An Open Letter To Anyone Struggling With Their Weight

To anyone struggling with weight,

This is a letter not only to people who are struggling with weight but also to people who are underweight or are fine but feel as if they are not. If you are one of these people then you can read this, relate to it and hopefully take something good away from it.

1. You’re not alone

Okay okay I’ll admit this is one of the corniest things I could have said but it’s true. You might think you’re the only “fat” or “anorexic” person in the entire universe but you are not, there are so many people who struggling with weight and hate the way they look, even that really pretty girl who looks perfect all the time probably struggles with the way she looks or that guy with the six pack who you aspire to be thinks there is something wrong with his body as cocky as they might seem. In a perfect world we’d all be happy with our bodies but this isn’t a perfect world and no one is 100% happy with their body.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t complain about your body because I can tell you right now that you should love yourself and you should be thankful for all that God has given you but what good will that do? You have the right to not like something about your body but you can never let that affect you in any way, it’s so important to look at your flaws, know they’re there and own them. Accept them. Even love them.

2. It’s okay not to feel perfect all the time

We’re an Instagram picture perfect generation who posts everything great about our lives including how pretty, flawless and slim we are. You do it too, we all do it, we all want others to think we’re perfect people with perfect lives and that just isn’t the truth. It is okay not to feel perfect all the time, you don’t have to feel like you’re supposed to be perfect all the time because no one is.

It’s okay to have bad days where you feel larger than usual or smaller than usual or just not perfect. It’s okay to show some imperfections from time to time. It’s okay to just be your imperfect self. But what’s not okay is feeling less than beautiful because you don’t look perfect and hating your body and weight because of it.

3. You can starve yourself but what is the point?

I don’t know about you but I’m not going to starve myself so I can take a good picture for my Instagram just for a few likes from people I don’t even like anyways. So what’s the point of starving yourself? What’s the real reason you’re struggling with weight? If you find that then you can really ask yourself if hating your body and trying so hard to change is worth it?

Can you honestly say that wanting to change your weight is just for you? You can honestly say it’s not because you don’t want people to think of you in a certain way? If you can then go ahead and look good for you boo, but 99% of us have this nagging thought in our head saying “they’re not going to like you because you look like that”, okay maybe not in those words specifically but you get my point.

4. It’s becoming the norm

It used to be (and sometimes still now) that there was only one certain body type and everyone, especially women, were expected to fit the mould no matter what, if you didn’t then you were “ugly”. But more recently people have been coming out about mental issues linked to their weight and how they felt about their body to the point to where we’re starting to really accept different body types.

There are now clothing brands that do plus size and/or petite clothing to suit different bodies. We as a society are starting to accept that no one is the same which is a huge step. So if you’re worried about your weight then remember it’s not “ugly” to not fit the mould, in some cases it’s celebrated.

5. Love yourself

Another corny one I know but it’s so important to love yourself no matter what. One way to love yourself even more is through self care, this is taking time out of your busy and stressful life to just have sometime to yourself. You can do this by taking a long nice bath with amazing smelling Lush products, or read that book you’ve been meaning to read for so long, or take a whole day out just to binge watch Friends, it can even be as simple as having a good cup of coffee in a cute cafe and give yourself that 20 minutes just to chill.