Your body vs the media

Modelling is a huge industry nowadays, with it being worth almost $920m dollars. It might seem like every model you see is perfect and thin, but that’s far from what it is. The perfect models you see walking down runways and posing for billboard photos didn’t wake up like that. They have professional makeup artists and photoshoppers who help them look that way. Models who walk in huge shows such as the Victoria’s Secret one stick to strict diets and workouts in the days leading up so that their body looks the way it does.

That’s not me trying to say that these models aren’t beautiful, because they certainly are. Cara Delevigne is still beautiful when she has bags under her eyes and Beyoncé still looks amazing when she’s not in a magazine, having been photoshopped all over.

What I am trying to say is that you don’t have to conform to the media standards in order to be beautiful. Every human is different and no one person is the same, not even identical twins. Being beautiful isn’t looking like whatever model everyone is raving about in the moment, it’s about looking like you.

It doesn’t matter if you get little rolls of fats when you sit down, or if you stomach sticks out a bit. If you are healthy and like the way you look, does it matter if someone thinks differently? I remember a few weeks ago when my friend tried on a prom dress and said she felt great, and I heard her sister make a comment about how she’s no Kendall Jenner.

But that’s the entire point.

Being an individual who wears what they want and acts and does as they please is beautiful. Whether you enjoy going to the gym or dancing, or eating pizza or watching TV. It’s the little details and quirks that makes us individuals that are beautiful.

Being confident in yourself starts by not comparing yourself. You can stand in front of the mirror for hours and think about how you don’t look like a celebrity, or you can tell yourself that you look beautiful because you love a part of your body or the way your outfit looks.

You should stop focusing on the things you don’t like and start looking at the things you do like. For example, I can’t stand my eyebrows. Years of hair pulling disorder and tirelessly plucking them has made them look far from the best, but I do really like my eyes. They’re blue and quite big and I can focus on them in a way more positive way than I can on my eyebrows.

I’m also not a huge fan on the way my stomach squishes up and sticks out when I sit down. But that’s human - I know some really fit and in shape people who are athletes who sit down and get the same thing. The difference between that and pictures you see in the media is that the models have had their stomachs photoshopped to be flat.

The point in question is that the only person's opinion on your appearance that matters is your own. So what if your friend said that shirt doesn’t suit you? If you like it, then wear it. The people you see in the media with flat stomachs and thigh gaps can be beautiful, but so can a person without hair, or someone who may be overweight. Someone’s skin colour or eye colour don’t depict what makes them beautiful, it’s your individuality that does.

- Jazz