The Toxic Reality of Body Image

Towards the end of last semester, the school did a medical examination of all the students. In middle school, I have already started to let down my worries of my weight and how I looked. However, there were still girls around me who were worried about their weight, so this is what they did—the day before the medical examination, they did not eat dinner, and on the day of the examination, they did not eat breakfast, nor lunch, just to weigh less during the examination in the afternoon.. This gave me flashbacks to when I was in elementary school, and I had to control what I ate just so I can complete that one jump and that one spin to let my coach and my mom be happy about my progress.

I feel disappointed that the notions of body image and how keeping slim is the only way to achieve beauty is still being upheld, even among populations that do not need to purposely maintain their weight and body shape. I thought that I had been through enough, but I still see girls like me worry about their weight and body shape just for a medical examination, and that is what makes me disappointed. Just because you have starved yourself from not eating 3 meals, you still will gain the weight back when you binge eat the next meal because your brain will think that it is okay to eat a lot after you have starved yourself, which is a even worse mindset. I used to go through that mindset as well—thinking that if I don’t eat dinner, I will be able to lose a lot of weight, but that made me go really hungry at night, making my sleep quality went down. Until now, I still don’t eat a proper dinner and I can’t even remember the last time I ate a proper dinner because somehow, my parents are going back to the idea of not eating/eating less=health. 

I hope that any person who is reading this can realize, health and a positive body image mentality is not built upon starvation and temporary fasting or any medicine that can help you lose weight with some shortcut that will let you look pretty for that one thing in your life. The true positivity is confidence and the shift in one’s mindset, not your appearance.