Body confidence issues affect both males and females, students say
In a society where appearance is everything, and social media is everywhere to remind you of what you could be, people, especially teenagers and young adults, are often made to feel less-than if they aren’t meeting the standard of perfection.
Body positivity has been a popular subject in the media for the past several years. Body positivity, or body diversity, is the promotion of acceptance for every body type. Essentially, it’s saying that every body is beautiful. A large aspect of this movement is the promotion of “body confidence.” But what is body confidence? Why does it matter? Two students, who prefer to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of this subject, give their perspective.
A junior biology major said, “You see different things on social media about body confidence, like when you feel comfortable in your own skin, and when you’re proud of who you are. I agree with those things.”
“Some days might be like ‘I finally feel like I can wear that pair of pants.’ But then other days, you go ‘oh I look like an idiot!’ in the same pair of pants,” said a senior psychology major and pre-med student.
The senior said, “On some days, you can go ‘I’ll walk through campus and not even care if people are looking at me.’ But then, on the bad days when body confidence is low, you feel like everyone is looking at you. Even though the other day that person wasn’t looking at you, and today they’re still not looking at you.”
Often, the body positivity movement is associated with women. It’s seen as a female issue because we typically associate physical insecurity with women. But the reality is that acceptance of every body also means male bodies. Noah Minton and James Johnson both gave their insights into the subject of body confidence.
Minton, a freshman business major, said, “I think it’s mostly people comfortable in their own skin and confident with what they wear.”
“It’s like the way you feel about your physical self and how your confidence results from that,” said James Johnson, a freshman finance major.
The unfortunate reality is that achieving body confidence is easier said than done.
“On the days where it’s a bad confidence day, but I’m not totally upset, I try to remember how I felt on the good days and re-find that thinking I had on the days it didn’t matter. It’s a process. You have to try and learn from the good days to stay strong on the bad days,” said the anonymous senior.
“I think if society didn’t play such a big influence on appearance, I would feel more confident,” Minton said. “You know, there’s a lot of commercials and advertisements showing people with like, perfect bodies. Like, people are grown up viewing that, so they think that’s the normal, or the standard.”
Overall, it seems that a higher level of acceptance leads to a higher level of body confidence. This is the mission of the body positivity movement, and many can benefit from body positivity. By teaching acceptance for all, people can teach confidence for all. Through more diverse appearances in social media, advertisements and television, people are made to see that everybody is a beautiful body.
By Anastasia Smith, Features Assignment Editor
smithan18@bonaventure.edu
