Saturated in beauty

Body image is something that almost everyone deals with.  Whether male or female, young or old, it is hard to escape the mainstream ideals on what is defined as the perfect body.  The problem that today’s generation faces is that we are absolutely saturated in beauty.  With almost every turn, on almost every channel, you are confronted with this idea of beauty and what it means or takes to achieve the ideal body.  You no longer see yourself as you are, but as you hope to be.  And you are not alone.  We all deal with this need, this desire to be better; shinier hair, whiter teeth, slimmer waist, longer legs, more tanned, more toned, six pack (or is it now an eight pack?), bigger biceps, smaller nose, smoother skin…should I continue?

Yes, these ads and music videos with ‘perfect bodied’ people are definitely not hard to look at.  They are sexy and fun, they transport us into another life, another world where we can (no, we are!) just like them.  And that is all good, for the moment.  Until we close the magazine, change the channel or walk past that larger than life poster; we are then left with ourselves, obsessing over what we could be.  All I’m trying to say is that we all  have the ability to start accepting who we are, as we are.  Granted, the ‘want to’ may always be there…let’s just try and get ourselves away from the ‘need to’.