This post is part of NEDAwareness Week, where everyone who wants to end eating disroders raises awareness about the issue.
I go to a private all-girls
school. While the stereotype that we’re all a bunch of lesbians and catty
bullies is definitely false, the stereotype that we’re all suffering from eating
disorders is not too far from the truth.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Certainly
there are a lot of girls at my school - I would say the large majority of the
student body - who would never dream of starving themselves, vomiting up their
lunch, going online to find thinspiration, or do anything of that sort.
However, a sizable percentage of girls at my school are, in my opinion, unhealthily
worried about their physical appearance, especially body weight. Sometimes it
seems I can’t go a day without walking into the bathroom and hearing two girls
counting calories or bragging how much time they spent on the elliptical. Lunchtime
always depresses me, since the amount of girls eating bunny food is much too
high for my liking.
It’s just so sad and unfortunate
that our society has brainwashed girls to always feel inadequate, that teenage
(and post-teenage) females for the need to shed pounds, add another layer of
make up, do something to conform to today’s beauty standards. No one person can
change this phenomenon; as depressing as it is, this will only end when a social
shift occurs.
Until then, individual people CAN
make a difference. I’ve begun to try and make change through the Operation
Beautiful campaign. Operation Beautiful was created by Caitlin Boyle in order to
end negative self-talk and thoughts among young women. Boyle was fed up by
women’s constant dieting and feelings of inadequacy, so she stuck a post-it
note on a bathroom mirror with a positive message about body image. This became
the Operation Beautiful campaign. I’ve read about it for the past several
years, but I finally decided to participate in it this year. I’m tired of
hearing absolutely beautiful, intelligent, friendly girls in my school complain
about how they look. So I’m doing something about it by putting sticky notes
with positive messages on mirrors in my school.
Yes, the cleaning staff takes
them down every night, and every once in a while I’ll find one in the garbage, but
they’re worth replenishing. Whenever someone sees me putting one up, they
always begin to smile and say “ooooh, you’re the one who’s doing that?” I know
that people have taken notice of these notes, and in a positive ways. If even
one girl is boosted for a minute because of one of my Operation Beautiful
sticky notes, my mission is accomplished.
There are only three student
bathrooms in my school, so it’s not too hard for me to put sticky notes in all
of them on a regular basis. However, even if you go to a big school with
hundreds of students and innumerable bathrooms, I strongly suggest you
participate in Operation Beautiful anyway. Posting these sticky notes has also
helped me, since I’ve been struggling with some weight gain in the past few
months.
Some suggestions of what to say:
Girl you’re amazing just the way
you are
You are beautiful in every single
way
It’s what’s underneath the skin,
the beauty that shines within
Don’t hide yourself in regret,
just love yourself and you’re set
It’s the weight of your ideas,
not your body, that counts
The inside is what’s important
You are beautiful the way you
are. Right NOW. No matter what you think.
The human body is the best work
of art
Even the models we see in
magazines wish they could look like their own images
You are imperfect, permanently
and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.
You are already good enough.
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