Our body image stands as our recognition and identity. Either slim or fat, short or tall, dwarf or giant, petite or obesity, we all have our bodies as an embodiment of identity which we should be proud of or boast of no matter how it is.
I've seen people body shame their fellow human in a very negative manner and approach. Who are we to judge or criticize whom we can not make or create ourselves? But one thing is also certain, the way you address yourself is the way you will be addressed too.
I remember having a conversation with a friend on a discord server, and we subconsciously got to the point of talking about potbelly and she gave an instance of a man who has exactly like the GIF that was sent which was showing the stomach touching the ground. I was like people would abuse him a lot and she said even he himself abuses himself before people abuse him so even if you do, there's a limit to how painful and hurtful he will feel.
There was also a time I shared in one of my articles here on Hive about looking down on myself because of my small stature sometime ago, not appreciating my stature when every other person would directly or indirectly say they love to have what I have. Not because I really don't love my stature then but because I felt it's not making me get the things I was supposed to get but at the end of it all I realized the harm I was doing to myself and I concluded, stature should never be my excuse of not getting what I wanted.
But a question popped up from the prompt of which part of it got me thinking for a while asking if there can be a time when our body would harm us or others. I understand the fact that our body size or weight might be affect our health and cause us harm if care is not taken.
Recently I got a call from a close person of mine, informing me of her husband's illness which was confirmed at the hospital that the cause of the illness was from excessive fats of the body. I also have someone who has a very big stature, big from up to the laps part of the body but the legs are not as big as the rest of the body and this cause the bone of the legs weakening due to the heavy weight they carry. At some point, due to the pressure on the legs, there was a dislocation at the joint while walking and since then it has been all series of pain even after visiting the hospital and specialists on bones.
So in as much as we get to accept the body we have, we must ensure we walk towards maintaining a healthy state around it so that it doesn't affect us or harm us in any way. Aside the health issues, I don't want to agree that our body could cause us any harm let alone others.
The part where I could say we may harm others with our body in my perspective may be in the case of my gender against the opposite gender. We have some ladies or female in general who have hot and sexy body shapes. Hot enough that even without exposing their bodies it gets to drive the male gender who doesn't have self control into acting irrationally but these same set of ladies would still prefer to dress indecently. Though there's no excuse in defending rape or sexual harassment but most times, the way we are dressed is the way we will be addressed.
In conclusion, our body should be our pride, our honour, our secret treasure and not subject of ridicule and molestation. Whichever way we have grown up to become with our body, it is how we have been beautifully and handsomely created which should be accepted and accorded with honour and dignity by us and others.
I will be dropping my 🖊️ here on the Hive Learners community prompt on Body Positivity.
Thanks for reading through 🤗
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