Branches Book

BRANCHES

influences from the media, manage fat shame received from family, friends, and strangers, and to simply exist in our bodies. This struggle is isolating. We avoid the word “fat” at all costs, so we avoid talking about fat shame and fat fear at all costs. I had no idea that the young women growing up right alongside me were looking in the mirror and feeling exactly what I felt. Looking in the mirror is hard enough when you don’t see yourself as a beautiful, valuable person, but it is especially hard if you think you are alone. I didn’t grow up tall, skinny, or even all that white. I failed on all accounts to measure up to American beauty standards. In my youth, I never received validation that I was beautiful, or even normal. I believed for so long that I wasn’t normal because my body type wasn’t portrayed that way in the media. The media doesn’t show people who look like me or, honestly, most of my friends. Especially in advertisements and in the entertainment industry, everyone is retouched to get closer to the American beauty ideal: small waists, skinny arms, defined collar bones, smooth skin, etc. Even plus-sized models are digitally altered to add more curves in the “right” places. At some point I subconsciously convinced myself that the reason I’m not seeing people who look like me in the media is because I’m just not pretty, and nobody wants to see people who look like me. Many of my friends were thinking the same thing because they weren’t being represented either. I firmly believed that pretty people aren’t fat, that talented people aren’t fat, that wealthy, successful, and cool people just don’t come in my size. I had fully succumbed to fat fear. The harmful messages we receive from the media are internalized and insecurities ensue. A friend of mine remembers one of the first instances in which she experienced body insecurity surrounding clothing: “We had just gotten invited to this really popular 7 th -grade boy’s pool party. I told my best friend I was nervous and that I probably wouldn’t go because I didn’t want my whole grade to see me in a bathing suit.” The fear of bathing suit season is shared by so many of the women I interviewed, myself included. There’s so much pressure to have the perfect bikini body, but for some, wearing a one- piece is simply far more comfortable than wearing a bikini. One of my friends shared, “I don’t know when, but I stopped wearing two-piece bathing suits. It’s kind of sad, isn’t it? I’m surrounded by all these people who are much thinner than I am and I feel like even if other people aren’t comparing me to them, I am. I think ‘I need to cover up.’” I completely understood. I have never wanted to wear a bikini. I wanted to hide as much of my body as possible. This feeling lasted from 4 th grade until rather recently. A few years ago, I suddenly became afraid that my peers would think I was ashamed of my body. I was. Even though it made me incredibly uncomfortable, I decided to sport a bikini to fit in. It was a strange experiment. On the one hand, I felt naked, as if all eyes were judging the way my stomach bulged out in the open,

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