Beauty standards.
First question I would like to ask: Why do people let every other person but themselves decide for them what they should look like?
Growing up, I wouldn’t have exactly described myself as a pretty child. I had a very chubby face, with sunken eyes. I wasn’t fat but I have always had thick thighs. Something I was always teased for. “Yam legs”, that was what they called it. And it didn’t help that my face was riddled with pimples, and all the creams I had tried at the time didn’t seem to be working. So, I was the girl with fat legs, and pimple face.
Then, being skinny was the real deal. Runway model skinny, and anyone not fitting into that genre, was considered ugly. Even if that person was a twelve-year-old girl going through puberty.
What saw me through my teenage years were the fact that I had learnt two things. One, people would only see what you showed them, and so I showed people what I wanted them to see. A smart girl, one that could do what she wanted. Two, confidence. Despite the fact that I didn’t like my body, I didn’t let my insecurities shine through.
As I grew older, I began to realize something. Beauty standards change. They always change. And the most annoying part, the fact that people let celebrities decide for them what the standard should be.
Let me also clearly state this. All bodies are beautiful. Men, and women, and everything in between.
But then, celebrities are not the only party to be blamed in this dilemma. We also have to blame those who listen to them. How would you idolize someone so much that you wake up in the morning, and then try to tailor your life to be like theirs?
Society isn’t helping matters too. Don’t even get me started on those relatives that would visit your house, and then begin to compare you with your beautiful sister, and how I should strive to look like her. That was one reason why whenever we travelled, I would insist on staying indoors because I didn’t want that comparison. I didn’t want to go out all happy, and then come back feeling less. Let’s not forget their unsolicited advice on how you should lose weight. I do not encourage obesity, but then everyone really should learn to mind the business that pays them. Or those church members that would leave the problems that brought them to church and then start asking you why you look older than your sister, or why my face looked like that. And then proceed to tell you to look at other people’s faces. And some would then tell me to do something about myself, or I would not see husband to marry.
“Oge, do quick and marry, you know you’re getting big.”
But why should their opinion matter?
People would drive themselves to depression just because they want to look like Kim K, or Beyonce. The best thing I did for myself was acceptance. I accepted that I couldn’t look like the popular girls at school. I accepted that I had flaws, I accepted that I was far from perfect. And with that acceptance came some sort of peace, the peace that made me stop crying about myself every time I looked in the mirror. In fact, I made it into a sport. I would purposely strip down, and force myself to look at all the things I hated about myself. Pimples, legs, hip dips and all. And with time, I began to love myself. I was no longer trying to seek validation for my body. I realized that when it came to what I looked like, my validation is honestly all that mattered.
Why do I have to allow other people tell me that I was ugly? Why should I give other people such power over me? I began to see myself as beautiful. It changed a lot of things for me. I stopped trying to use powder to cover my pimples, I instead accepted them. And you know what? People started to see me as beautiful too.
It took a while to get to this point, but I am glad I walked the whole journey. There was a lot of learning and unlearning. Lessons that were learnt. Lessons I hope that you would learn after reading this. In a couple of years from now, who knows what the new standard would be. Right now, thick bodies are en vogue. Thick thighs, thick ass, big boobs, plump lips. But a few years ago, women were been put down and shamed for naturally having those.
My point?
You are your own beauty standard. Be your only beauty standard. Don’t let other people influence you on what you should look like. Before you can become a better version of yourself, you have to love the person you are, and the body you occupy. Because trust me, no one would do it for you.
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