Body Image

One complaint I hear from people that I can never fully relate to is dissatisfaction with one's body image. The most common form of this I run into is women who are obsessed with the idea that they're fat. I occasionally have to stop myself from laughing when certain people say this. But this is really something I see across a broad spectrum of society, and seems to affect people's overall opinion of themselves in extraordinary ways.

While aware I could probably be more physically attractive than I am, how I appear is just part of me, and I can't imagine looking any other way. By the same token, I've noticed that while looks factors into my attraction for members of the opposite gender, it's a highly malleable trait. There are lots of people whom I found attractive only after I got to know them and started liking them despite there being no discernable change in appearance.

This may suggest that looks are like clothing - how you wear them matters far more than anything else. I think, too, with me there is another issue, one from the same vein as the post immediately below this one. On a very deep level I cannot explain, I perceive each person as a unique and special part of Creation, and quite easily get frustrated when they don't see themselves the same way. This isn't just a "God made you that way, are you questioning his judgement?" sort of thing. Looks seem so superfluous, yet for so many people they are a burden which drains the spirit and therefore hurts the quality of their lives. And because the major reason for this is the way body image is played up by the media, if I ever meet the person responsible for that, I'm going to give them a very serious piece of my mind. I grew up Baptist, so there's a fair amount of Zell Miller-ish fire and brimstone lurking in me =)