Bodies

Society puts an inordinate amount of emphasis on physical appearance. We're told that we have to look a certain way in order to find love, happiness, success and fulfillment. And we buy into it, and perpetuate it with every anti-aging serum purchased, every fad diet followed, every “God, I'm so fat and disgusting” uttered.

I freely admit that I've fallen for the same lies, and still struggle with negative body image from time to time. Negative body images that have been drilled into my head my entire life. Nearly every woman of influence in my life has expressed disgust with her physical form more than once. Women whose intelligence, inner beauty, and spunk far outshone any physical flaws they may or may not have had.

It's wrong. So very, very few women fit the “ideal” that is pushed on us. The average model who is used to tell us how we should look is over 5'9” and weighs less than 130 lbs. However, the average woman in the U.S.A. is just under 5'4” and weighs 166 lbs. It's no wonder that clothes that look good in the ads, on mannequins and on the hangers just don't look right when the average woman puts them on.

If you've had a child, it just gets worse. Mothers are told that having a baby will “ruin” our bodies. We're given unrealistic ideas of how a woman is supposed to look before, during and after childbirth. There are “remedies” for stretch marks, diet and exercise plans for losing the “baby weight.” And heaven help the woman who isn't back into her pre-baby shape in a matter of months. Because we all have access to personal trainers and chefs like the Hollywood starlets who shed baby weight in a matter of weeks...

It took having a baby and “ruining” my body for me to begin to accept my body the way it is. During the months of my pregnancy I learned something. This body of mine, though it's definitely too short and round to be the body of a model, is capable of the miraculous. This body is capable of growing and sustaining another human life. For a short time another human being lived inside my body. And now my body produces the only nourishment that she needs for the first year of her life.

I cherish every stripe on my stomach, because those are the marks that show that I grew a person that is dearer to me than life itself. I embrace my body type, because that is my inheritance from my mother, my father, my grandparents. I hope that I can be an example that will help my daughter to always know that she is beautiful, inside and out, no how tall or short or round or skinny she grows up to be.