“I was born a healthy child, but as I was growing up, I started getting skinnier. It’s genetic, but nobody acknowledged that. All my relatives and friends would make fun of me. I was made to feel inadequate.
When I was younger, I avoided family functions because I knew what kind of comments would come my way — ‘Aren’t you eating anything’, ‘You will fly away one day’,’Kuch Khao’,’ Aren’t your parents feeding you?’. I used to laugh it off, but it stopped being funny quickly. I’ve also heard remarks like ‘Don’t you eat?’, ‘Do you choose clothes from the kids’ section?’, ‘You look like a school kid’ and even as crude as ‘You’re flat like a carrom board”.
It made me feel inferior and sad… it’s been quite traumatic – waking up every day to people commenting on my body wasn’t easy at all. Thankfully, I am pretty headstrong and kept channeling all this negativity into my work. I would wake up every day, look at myself in the mirror, and say “you are beautiful.” I would smile through the pain, and there were times I cried all night, locked myself up in the washroom, but I think each time only made me stronger.
Believe me, size doesn’t always depend on someone’s eating habits. Being fat or thin is not always dependent on what you eat and how much you eat. One’s genetics, hormonal issues, metabolism, all play an important role. Some hormonal issues and imbalances do not allow a person to gain or lose weight easily.
The benchmark has been set pretty high when it comes to the way a person “should” look. Whether it was the phase when everyone wanted to be size zero, or when people expected girls to have curves (since that’s what a “real” woman should look like), the expectation that a body must look a certain way has gone way overboard. In all of this, society has forgotten to take into consideration the fact that every woman has a differently shaped body.
People are skinny, curvy, tall, short, petite, large, and that’s just the reality of things. Being unhappy with your body is just not worth it. No matter what size you are, as long as you’re healthy, you ought to embrace the shape of your body. If you feel the need to change something, for your own peace of mind, there’s always the option of working out and eating a balanced diet to achieve that. Do it all for yourself! The world’s opinion shouldn’t matter, because you are beautiful just the way you are!”
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