A Ground Zero Anecdote about People Striving to be the Perfect Person with the Perfect Body Image
By mystoryographer Lynette Chiamaka Okoroike
Throughout my entire life, my mother nags me about the importance of being healthy. I was forced to go on really long walks, runs, and jogs with her until it starts to get really out of hand. Then she introduced me to the gym. I really hate it at first and I still hate it to this day. I am NOT a gym person. Finally, she nags me about the importance of eating healthy foods such as fruits, vegetables, grains, etc. as well as the importance of drinking water every day. To which, I understand. Throughout my entire life I eat healthy, I exercise, and I maintained my healthy body. When I told my mother about this, she said that it wasn’t enough. She says that I need to change it up a bit in order for me to lose a few pounds, and with that, she starts nagging at me about losing weight. That’s when I start to feel concerned and worried about my body. I started to question myself: Doesn’t my mother like my body the way it is right now? Why is she telling me to lose weight? Does she want me to be just like the women my age that I see on TV, magazines, newspapers, and ads that have beautiful, skinny bodies? Why can’t I just accept myself for the way I am when all of this is going on? Why can’t the media accept the people with different kinds of bodies not just the people with skinny and muscular bodies so that they can have a variety? Good thing that I am not alone. When people, including myself, watch TV and ads as well as reading newspapers, magazines, and ads and they see people with skinny and muscular bodies as well as seeing and hearing weight-loss success stories, that is when we start to feel really depressed about ourselves and our bodies and we start to NOT accepting ourselves for who we are in terms of our bodies. Thanks to the media, people are now striving to become the perfect person with the perfect body image by buying a lot of products such as weight-loss pills and shakes, going on diets and weight-loss programs, getting gym memberships so that they could go to the gym every day, buying at-home gym equipment such as treadmills and other exercising machines, etc. They also buy hair products, pedicure/manicure products, body hair removal creams, makeup products, skin products, etc. We are now living in a generation where the media is our boss and that he/she is telling us about what it takes to become the perfect person with the perfect body image and that we, as consumers, have to follow their rules in order to “fit” in and not stand out. If we do stand out and not follow their rules, then we become an easy target for them to make fun at us and our appearance. Maybe that’s the reason why my mother nags at me so that I can start taking care of myself. Her statements include: Fix your hair! Put on some makeup! Shave! Eat Right! Exercise! Drink Plenty of Water Every Day! Lose Some Weight! Dress like a Young Woman! In other words, she is consumed by the media and she doesn’t like my body image and she wants me to change so that I could be just like the healthy, beautiful, and attractive men and women that I see on TV, ads, newspapers, magazines, etc. Which leads me to start asking myself this prolonged question: Does My Image Matter?
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