Every Body is a Bikini Body

What words come to mind when you hear the word summer?

Beach, sun, pools, swimming? Parties, cookouts, barbeques, vacations? Boating, ocean, tanning, fireworks?

For most, these are the words that pop up first, the enjoyable aspects of summer, the moments we wait for all year, the reasons for summer being the months we look forward to.

But for others, for those battling eating disorders and even for many without, a scarier, more dreadful pair of words comes to mind.

Bikini body.

And with these two words comes anxiety, fear, distress, and discomfort.

Anxiety about our bodies. Anxiety about how others see us. Anxiety that we don’t add up to society’s image of a bikini perfect body.

Fear of judgment. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of being too fat, too ugly, too much.

Distress around having our bodies seen. Distress around allowing ourselves to be vulnerable in less clothing. Distress around constantly having to see our bodies right in front of us.

Discomfort in our own skin. Discomfort from what we perceive to be as others staring at us. Discomfort in sitting, standing, living and having our bodies exposed to the world.

So instead of living our summers in the enjoyment of warm weather, parties, vacations, beach trips, and days by the pool, we become absorbed into a trap riddled with anxiety and fear, blocking us off from the life we could be living and making us miserable and insecure in our own skin.

We allow our minds and our eating disorders to grasp onto an image created by society, an image that screams unhealthiness, weakness, and lifelessness, yet an image we have been convinced to believe yields health, happiness, and acceptance as a woman in society. Our society has built up the worst image possible, convincing us that it is the best image possible, and forcing us to pursue a body that only takes away our life rather than building up our bodies and lives. We chase after an image that is secretly aimed at killing us, yet our society continues to idolize a skeleton over a full, beautiful, healthy figure. Countless advertisements, commercials, models, actors, and products glamorize skin and bones, drilling into our heads through photoshopped images and empty promises, that the key to a perfect summer lies in the body of an empty frame.

But let’s step back for a minute. Away from the advertisements, the fake images, the false promises. Away from the pressure to fit in, the fear of being rejected, the desire for others to see us as pretty and skinny and sexy. Away from the bikini body we have been brainwashed into desiring. And with that step back, let us ask ourselves a few important questions.

What is so appealing about a body that is withering away to nothingness, that has no substance, no character, no strength? A body that is headed towards failing health rather than a body that fosters health in every way? A body that screams sickliness rather than a body that screams life? Why are we so willing to throw away our bodies for a skeleton? For a figure that strips us of the true beauty and health our body is capable of presenting to the world?

And why are we so inclined on letting society dictate to us what beauty is when it has chosen to elect an unhealthy, weak, powerless figure as its model? Why have we allowed the opinion of others and of society to control our every move, to control how we view and accept ourselves, to control the manipulation of our bodies? What happened to our voice, our opinion, and our decision about how we define beauty? About how we care for ourselves, both our emotional and physical wellbeing?

When will we ever learn to love our bodies as they are, to love healthy over skinny, to love our bodies enough to be confident in our own skin and confident in letting the world see our bodies for the beautiful figures they truly are? When will we believe that every healthy body is a bikini body and that we don’t have to manipulate our bodies one bit to have a body worthy of being shown off?

These are the necessary questions we need to start seriously considering in order to open up our eyes to the deadly “skinny” epidemic that has taken over our society. We have become so accustomed to falling into the trap of society as it dictates our definition of happiness, success, and beauty that we have forgotten how to formulate our own healthy decisions and mindsets regarding our bodies and our happiness. And the longer we continue to fall into the hands of society, the less capable we will become of sticking up for our own, unique, beautiful selves and the more we will believe the lies of society.

Our body is our gift. Our body is our temple. Our body is our life-saving, life-giving tool that houses our true, beautiful, unique selves. So why are we so inclined to reduce our bodies to nothingness? To a figure that can do nothing more than present the world its skin and bones? Why aren’t we doing everything that we can to create a body that is capable of living the best life, having the most fun, and making the most difference possible in this world we live in? And why aren’t we cherishing our beautiful bodies that have so much potential and capability rather than wishing to throw them away for the incapability of a skeleton?

