anyways.” They’re saying be conscientious of your health, eat well, exercise, and be sure that you’re placing your health as a top priority. Just DON’T sacrifice your health to be something you’re not.

 

I wish we could break the cyclical carousel we’re riding. We’re on patterned path, deep-seated in history, in which the media feeds us unattainable images of “perfection,” and we in turn encourage the media by employing dangerous technologies and techniques to reach said “perfection.” This routine has become a frightening norm. It’s heartbreaking to know that people are ignoring the blessings of where and how they do and can live, and are forgoing the health that many in this world just don’t have, simply to subscribe to a prescribed image of “beautiful.”

 

If we all took a step back and remembered that the definition of “beautiful” is in fact “excellent of its kind,” and realized that each of us are a unique kind of our own, perhaps we could add a refreshing twist to the timeline of body image. Maybe, just maybe, we could begin to define an era in which body image wasn’t so much about what your body looks like, but rather about celebrating who you are, and what your body can do.

 

Erin Swiatek