Inner vs. Outer

Mood: Exhausted

As I was exercising away in front of the TV watching My Best Friend's Wedding I realised something, the guys in that movie aren't good looking in the slightest, but their endearing characters made them seem more attractive and I realised how much a beautiful personally influences a person's perception. Sure, I somewhat knew this that inner beauty out weighs outer beauty, but I never truly realised this until I was watching unattractive guys prance around on TV and felt captivated by their personalities.

Sadly, society puts a heavy emphasis on out beauty and not so much on inner, and now it's not only affecting women but men as well. Men feel the need to bulk up, or slim down, they spend ages on their hair etc. This doesn't apply to all guys as I don't know what every guy is like, but with those I do know I see this new trent appearing. My little brother complains about how much he weighs saying he needs to lose weight, sad thing is he's lighter than me but also a whole lot taller. Men, the "new age man" has also "prettied" up. My little brother, and others I know, spend SO much time on their hair and once done it's a no touch zone. However, women are still somewhat more severe, I feel anyway.

I know a girl, SP, who was diagnosed with anorexia a year or so ago. She's fine now, eating and looking healthier. Another girl I know if you saw her you'd think she was anorexic and she one day announced that she will begin a severe diet regime once her thighs touch. Reality check, 99% of most women's thighs touch.

The media heavily influences women and show them unrealistic images of how they should look. Yeah, sure this issue has been raised time and time again, but has anything changed? Sure we as active females realise these are unrealistic, but it doesn't mean we stop comparing ourselves. The media's not going to change, they'll keep their skinny, anorexic looking models no matter what. I'm not saying all women are like this cuz I know a few girls who are proud of their bodies and are super confident, and sadly, I'm envious. I wish I could have that confidence.

Over the last two years I've put on the "HSC 8 kilos" and now looking back at old photos I was rather skinny, my weight was just in the normal zone, but I wasn't happy. I constantly tried to lose weight and now I wonder why. Especially looking back with this extra weight, I wish I hadn't been so stupid. Of course, now I'm trying frantically to lose the extra weight. I just can't help it, this focus on my weight is always brought to light by my family which has had detrimental affects on me.

I've always been picked on by my own family for my weight. Back when I was just normal, I was told I was too fat, that I needed to lose weight, stop eating junk food, exercise. This has always been the case ever since the turn into puberty. And now it's no different, it's actually more severe. For birthday's comments get thrown left, right and centre when I get a piece of cake, "should you really be eating that?". Somedays I do wonder if I have a bad relationship with food because of all these comments. I constantly count calories, I frequently skip meals, I would choose liquids over solid foods, I drink only diet soda and refuse to drink liquids over 100 calories unless it's a skim cappuccino (it stimulates the metabolism). I just can't help it.

It's scary to know that these comments are coming from those are suppose to love and accept who I am. I can understand them telling me this if I was actually overweight or fat to try to keep me healthy, but I'm not fat nor overweight. It's sad to know that these comments have stayed with me all this time, and I still can't shake them away. Regardless of what friends say I don't believe them. The guy I like constantly says how much better I look with the extra weight, but sometimes I wonder if he's telling the truth, and sometimes I just downright disagree with him.

What scares me the most is the joy, the thrill I get seeing the weight come off. And when I've reached the goal of losing say a kilo, I would just keep pushing the goal further and further away. No matter how much weight I lose I would still look at myself in disgust and wish to lose more, which I get is the mindset I had when I was skinnier.

I guess I just need to find that confidence deep within myself and slowly move away from this super body consciousness. If society is all for healthy looking girls or guys, then why is the pressure to be super skinny or absolutely gorgeous still there?

xx