In this age of Photoshop and 'celebrity', young women (and increasingly men!) are bombarded with overly sexualised images of the 'perfect body'. Impressionable women are led to believe it's desirable to look like a 12 year old boy, and what's worse, that it is 'normal'.
It's not. Women are designed to have curves, lumpy bits, and breasts. We're all different, amazingly, beautifully different, and we should celebrate that. We should embrace it.
It becomes increasingly difficult for women to understand they do not need to lose 'that extra five pounds' or indeed that they need to gain weight or have a breast augmentation, because of the celebrity obsessed idea of body image that now prevails.
So what do other women of your height and weight look like? You might be surprised. You may look in the mirror, and at the scales, and hate what you see, but how do you compare to other women?
Have a look at www.mybodygallery.com and you may come away a little shocked. It's a fantastic site where you can enter your (real!) height, weight and body type and see what other, *real* and unairbrushed women look like.
I was pleasantly surprised to find my boobs and post-pregnancy belly are looking pretty good compared to other women the same build as me.
Even better, when I entered my 'ideal weight' in.... I was a little shocked by how skinny the women looked, how few 'curves' they had and how much I didn't actually want to look like that!
I'm still on a health inspired weight loss effort, but I now have a more realistic goal and an understanding that other women DO have flabby bits, sticky out tummies, love handles, hips and *breasts* and that it's NORMAL too!
