You Are Beautiful.

I am not skinny enough. I am too skinny. I have a bad complexion. My hair is too thin. My nose is crooked. My thighs kiss. My feet are too big. My nails are chipped. My fingers are too short. I am too short and my arse is fat. Everyone can see

that big birthmark on my face. My eyebrows are bushy. Do they even make concealer in that shade? Why can’t I take a good picture?

How many of these thoughts have gone through your mind?

You are beautiful.

In my opinion there is a problem in today’s society, people label everything. Recently, something that has come to my attention is the term ‘real woman’; a woman with curves, a bum & not size 8 or 10. Don’t get me wrong I love being called a ‘real woman’. I do also believe that a lot of the women, who are being labelled curvy, do like the fact that our society has started to appreciate them more and more. It has become a conversation in the media. ‘Real women’ appear much more in magazines and television, which can only be a good thing. However, there is a part of me that can’t help but wonder if the media could at times be exploiting the concept of a ‘real woman’.

“But what about all the other women that are not size 14 and so on? Are they not real women?”

“Are you beach body ready?” This is the advert that has caused outrage across social media. People were so angry that TFL has removed the advert from the underground. I was therefore lucky I suppose to see the advert for myself. It must have been freshly put up since it was graffiti free and the fuss hadn’t gotten into media yet. First I saw it on the tube where the above-named advert was small, however the yellow caught my eye and the advert made me feel uncomfortable. I talked about it with a friend who also thought that it was pretty outrageous. I really started to hate the Protein World advert when I was standing on a platform in Canada Water Tube Station. They had planted the super-sized advert behind the barriers of the Jubilee line. I was standing exactly in front of it and staring at it, and suddenly I didn’t even know how to stand. Looking down to my probably not so beach ready legs I actually started laughing. The ignorance of some people in the world verges on satire.

“I am still awesome.”

Every day we all have at least one conversation about what we look like and it makes you start to realise that the most apparent standards of beauty are mostly appearance-based. From this, one might think appearance is everything. It is not. Eivanas, 23, from Lithuania says: “Having a good body is nice – but that doesn’t necessarily mean thin”. For him, the personality a woman carries within themselves and how they interact with others is important as well.” Alex, 23, who is from the UK thinks a woman’s smile, is vital. He then mentions that a woman has to have confidence, shouldn’t be led by the masses and can laugh at herself. Oh, and she also has to have a good appetite!

Keep in mind beauty is subjective. For some people, a beautiful person is a Victoria’s Secret kind of girl, for others a more natural hairy browed Frida Kahlo is their idea of perfection.

I am very impressed by, and have always admired celebrities, when it comes to body shaming. They have millions of pairs of eyes on them basically all day, every day, judging their every lost and gained pound. Recently, Pink attended a charity event where she was supporting her friend who was receiving an award, but this wasn’t the reason why the Internet went crazy after they saw the pictures of her at the event. Nasty comments about her having gained a few pounds were thrown at her, but Pink had the best possible answer by posting a screenshot with an answer to people ‘worrying’: “I can see that some of you are concerned about me from your comments about my weight. You’re referring to the pictures of me from last night’s cancer benefit that I attended to support my [dear] friend Dr. Maggie DiNome. She was given the Duke Award for her tireless efforts and stellar contributions to the eradication of cancer. But unfortunately, my weight seems much more important to some of you. While I admit that the dress didn’t photograph as well as it did in my kitchen, I will also admit that I felt very pretty. In fact, I feel beautiful. So, my good and concerned peoples, please don’t worry about [me]. I’m not worried about me. And I’m not worried about you either 🙂 … I am perfectly fine, perfectly happy, and my healthy, voluptuous and crazy strong body is having some much deserved time off. Thanks for your concern. Love, cheesecake.”

As a person who has contemplated the meaning of beauty for years, who has lost and gained weight because of what society expects of me, I now believe beauty starts from the inside – your personality and the fact that YOU believe that you are beautiful and with that you can make your every ‘imperfection’ work. Those special little quirks are what make you who you are.