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Hashtag vs reality: the truth behind body image and self-worth

By Awazi Angbalaga
02 June 2018   |   12:18 pm
Self-love, body confidence, curvy girls rock, melanin popping among other words of self-affirmation have been formed into such beautifully popular hashtags that people all over the world use on the internet to spice up their social media captions among other reasons but I wish that more than being just hashtags and things we say to…

Self-love, body confidence, curvy girls rock, melanin popping among other words of self-affirmation have been formed into such beautifully popular hashtags that people all over the world use on the internet to spice up their social media captions among other reasons but I wish that more than being just hashtags and things we say to be cool on the internet, we truly believe them and have as much “positive energy” in real life and in our minds as we have online about our bodies.

At a time where the global society has immense focus on appearance and even more so an obsession with beauty and “perfect” appearance leaving little or no room at all for different appearances or diversity within the generally conceived idea of what beauty is – which basically means that if you don’t look a certain way or at least try to look a certain way you’ll be considered way far from being perfect and maybe even downright ugly – the gospel of healthy body image and how it affects our self-worth, productivity and even our mental health should be preached to all ends of the earth but more importantly, it should be practiced. Why is this a topic? How bad do these things get?

Well, Imagine being unable to do basic things like go shopping or go to parties or speak at a business meeting because (you are afraid) of how people view you and what they say. These unkind comments have led many to depression and suicide.

The problem isn’t that we don’t know this is a problem, it is that we don’t treat it as one. People can tweet all day about these subjects but millennials have often been called the hashtag generation because we do not translate our online advocacy to real-world behaviours.

Still, in 2018, women still have to worry about not being judged by their size or weight. So many women still suffer from depression because of how they look and people still have preconceived ideas of plus size women. With every hashtag trend regarding body confidence, we get more comfortable about talking about these subjects, yet we still Judge.

This is sadly not a problem that can be solved overnight, neither is this an epidemic we can solve with a one “fits-all” solution. However, while this might be a complex issue at the core, a change in perspective might just be all we need to rid ourselves of “body shaming”.

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