Body Image Blues

Hello everyone and welcome to ‘Busy Body Talk’; a blog that is dedicated to celebrating the human body no matter what size, shape, colour or form. In other words, this is a body acceptance and body positivity blog.

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You might be asking me why I chose to write about this particular topic. Some of you might say that it seems a tad bit ‘overdone’. I am inclined to agree, but then again, with 60% of adults’ reporting that they feel ashamed of their bodies and 34% of young boys and 49% of young girls having taken up dieting to change their body shape and lose weight on top of the rampant body shaming culture that seems to be plaguing us in this day and age, I thought a little more positivity and acceptance couldn’t hurt; spreading the love and all that jazz because I personally think that we are all unique and beautiful. 

Now before I start posting about ridiculous beauty standards and how we live in an era of Photoshop and beauty wizardry, I’d like to share a little story about myself and my own personal struggle with finally accepting and loving my body. 

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First of all, I’m South East Asian. I’m from Malaysia if I want to be specific about it and when I was in high school, I was obsessed with East Asians and how amazing they looked. When I was in high school, Korean and Japanese bands, movies and merchandise were a staple.

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With looks like that, everyone in school could see the appeal of  East Asians and how pretty, handsome, sexy and elegant they looked; what with the clear, moonlight skin, perfect figures and gorgeous hair. They could wear practically anything and make it look amazing, dashing, cute and trendy. I remember how we gushed over the actors, actresses and band members; moaning and groaning and asking questions like; 

“Why can’t I look like that?” 

“Why can’t Malaysian guys look like that?” 

“Why are all the hot Asians from EAST Asia?! That’s so unfair!” 

The envy was strong because deep down I knew that East Asian beauty standards were something most of us can never hope to achieve because genetically, we just aren’t built like that. 

For me, it was a bitter pill to swallow and it sucked big time because a majority of East Asian beauty standards gets passed down to South East Asian countries by the boat loads. 

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I remember going to the mall and feeling hunted by all the make-up and skin care ads from The Face Shop, Etude House, TONYMOLY and Nature Republic. 

I remember chatting wistfully to one of my online friends (because like hell I was going to speak to my in real life friends) about getting liposuction to get rid of excess chub. 

I remember spending an exorbitant amount of money on waxing because my genes made me a little fuzzier than the other girls and laser hair removal was ridiculously expensive. 

I remember wishing that life was like the Sims and re-imagining a ‘perfect body’ for myself; slim, fair and flawless. 

Mind you, I’m pretty sure I started having body issues from the age of 10 to 15 and I never once gave any indication to my parents or friends that I was having serious body image issues. It wasn’t until I stumbled onto a body acceptance, body positivity blog when I was 16 that I started to look at myself differently.

I can’t remember the name of the blog now but what I did remember was that it listed out things I had thought were defects on my body and claimed that it was perfectly normal and okay and even beautiful. Vaguely, I remember how it stated that it was okay to love your body even if you are a big size, but if you wanted to lose weight then that was okay too. 

It’s funny really, how some blog that I can’t even remember the name of had managed to help me love and accept my body for how it is. It took awhile but I can’t describe how amazing it felt when I finally let myself love my body. It was overwhelming and addictive and I wanted to laugh and cry about all the years I wasted envying other peoples bodies when I had a perfectly wonderful one of my own. 

So, point: 

Body acceptance and body positivity doesn’t magically happen overnight. You need to make a conscious decision to love and accept yourself as you are each and every day. It might be hard at first but I promise you, it is worth it.