How about:
Friend 1: "I'm so fat."
Friend 2: "No you're not, I am."
Friend 1: "You are NOT fat. But look at me, I mean my
thighs are HUGE."
Friend 2: "Are you kidding me? Your legs are like
sticks! Look at my stomach. Ugh, gross."
And so on and so forth...
Sound familiar?
This video was made four years ago for an event called
"Fat Talk Free Week." It's pretty powerful. Take a moment to watch
it.
Many women think fat talk is helpful because they see that
their friends suffer from the same problem. But in reality, woman who complain
about their bodies are actually more unsatisfied with their appearance. Support
and empathy from friends is important and even healthy. Commiserating about
body image is not. Fat talk tends to emphasize the ideal body image portrayed
by the media and leads women to believe that hating one's body is normal.
This makes me so, so sad. I think it cuts really deep with
me because it was a part of my life for about six years. Body image issues
consumed me throughout high school and for a good portion of my first two years
of college. I now realize that talking with my friends who shared my struggle
was not beneficial; if anything, it continued to feed the struggle.
It honestly makes my insides hurt when I think about how
controlling this struggle with body image has been for girls and women in
today's society. One out of three women is on a diet at any given time. An
estimated seven million women in America have an eating disorder. And 97% of
women have negative body thoughts daily. That is an overwhelming percentage.
So I think that one of the ways we can help prevent eating
disorders and obsession over dieting and weight, is to STOP fat talk. I have to
start with myself. I will stop fat talk. And I will try to help my friends stop
as well.
Let me just end by saying that the root of this struggle is
sin. Our desire for people to find us attractive, our brokenness, our
dissatisfaction. That is all sin. And I do not want to pretend that body image
issues will be solved by simply eliminating certain words or phrases from our
vocabulary. I know that the only true healing that anyone can receive is
through Jesus. I know without a doubt that I would not be able to fight this
battle without Christ. I pray that Christian women would recognize the grace of
God and the life He has given us. Let us stop striving for the unattainable and
start believing that the Lord looks at the heart.
I want people to see Christ in me. The way I look shouldn't matter. It's time I start believing that.
