Hello everyone, hope we are having a great weekend 🤗. I always enjoy our discussion topics in this community and I want to use this medium to celebrate all our administrative bodies for putting them together for us to discuss, they are so thoughtful.
When I saw this topic on body positivity, It made me remember one particular afternoon, when I went to Sango market to purchase fabrics for my boss when I was still learning fashion designing so a woman who was selling fruits looked at me and said "You are a fine girl but you are too thin!, take mango and eat so that you can add flesh". The other women there laughed, I smiled and walked away feeling sad in my heart, I have heard such words too many times in my life.
I was looking very small and skinny while growing up, my busybody aunty used to pinch me on my arms and tell me to add meat so that men can see me. At first, I believed them and I would consume garri and beans late in the night hoping that it would make me fat but it never worked. I became so insecure and lost self confidence, I would check in the mirror and ask myself whether there was something wrong with me.
Fortunately, I learned about body positivity in university. One of my friends was on the big side shared a photo of herself in a short dress saying "I love my body and If you don’t like it just look away", I admired her boldness then I started accepting that there is nothing wrong with being thin. This made me bold enough to wear tight clothes and no longer hide behind baggy dresses.
However with time, I began to see the other side to this so called body positivity. I had another friend Bose who was very overweight, she would laugh and say "I am a thick Queen and men love flesh.” It initially sounded confident but later I realized that she does not take medical checkups. When she eventually got to see a doctor, we got the information that she had high blood pressure. Nevertheless, she insisted she was okay, she claimed that anyone who said to her that she needed to lose weight was telling her she was toxic and body shaming her. This saddens my heart as I knew her health was in danger but she was operating behind the notion of loving her body.
It was at that point that it occurred to me that body positivity can become toxic when it blinds you to reality. Loving your body doesn’t imply that you should neglect your health. When you are not exercising, when you have been eating badly and when you are not going to see a doctor when you need to, means you are not actually loving your body but hurting it.
I believe social media has also exaggerated this situation as well. There are times I scroll through Tiktok and I hear influencers say "All bodies are perfect, don’t change your body for anybody”. Yes this is true but not completely true because not all bodies are healthy. A young girl with a disordered eating habit would read that and feel that she does not need any help but she do need help. An individual experiencing obesity may use it as an excuse to continue living in an irresponsible manner and this is very dangerous.
To me, body positivity is good but I think we need to have a balance to it and stay healthy. I am fine with my thin body and I take good care of it. I eat well, I exercise a little and when my body gets weak I sleep, surprisingly with time I began to add weight little by little and I'm very fat now 😂.
Body positivity is something that should make us feel confident but also challenge us to make healthy decisions. The best form of loving your body is really to make it alive and healthy.
Thank you so much for staying this far, hope you had a good read with me, see you again next time 😁
