(Quick side note: I'm still trying to get my collective shit together behind the scenes in terms of blog layout and such. It's a process.)
The rise of things like "fitspo" and "body positivity" has become especially visible in the last couple of years. A quick scroll through the popular or trending sections of Instagram makes it seem like every other person is a fitness model, or a body positive activist, or releasing their own supplement line, etc.
Shaming, ridicule, and mockery are also more visible. From "fat-phobics" to snarling about "thin privilege" it certainly appears that there is a continuous war being waged over the physical presentation of people that are not you.
And so, I offer this expansion on the analogy of the body as one's forever house.
Say that you are given, upon your arrival into this world, the keys to a house. Your house. The catch is that it is the only house you can or will have during your life. You are reminded that properly caring for and maintaining your house will help it endure the many years of living that are ahead of you with more than the bare minimum of functionality.
Barring any inherent manufacturing defects, this seems like an easy task early on. Your house is comfortable and solidly built, and there is a fair bit of leniency in terms of maintenance (ie: there are a couple instances of too much candy and too little vegetables). Recovery from superficial damage is generally fast and unnoticed in later years.
Then, maybe during roughly the college years, you start falling off in properly maintaining your house. There are "more important" things right now and you'll "catch up" on maintenance later, and you drop to the bare minimum needed to function.
Some people get around to catching up sooner than others. Some people's "bare minimum" isn't as minimal as others' would be. Because, that's part of the secret. Everyone has their own very individualized house. Sure, there's trends and averages, especially if you include enough houses in your base data. But, even in a sampling of similar houses the maintenance tasks and schedules are not exactly the same.
"Okay, Bex. This is all well and good, but where are you going with this?" you ask.
All of that analogy was to help get the point across that every person's body is different, with its own kinds of maintenance requirements. People should be able to figure out how to live comfortably in their own bodies, but should also put in the work to figure out what their individual "house" needs to remain more than just minimally functional.
What exactly nobody needs, however, is unsolicited (usually ignorant) advice regarding the best maintenance practices for their "house." This goes either way, mind. It's just as damaging to say "Eat a cookie, dammit," as it is to say "Put the cookie down." This is especially applicable to strangers. You do not know anything about their story beyond how their body looks. You likely don't even know their name. So, shut it and move on with your own life.
-Bex
The rise of things like "fitspo" and "body positivity" has become especially visible in the last couple of years. A quick scroll through the popular or trending sections of Instagram makes it seem like every other person is a fitness model, or a body positive activist, or releasing their own supplement line, etc.
Shaming, ridicule, and mockery are also more visible. From "fat-phobics" to snarling about "thin privilege" it certainly appears that there is a continuous war being waged over the physical presentation of people that are not you.
And so, I offer this expansion on the analogy of the body as one's forever house.
Say that you are given, upon your arrival into this world, the keys to a house. Your house. The catch is that it is the only house you can or will have during your life. You are reminded that properly caring for and maintaining your house will help it endure the many years of living that are ahead of you with more than the bare minimum of functionality.
Barring any inherent manufacturing defects, this seems like an easy task early on. Your house is comfortable and solidly built, and there is a fair bit of leniency in terms of maintenance (ie: there are a couple instances of too much candy and too little vegetables). Recovery from superficial damage is generally fast and unnoticed in later years.
Then, maybe during roughly the college years, you start falling off in properly maintaining your house. There are "more important" things right now and you'll "catch up" on maintenance later, and you drop to the bare minimum needed to function.
Some people get around to catching up sooner than others. Some people's "bare minimum" isn't as minimal as others' would be. Because, that's part of the secret. Everyone has their own very individualized house. Sure, there's trends and averages, especially if you include enough houses in your base data. But, even in a sampling of similar houses the maintenance tasks and schedules are not exactly the same.
"Okay, Bex. This is all well and good, but where are you going with this?" you ask.
All of that analogy was to help get the point across that every person's body is different, with its own kinds of maintenance requirements. People should be able to figure out how to live comfortably in their own bodies, but should also put in the work to figure out what their individual "house" needs to remain more than just minimally functional.
What exactly nobody needs, however, is unsolicited (usually ignorant) advice regarding the best maintenance practices for their "house." This goes either way, mind. It's just as damaging to say "Eat a cookie, dammit," as it is to say "Put the cookie down." This is especially applicable to strangers. You do not know anything about their story beyond how their body looks. You likely don't even know their name. So, shut it and move on with your own life.
-Bex
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