We were given our bodies for a reason. And that reason is to make as much of a difference in this world as we can. Our bodies were given to us to help us use our gifts to better this world. Our bodies were not given to us to throw away. Our bodies were not given to us to wish we had another body that was prettier, skinnier, or sexier. Our bodies were not given to us to manipulate or damage or criticize. Our bodies were given to us to cherish. To accept. And to love.

So how can we possibly live the lives we were meant to live, enjoy the moments that life gives us every day, and dedicate ourselves fully to our gifts and talents and true selves, making a difference in this world we live in, if we are so focused on tearing our bodies down to a skeleton just to fit an image that society has proclaimed as beauty? We live our lives in a tunnel of anxiety and discomfort and distress and self-hatred as we perceive our bodies as unworthy of a bikini, unworthy of being displayed for the world to see, and as we actively hide our bodies and ultimately our true selves because we are too afraid of being rejected. We don’t even give our bodies a chance to be seen in this world because we are too afraid of not adding up to the beauty, the skinniness, and the sexiness that have become our markers of success in society. We have jumped a thousand steps ahead to assuming that we don’t reach the expectation of the “bikini body” and have unconsciously fallen into the cycle of self-hatred and self-destruction, becoming victims to countless diets, workout regimens, and weight-loss techniques in hopes of achieving the body that will fit in.

But who says our body wasn’t worthy of being shown off to the world in the first place? Who says we ever had to change our appearance? Who says we ever had to trade in our true, healthy bodies for that of a skeleton in order to be accepted as a beautiful woman? The answer is no one. Absolutely no one. We have chosen to believe society over our own selves and those who care about us, the most important people in our lives, and we have allowed this image to taint our vision of success and beauty.

And this is an issue. That society has become so powerful that it has the power of brainwashing women of all ages into believing that they are not worthy of loving their bodies, that they must pursue a body of nothingness in order to believe they are worthy of being seen in this world. But how does this make sense? That the only way we can be seen in this world is by wasting away our bodies so that they become less and less? How can something that is smaller and weaker and powerless be more visible than a body that is full of health and life and strength? The answer is that society is lying to us. And that pursuing a smaller and smaller body only reduces our impact on this world to nothingness rather than allowing us to live up to the true potential and life we were meant to live. So society has it all backwards. And we need to eliminate this lie, eliminate this unhealthy, lifeless image, in order to restore the lives of so many women falling victim to believing their bodies are not worth being seen in this world.

And we must start now because there is no time to waste. We have already created more damage than I can even bear to acknowledge, and the longer we wait, the harder it will be to make this necessary change for the better. This change starts with you. And me. And every single one of us. Regardless of who you are, we are all needed to create this change. Whether you struggle with an eating disorder or body image or with feeling like your body isn’t good enough, even if you love your body and have learned self-acceptance and self-love, all of us are needed as soldiers in this army for body acceptance, body love, and body positivity. Each and every one of us deserves to live a life where we are not only comfortable with the healthy body we were given, but where we accept and love and cherish it. Where we aren’t afraid to show it off to the world, to claim it as our own, and to allow it to be what it wants to be. And this is the end goal of our mission against society. So we must fight together and support one another as we save ourselves from ourselves.

Society has taught us that it is okay to be mean to our bodies and to always be looking for ways that it can be improved. Diet after diet, workout after workout, society drills us into believing that we are never good enough, pretty enough, skinny enough. It drills us into never giving up in the fight against ourselves. But the real change that needs to be made is in turning that fight against ourselves into a fight for ourselves. Our bodies are not the enemies. It is the societal image that tells us our bodies are not worthy that is the true enemy. And this is what we need to target. We need to leave our bodies alone and focus on the core reason for our years of self-hatred and self-sabotage.

And not only do we need to leave our bodies alone, but we need to return our attention to our bodies, and this time, in a positive, loving, caring way. This time, with the goal of cherishing our bodies as the healthy, lively, and beautiful bodies that they are. And with this new form of attention, we will have the power to begin our journey towards self-acceptance, even self-love, because we will no longer be on the never-ending mission aimed towards the destruction of our bodies, rather we will have limitless mental and physical energy to devote to living, loving, and changing the world.

