Your Body Is Beautiful

As rays of sunshine start to appear the glimmer of hope that summer is just around the corner enters our minds along with holidays, beer gardens and BBQ’s. But along with our optimism of a better British summer, so to comes the onslaught of glossy magazines with their baffling mixed messages about how to attain the holy grail of beach body’s. Before we’ve even sipped our first cider, no doubt celebs will be revealing their incredible weight loss secrets and we’ll be running out on our lunch breaks to buy into the new fad and quick fix that they’re promoting.

Because let’s admit it. It’s hard not to get hung up on wanting that toned, glossy, bronzed body sprawled across the white sands of exotic locations, whilst we’ve got our heads stuck in the computer, delving into our second cookie, with the artificial lighting doing nothing for our complexion. They know how to sell it to us and it sucks.

But before you jump on the next bandwagon and make yourself miserable, have a long hard think about why you’re actually doing it? Are you looking to be healthier, fitter or just simply to look like that celeb who’s doing the best bond girl impression as she emerges from the water with the paparazzi so well placed? It’s a hard pill to swallow, but unfortunately the simple fact is, we’re just all made in different ways.

Some of us have those child bearing hips our mothers keep telling us about, whilst others take on more athletic forms that include muscles in places we’ve never heard of. But different is also beautiful. As the old saying goes, variety is the spice of life, and we should embrace what mother nature has bestowed upon us instead of criticising her work with our constant need for a perfection that doesn’t exist.

Don’t get us wrong, exercising and eating healthily is really important, and it should be done so in a way that’s sustainable, rather than a fad that can leave your body deprived of essential nutrition. Doing things that you enjoy will mean you can reap the rewards without it feeling like hard work, and with it will come a new found confidence that you never knew existed.

Take for example the inspirational ‘This Girl Can’ campaign, encouraging women to exercise. You don’t see an array of clones who are all the same shape and size, nope, you see a variety of women enjoying the exercises they love to do best. Not because they want to change their bodies, but because they want to embrace them.

Whilst it’s easy to often get ourselves into some serious self hate about the way we look, we must remember that our bodies are actually pretty incredible. They fend off illness and disease, protect us from the elements of life, and give us the ability to do anything we want. The only accessory you need for getting that beach body, is confidence. So be proud of what your body does and the parts that make you who you are, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise because your body is beautiful.

By Lizzie Benton