by Bridget Webber

Created on: December 03, 2008   Last Updated: December 29, 2008

When one person chooses to judge another by their size what does this say about them? Perhaps it secretly speaks of their own insecurity and hangups. Perhaps it also tells us of their prejudiced and fearful nature. Most of all, it probably tells us of their ignorance.

Deep down we all know that how people look doesn't make them any better or worse as people. We know that just because a person is short, overweight, tall or thin this has no bearing on their personality, skills or intelligence. So why is it that judging others by their size is so common place?

One of the main reasons may be that there is so much emphasis placed on how we appear physically by society that we are all a little obsessed. Many of us spend time worrying that we are not thin enough, curvaceous enough or attractive enough. Or we may concentrate on being anxious about a myriad of other areas in which we fall short in our own eyes.

All of this introspection and concentration on how we appear to others may make some of us focus too much on appearance all together. When we have spent allot of time mentally pulling our own looks apart we develop a mind set which involves permanently assessing ourselves and others.

There are many television programmes that scream at us to improve. The media began with letting us know that we should improve our gardens, then our homes, then our pets and finally we are down to having to make ourselves more acceptable, but to who?

When it comes down to the truth, as long as we are acceptable to ourselves we don't have to try so hard to impress others. All the time that we are focusing on how we, or others appear, we are feeding our fears about whether we and those around us are good enough.

In an ideal world no one would ever stoop so low as to judge another being in such a callous manner over a subject so trivial as how they look. We would reserve our judgements for assessing others honesty and integrity. These features are far more important than whether a person is tall enough to reach the top shelf in a supermarket or thin enough to squeeze into a designer frock.

Sadly, although looks are indeed trivial compared to a persons personality being unkindly judged for how you look can be detrimental to your mental health, causing anxiety, humiliation and constant concern.

Perhaps the best place to begin shunning the world of judgement about appearance is with ourselves. The vast majority of us need to begin to love the size that we are. This way we can start to accept others and be good role models to those who haven't yet cottoned on that such a judgemental attitude is shallow and worthless.

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