The internet is a place full of people trying to sell us the idea of a perfect life and by a perfect life, they mean a perfect job, wage, lifestyle, friends, relationships and most importantly, a perfect body. Every fashion or fitness influencer on the World Wide Web is pitching an ideal body type that apparently is the goal of one’s life. A body that not only fits into clothes but also makes them look good. But is that all we need out of our bodies? To make our imagined outfits look good?
A healthy and functioning body does way more than to just act like a hanger for our clothes, it literally keeps us alive! And everything aside, we have been far less kind with our bodies in that aspect. We constantly keep on prodding away at our bodies, pointing out everything that is ‘wrong’ with it, every bit that looks unaesthetic to us. And so came in the notion of the ‘perfect body’ to direct our minds.
We were being gaslit with the notion of having the ‘perfect body’ for even before we can recollect. From before the age of Internet, we were being sold the idea of having bodily features that were not only unhealthy but also unachievable. Sadly, we all remember the blatant size-shaming in movies like The Devil Wears Prada and Bridget Jones’s Diary and it took us all far too long to realize that these movies did nothing but give us major body issues because in what world is Anne Hathaway not perfection personified?
From promoting the size zero figure to unhealthy patterns of eating, no card has been left unturned to suffocate us, pushing down our throats just how our bodies should look like. And like the gullible cattle we are, we took the bait, doing everything under the sky to get that seemingly perfect bod. Annual gym memberships, keto diets, juice cleanses or even Face Tune just to fit certain standards and for what?
Now as we are, stark in the middle of the age of Information & Internet, with access to all sorts of world-wide knowledge, we still can’t seem to claw our way out of the grasps of unattainable standards of beauty. We are so enchanted with the thought of having the perfect body that the relentless pursuit we put behind it has us hopping from one micro trend on the internet to another, from scrolling the account of one fitness influencer to another, we are so captivated by the grip our insecurities have over us that we have forgotten how to not critique ourselves based off on how our body fits clothes or looks in the photos.
However, it has been way too long since we reflected back on what were we even chasing? Because bodies are ever-changing and naturally so. Our bodies do not even look the same throughout the day so how can one expect it does so through ages? It is practically impossible!
The important question here is, what even is the perfect body? Does it merely comprise of a flat stomach or is it accompanied by an extra set of arms and as brain as well? because if not so then what exactly have we been chasing all along? The ideal body is highly subjective as it may look different for everyone. A person who might hate the way they look might be the ‘perfect body’ for another & so on. It is a vicious cycle that leaves you hypnotized.
If anything, this chase has become a hamster wheel with the perfect body as a bait, that has us running mindlessly through our entire lives in search of something that is ever so fluctuating!
