We have a social fetish

I have noticed a few disturbing trends as I have been working on taking better care of myself. People, but mostly women, so please forgive me if I focus on women here, when they are trying to get fit focus on entirely unrealistic goals. It happens for a few reasons. One would be the ubiquitous use of Photoshop, so that even the models cannot attain the bodies that, according to their print ads, they have. Another would be choosing someone who you will never, ever look like as your inspiration/motivation. I could pin a picture of Heidi Klum to my Pinterest boards as a goal, but it doesn’t matter what I do. I simply won’t look like her. For one thing, she’s around a foot taller than I am. For another, her body is simply proportioned differently than mine, so even if you stretched me or shrunk her, we would not have the same figures, ever, regardless of how healthy we were or weren’t.  Another iteration on this, are the women who say, “Healthy is the new skinny.” I think that’s a wonderful sentiment, but they then proceed to post pictures of athletes in peak condition as their inspiration. Most people will never look like that, even many of the athletes don’t when they aren’t training.  They still look good, but not every muscle is ripped beyond belief.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t try to tone, sculpt, lose weight, be healthy, etc. I am certainly doing those things, and most Americans probably should, given the sky-rocketing rates of obesity, heart-disease, and diabetes, just to name a few. What I am saying is that your goals should be realistic. You should want to look like the best version of you that is sustainable, not an air-brushed picture of someone who doesn’t even share your body-type. Get yourself to a healthy weight, and please note, that while the BMI charts can be generally helpful, they really aren’t the be-all and end-all; there are people well within their BMIs who probably aren’t that healthy and people who aren’t who are extremely fit. You should consult with your doctor and come up with a healthy weight range for you.

That being said, this setting of unrealistic goals for ourselves is dangerous and counter-productive. First of all, the fact that we sell ourselves on the idea that looking like ourselves isn’t good enough. Being healthy is necessary. It contributes to your overall well-being. Being skinny, being curvy, having big breasts, small thighs, etc. etc. are not necessary. Some people are naturally very thin. A woman who is naturally very thin is generally not very curvy (think Lisbeth Salander, a fictional character, but someone who is very thin and small). A woman who is very curvy (Marilyn Monroe) is never, ever going to squeeze herself into a size zero and be remotely healthy, yet Lisbeths tend to want to be Marilyns and vice versa. We then have the fall-out from that. Some women scream that the “stick figures” aren’t healthy and we shouldn’t look to them while at the same time we watch curvy women and make sure they don’t get too curvy. Christina Aguilera has very publicly added to her curves. She does not appear to actually be overweight, but because she isn’t as thin as she once was, we need to bring out the pitchforks. The willowy stars are told to eat cheeseburgers, etc. How is anyone not seeing that there is no “perfect” figure? Tearing down what you are not doesn’t make what you are better, and it decimates everyone on the inside.

I feel that this constant focus on unattainable appearances, the air-brushing of already very thin models, the presentation of an artist’s ideal as a norm to which women and girls should aspire, the nitpicking on every pound gained or lost, the fact that nearly every female celebrity has her detractors for not being something (curvy, thin, too much booty, too little booty, etc, etc) has contributed to and possibly even created our fetishization of low self-esteem. If you are not perfectly beautiful, you are not a good person and you deserve very little, even the fairytales we tell our children support this notion. Cinderella is beautiful and the stepsisters are.  .  . not.

It is not okay for a woman who is healthy, but not pin-up worthy without air-brushing (is anyone, though?) to be confident. She can’t say, “I’m healthy, happy, smart, and beautiful!” because she isn’t perfect. Without perfection, she must choose her flaw(s) and focus on it (them), and not a fixable flaw(s). Of course, all of us should work to improve ourselves. If she has a problem with her temper, this woman should work on that, and it would benefit everyone, but that isn’t the flaw we want her to fixate on as a society. No. Her derriere is not perfect. Maybe it’s too big, maybe it’s too flat, maybe it’s just a little uneven, regardless, it’s not something that all the working out in the world will fix, but she is supposed to feel bad that she doesn’t have a perfect rear, not confident that she is all the other wonderful things that she is. If she doesn’t have an issue with it, we hate her for it. “How dare she walk around feeling good about herself with an ass like that? I look better than that, and I hate myself.”  If you think you haven’t done it, or that we as a society don’t do it, you should check yourself and/or the comments section of any piece of celebrity fluff journalism. We have to have low self-esteem, particularly as young women. Being happy with yourself is just not done. Every magazine, every ad, most television shows, and movies all tell us that. The mean girls are the confident ones, and they lose in the end. You have to go through a process of self-improvement and beautification to earn a smidgen of confidence AND be a nice girl.

 I am here to say that this needs to stop. We need to stop telling ourselves that confidence and conceit are the same things. It’s okay to know you have a few (or more) pounds to lose or that you need to work harder in some aspects of your life, and still like yourself. It’s okay to be happy and NOT be perfect. This fetishization of low self-esteem holds us back. It keeps us from walking with our heads up, from speaking up in the classroom, the boardroom, and when that jerk cuts in front of us in line. It also keeps us from being our best personally. If I want to look like Heidi Klum, I will probably give up on my journey to be the healthiest me that I can be because I do not have a realistic goal, just as if I want to work on my generosity of spirit, comparing myself to Mother Theresa will find me lacking. Just because I can’t be Heidi Klum or Mother Theresa doesn’t mean that I can’t be a good person. The same goes for everyone. Find your gifts, physical, emotional, and spiritual, and celebrate them! You have every right to be confident in the fact that you are a person of beauty inside and out.

If you don’t start with the confidence that you are a good person, but you’d like to be even better, then you will probably fail. If you start from the position of hating yourself and wanting to be somebody else, all the diets, working out, self-improvement, meditation, prayer, etc. won’t help you achieve your goals. You are never going to be someone else. You will always be you. Love you, then fix what can be fixed and move on. That’s how you grow. You can stagnate in the scummy pond of low self-esteem that society has sold you, or you can bloom in the sunshine and fresh air of self-confidence. I know it’s not always that easy, and that real psychological and physiological conditions can contribute to disliking yourself. I am not saying “boot-strap yourself out it.” Find a good support system (this can be friends, family, therapists, doctors, support groups, on-line, in-person, etc.), and work on your issues, and don’t contribute to the poison that’s out there by tearing others down. Let’s try to save another generation from feeling like they have to hate at least part of themselves to meet society’s expectations. In the process, we can like ourselves better, be healthier, happier, nicer, and make better choices in general. What an example that would be.