size doesn't define a girl | Teen Ink

size doesn't define a girl

May 25, 2017
By Kylaa BRONZE, Lihue, Hawaii
Kylaa BRONZE, Lihue, Hawaii
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

“Oh my gosh she should lay off the snickers bars” “She need to gain weight she looks so anorexic.” These are just common statements all types of girls face. More than 90 percent of girls 15 to 17 years want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, with body weight ranking the highest. Being a teenager is one of the hardest years, you are always focused on your physical appearance rather than anything else going on. You are constantly making sure your hair, makeup, and outfit look okay. Society chooses to just pick on girls, if you've noticed a lot of the time boys don't get shamed for the size of their body and if they do it's not all the time. So why does society shame girls for the size of their body?


Girls body's are usually defined by different shapes in society. There's the hourglass, pear, inverted triangle, rectangle and apple. The most commonly expressed is “that girl has a pear shaped body.” Society likes to tell girls that the best body to have is an hourglass where the girls butt and boobs are big and their waist is tiny. At a young age I began to develop a lot faster than most of my friends so I would get self conscious about my body and try to lose weight to fit in with society's standards of an hourglass figure. During this time in life I was really hard on myself and would always make sure I looked as skinny as my friends. I feel like a lot of girls could relate because they compare themselves with their friends. The only difference between me and other girls is the fact that I actually learned that I don't need to be a certain size to impress anyone I just need to be me and that's it.


After getting over society's standards I understood that not only do bigger girls get body shamed but so do smaller girls. A lot of the time you hear “I wish I was a smaller size” or “I wish I had a bigger butt” and the only reason girls think like that and put themselves down about it is because society puts this “perfect girl” image in their head and everyone thinks they need to follow it. At my workplace, jeans warehouse, we constantly have girls come in and always say “oh no I need something to hide this huge stomach of mine” or always say that they prefer loose fitted clothes so that you can see the fat on them. It hurts me to hear these things because the smallest girl would come say it and the only reason would be because society makes them feel bad. I blame society for the reason girls are so insecure nowadays. This I believe that size doesn't define and girl.



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