1 of 28

Write now Article Tools

It is difficult to accept your body the way it is in a society that constantly teaches women that their bodies are never good enough.

Body acceptance and self acceptance are not just about fat acceptance, although this is a good first step. We are taught from a very young age that being attractive means being thin, that we can control our weight if only we "try harder," and that our weight is a clear indicator not only of our health but also of our morality. Eating salads is "good" and "feminine"; eating chocolate is "naughty" - and forget about meat, any television commercial will show you that meat is a man's food. The size of our bodies is taken by strangers not just a sign of attractiveness, but also a public statement about whether we've been "good" or "naughty."

The first step to accepting your body is accepting that weight is not a moral issue; rather, it is influenced by genes, health conditions, medication, and a host of other things unrelated to the way we eat. Blogs like Kate Harding's Shapely Prose and books like Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin help us learn to accept our bodies instead of apologizing for them, and to learn that we can be healthy without having to lose weight. Thin does not automatically mean pretty, nor fat automatically ugly. We have our own preferences for looks, if we can learn to look past what society has taught us about attractiveness.

But body acceptance is also about how we alter other parts of our body to fit into society's expectations. We must wear our hair a certain way. We must wear makeup - something that employers can legally require of women as part of a dress code, without being sued for discrimination! We must make sure our bodies are completely hairless. If we have curly hair, we must spend hours taming it and making it straight; if we have straight hair, we must spend hundreds of dollars perming it into waves and curls; if we have "ethnic" hair, we must chemically relax it into something more resembling "normal" hair - white hair.

We must shave off the hair on our armpits, our legs, our vulvae. Otherwise, we are taught, we will be unattractive to men. We are taught that our hair is not only ugly, but unsanitary. How is leg or armpit hair unsanitary on women when it is not on men? How is conforming our genitalia to the appearance of a prepubescent girl's something that so many of us accept as normal and necessary in order to keep a man?

Accepting your body does not just mean not dieting and instead working at being healthy at the weight you are; it also means accepting that there is nothing wrong with your natural hair color and texture, your skin before makeup, your body hair before endless regimens of shaving and waxing. It means accepting that your body is yours, and you have no obligation to conform to someone else's standard of attractiveness. And if you worry that you can't get a man, ask yourself this: why would you want a man who does not accept you the way you are?

Learn more about this author, Amelia Hill.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Accepting your body the way it is?
We want to hear your view. Write now!