Target Photo Fail

Thigh gap. Yea, we all know about it. Everyone wants it, despite the fact that it's absolutely RIDICULOUS. Unless your bone structure is made for it, you will not have a thigh gap at a healthy weight. My hips aren't made that way! It's not going to happen, unless I work really hard to lose MUSCLE and have an below-healthy body fat percentage. No, thanks. Still, some of you are determine to have room between your legs, because... I don't know... because models have it? Well, they don't actually. Notice anything in the picture below?

 SHE IS MISSING HER VAGINA! This little, tiny model is not fat. She's not even curvy. She's not even muscular. Yet, in order to give her a thigh gap, Target editors... cut out her crotch? That's what you're starving yourself for? That's why you were at the gym doing endless cardio sessions? You did all that so you could lose your crotch? Maybe that's still appealing to you. How about her hips? Nice, jagged hips. And those armpits? If only my armpits were that pointy. Not.

Come on, people. These are models. They are "perfect," so why are they being edited? Better yet, why are you still looking at this picture and saying "See, why can't I look like that?" You know why? Because SHE doesn't even look like that. This is past hiding flyaways and blemishes. We're talking about erasing significant amounts of the body. Why is it so hard for us to understand that this isn't real? It's not even attainable, in most cases.

We see two ends of the spectrum. We see edited pictures of skinny girls or we see glorified photos of people who are overweight. Underweight is not "lean" or "perfect." Overweight is not "curvy" or "healthy." I apologize for the picture below, but come on.

 I am not saying that you need to hate yourself for being too heavy or too thin. There is nothing wrong with accepting and loving yourself. In fact, everyone should! There is also nothing wrong with striving to push yourself and meet goals. You can accept and love your body, while working to make it faster, stronger, etc. There is something wrong, however, with masking an issue and pretending that you are doing yourself a favor, when you are not. It is okay to be however you are, but it doesn't mean your healthy. It doesn't mean you should justify it to avoid feeling badly about it. Too thin or too thick. It's the same.

Now, back to this ideal of skinny perfection. IT. IS. NOT. REAL. Repeat that. Over and over. It has taken me about 22  years to BEGIN to understand this, so repeat it as long as you need to. My biggest downfall was comparing myself to FITNESS models. They workout! They have muscle! They're real and healthy! Guess what. They get edited, too. Guess what else? Competitors don't look like that (EVEN BEFORE EDITS), EXCEPT for competition day. They maintain their competition body fat percentage for a few hours, only. Here's another fun fact. Ever heard of plastic surgery? Abdominal etching? Liposuction? Booty implants? Tell me how dieting is going to get you a boob job.

Stop. I know what you're going to say. "That's not true for everyone! Some people really look like that!" You're totally right. Some people work their asses off completely naturally, avoid photo editing, and flaunt beautiful, sculpted bodies. A select few do, but they don't look they same. They aren't carbon copies of each other. They don't fit into the same category. They weigh different amounts.

Did you know that, only a few decades ago, the beauty industry was doing this in the reverse? Girls wanted to gain weight and spent money on supplements to SLOW their metabolism and help them hold FAT. Being skinny was undesirable. It's all in your head. It's all what has been engrained into our brains. It willl change in a matter of years, and you'll wonder why you nearly killed yourself trying to look like that. I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a sheep. Don't get me wrong, now...I workout. I watch what I eat. I don't watch the scale. I look at my strength and my speed, my energy, how I feel in my own skin.

BDD, anorexia nervosa, bulemia, disordered eating, etc. This is serious. This is life-threatening. You have to stop. You have to stop justifying unhealthy lifestyles. I don't care if it's under-eating, overeating, overworking your body, purging, etc. It's unhealthy. It's disrespectful to your body and yourself. It's justifying everything the beauty industry is doing and everything we KNOW is wrong with our idea of beauty. Let's not have this next generation of little girls compare themselves to made up women. Let's not have them crying in the mirror because their collar bones don't stick out enough. Let's not have them feel the need to justify being overweight to counterbalance the emphasis put on being underweight. Let's not have them measuring the space between their thighs. This has to stop now.

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