Confident Beginnings

The expectation for women to look perfect is everywhere. It is impossible to turn on the TV without seeing a show or commercial talking about how you just need this cream or that surgery and you will finally be beautiful.

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I was driving behind a bus the other day that had an ad saying that all diets will fail, but surgery always works. Wow! That’s a confidence booster there…how about making healthy lifestyle changes? Perhaps certain people need a little extra help, in addition to already changing their eating habits, but I don’t think that everyone who is overweight needs to have surgery.
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I watch a show about eating disorders on E! called What’s Eating You. The running line of thought I’ve heard from the anorexics and bulimics is that when they started getting skinny they would get so many compliments. They loved that positive attention so they just kept losing more and more weight, thinking they would just look better and better. It begs me to question- why is skinny so praised? Our goal should be healthy inside and out, not a specific weight or size.
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About 3 years ago I threw away our bathroom scale. I suffer from body image issues and I can’t see how the scale is going to help me out with that problem. I also didn’t want Ella to see me constantly worry about what weight I am today. I am trying to raise her with a mindset that everyone is different size and shape, but its being healthy that matters.
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I have to confess that I am not taking my own words to heart unfortunately. I feel like I am succumbing to the pressure to be perfect and I am so embarrassed by this. After 3 pregnancies and breastfeeding I think I would look better with fuller breasts, not big breasts, just back to how they used to be. Don’t get me wrong, my breasts aren’t in bad shape, but they aren’t perky anymore either. But, when I think about getting the procedure, I just can’t justify cutting into my body, just because of my insecurities.
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I do so much to stay healthy and I don’t even touch medications; I don’t even take Tylenol when I have a headache. So why is it that I am considering surgery when I’m not even sick? Is it because every airbrushed picture I see out there reminds me that I am not perfect? Or is elective plastic surgery a tool a woman can use to empower themselves and improve their self esteem?
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Quite honestly, I don’t have an answer to that. I know a few women who have had different surgeries and they all seemed to have improved self esteem afterward. I wonder if these same women still have underlying body image issues that will always be there, just focused on something else once one problem area is “fixed”? We have all seen those people who get an excessive number of surgeries and never feel satisfied.

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Perhaps there needs to be more of an emphasis put on body acceptance and what real, unaltered women look like. If we saw that we looked similar to other women out there, that we weren’t different and gross, would that help? If there wasn’t such a fascination with big breasts and tiny waists would we desire that nearly as much?
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I honestly don’t know…All that I can think of is if I were to die in an elective plastic surgery procedure (which I know is very rare) I wouldn’t want my children to think their momma was so insecure that she died trying to be beautiful. Is that ridiculously dramatic of me? Absolutely, but that’s just how my brain works sometimes.

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If plastic surgery genuinely makes your life better, then I totally support your decision. I fully embrace the freedom we have here to choose what we want in our lives. I just hope that women are choosing surgery for the right reasons (which I know some are) and not to “fix” a self esteem issue. Let’s not be afraid to fix what’s going on on the inside just because working on the outside is easier.