By Wasila Abdul Aziz
Does it not make you desolate? Considering how family and friends have altered the usual ways of exchanging pleasantries when you meet from our accepted “how are you” “how’s the family” to the strange “you have grown fat” “you have become fairer” etc. The society takes pleasure in telling people how better they would have looked if they were like this, like that. What do we get exposed to? Emotional distress? Inferiority complex? Infirmities ?..I’m scared of the answers already.
Owing to the thoughts of “I don’t look good like this” “people think I’m becoming fat” many are developing anorexia nevorsa. They binge eat and purge afterward all in the name I’d fear to gain further weight. Where do the nutrients go? Also, being thin is attributed to being stressed up, not eating better meals, to mention but few. It’s sad the kind of unhealthy food chains we resort to just to gain weight overnight and look good. WHO IS PLEASING WHO?.
Yes! exercise is essential. Would you mind telling me what happened to exercise to keep our bodies fit and not fixed?. We engage in all sort of exercises that are detrimental to our health just to assume a shape that would please people and not necessarily ourselves in the long run. Spare some time to think about the possible effects of overworking the body. You may pull a face like I just did.
The pills, the food supplements, the creams, the unhealthy dieting (starvation) may be helping. HOW SAFE ARE YOU?. Nutritional facts lie, known side effects can be prevented, unknown ones, on the other hand, kill slowly (especially with these products we use). You don’t need to disorganize your system to look good.
I wish to state, straight from the shoulder that, time to come, maybe sooner than we can imagine, Body Dysmorphic Disorder would be on the rise. Our psychiatric hospitals would record more cases of that and not our usual psychiatry conditions. Why? , people are on a pleasing spree, they call it sacrificing but is “craziness” from my side of view. The expectation is superseding appreciation and most people are trying to fit in the society at all cost. Let’s give ourselves chances to appreciate the liberty in being true to oneself.
I don’t know about you. For me, the best and possibly right question I ask my self whenever I look in the mirror is “WHO CARES” and I grin along.