Imagine all of the mental capacity that will be freed up when we give up the anxiety and distress and self-hatred that races through our mind each and every second of the day. We currently waste countless hours of the day worrying about perfecting our bodies to an unhealthy and unrealistic and unachievable body when all of that time and energy could be focused towards truly living our lives. We waste away our entire summer and our entire lives in the fear of being seen, of being not good enough to be seen, when we could be enjoying every moment, living every moment, and creating memories for a lifetime. Wouldn’t we rather look back and remember all of the amazing moments we lived through rather than only being able to recall the times when we were tearing down our bodies? What kind of life can we say we lived if we only focused on destroying ourselves in the hopes of finding the beauty and success and happiness that we gave away the minute we began the fight against ourselves?

The fight against our bodies is really only the act of running away from a goal that it is chasing after. If only we stopped for a moment and walked back to the body we originally wished to escape, our true, healthy bodies, we would realize that we had all of the happiness and success and life at our fingertips all along. All within the healthy, beautiful, capable body we were meant to live in.

And as we stop the fight against ourselves, we need to focus our fight towards changing the message that society drills into our brains at every chance it can get. Our job is to take the image of lifelessness, of skin and bones, the image of just a shell of a figure rather than a body of life, that society claims to be the bikini body we must achieve, and we must replace it with each and every one of our healthy bodies, bodies capable of life and love and happiness. Because every one of our bodies is worthy of being a bikini body. Every one of our bodies is strong, healthy, beautiful, and capable. Every one of our bodies is worthy of all the acceptance and love and positivity in the world. And that is what is truly beautiful. When a person is strong enough to love their body as it is, to love it fully and truly, and to love it so much that they allow their bodies to make the difference in the world that they were meant to make. Confidence is true beauty. Self-love is true beauty. Every body is true beauty.

So instead of pointing out our flaws and pointing out the flaws of others and wishing that we looked a certain way, we must stop and catch ourselves. Because hating on our bodies and on the bodies of others is only sabotaging our own army, taking down the soldiers we need so desperately to win this battle against our society’s version of a bikini body. Our army is capable of making every body a bikini body, and if we keep fighting, keep loving our bodies, and keep believing in healthy over skinny, we are well on our way to winning the fight. We are in this together, and we must hold ourselves accountable for our own self love in order to hold up the fight for our bodies.

As I write this post, I am sitting outside in my bikini, soaking in the sun, enjoying the warmth on my skin, and practicing what I am preaching. Instead of hiding in my room, under the covers, with a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt covering every inch of my body as I attempt to hide from the world, I am embracing, cherishing, and LOVING my body as it rocks its red, white, and blue bikini. And let me tell you, this is everything but easy, and right now, as I begin my own fight for body-love, it is everything but comfortable. But I am taking responsibility for kickstarting this fight for our bodies. And I am going to make this summer a summer to remember because of the moments I lived, the memories I created, and the body-love I enacted rather than a summer I wasted away as I avoided my own body and hid my body from the world in fear.

This summer, I have had enough of losing my life to the fight against my life, and I am restoring my life with the fight for my life. And I am embracing my body, every inch of it, and I am embracing my mind, every inch of it, and I am on a mission towards body acceptance, body love, and body positivity. I will not let another moment of my life pass me by. And I hope that my courage to begin the fight for my body will encourage you to join me in the fight for your body. The fight for all of our bodies.

We are all in this together. We all deserve to be able to live our lives because we love our bodies as they are. Healthy, happy, and beautiful.

So let’s step up to the challenge. And let’s make each and every one of our bodies a bikini body. Because each and every one of our bodies is completely worthy of being a bikini body, and no one has the right to tell you or make you believe otherwise. Our bodies are capable. Our bodies are strong. Our bodies are healthy. Our bodies are beautiful.

And that is the true definition of a bikini body.