The Body Irrelevant

Glamour magazine conducted a survey in 2009 to determine what percentage of women were dissatisfied with their bodies. The results showed that a whopping 40% out of the 1,000 women surveyed were unhappy with the way that their body looked. Another survey, conducted recently in Britain by REAL magazine, echoed these results with even more startling numbers. Out of 5,000 women, only 3% claimed to be totally happy with their bodies while 73% not only admitted to being unhappy with their bodies, but that they also think about its size and shape every day.

When did our body become an enemy? A separate entity that we have to "fight, burn, crunch and whip" into shape? A shape that has become much more important to us than how our body actually feels, or the functions it may serve.

When a friend of mine was visiting South Africa she marveled at the reactions the women had to her body. Each and every one of them could not get over how skinny they thought she was. She in turn asked them what part of their bodies they liked the most. Though the answers varied, ranging from the legs to the breasts to the hips or to the arms, all seemed to share one common factor. It was not the appearance or the shape of the body part that endeared itself to these women, it was the ability it gave them to function within the world. Legs for traveling to the next village, breasts for feeding their children, hips for birthing, and arms for lugging water from the riverbed to their home.

Is our obsession with shape caused by the fact that we no longer need to use our bodies any more? Each technological advancement eliminates the amount of physical movement and exertion needed to complete even basic tasks. The car eliminates walking, the dishwasher eliminates washing, and stores of all kinds provide the items necessary to get by in life without ever having to hunt, plant, or construct any of them. No wonder we have all of this excess fat added to our shape and then a quest for perfection in trying to get rid of it.

If we did more stuff (and I mean physical stuff, not stuff like sending another email) our body might naturally be the shape it needs to be. Its support of our actions in life would serve as a vehicle to our happiness instead of an unrelated visual silhouette that has the ability to make one unhappy.