To The Girl Who Doesn't Like What She Sees In The Mirror
A couple months ago, a friend of mine was getting ready for an upcoming beach trip. We were talking about what she was going to pack and the different outfits she wanted to bring. After several pieces of clothing had been thrown into the reject pile on her bedroom floor, I could tell she was starting to get frustrated. I had a feeling I knew what was wrong, so I was careful when I asked her if she was okay. She let out a big puff of air before she responded, and then she said this:
“It’s just annoying because I’m not a size 2 like all of my friends who are going on this trip, and I don’t feel good in anything, and I wish I was skinnier.”
I had two thoughts initially when I heard her say this. My first thought was that I hated that my friend thought that way about herself. It broke my heart that she didn’t think she was pretty enough or that she didn’t measure up because of the way she looked. And it made me sad that she was looking at herself in the mirror through a negative lens. But you wanna know what my second thought was?
My second thought was that most of the time, I look at myself through a negative lens, too.
I’ve been in my friend's shoes more times than I care to admit. I’ve stressed about going places and participating in activities because I was self-conscious about how I would look compared to my friends. I’ve tossed one of piece of clothing after another into my own reject pile, convincing myself that nothing was going to make me look like I wanted to look. And I’ve looked in the mirror and tore myself to pieces, pointing out every little stinkin’ flaw I could possibly come up with.
These thought patterns and behaviors aren’t just recent developments either. They’ve been present for years and years, dating all the way back to middle school when I was constantly comparing myself not only to my friends, but to girls all around me - girls on TV, girls on the cover of magazines, girls in my favorite rom-coms. If there seemed to be “perfect” looking girls everywhere, I just couldn’t understand why looking “perfect” myself seemed so unattainable.
Unfortunately, I am 100% positive that I am not the only person on the planet who struggles with this. I’ve talked to enough girls to know that this is a huge issue for so many people. Conversations like that have prompted me to research body image and how we as women view ourselves. After sorting through this research, I’ve discovered three things. (Bear with me as I get nerdy for a second.)
First and foremost, I’ve realized that as critical as we are of ourselves, women's discontentment with our bodies is even more widespread than I expected. According to a recent study by the Park Nicollet Melrose Center (PNMC), between 80-90% of women in the U.S. don’t like the way they look. On top of that, a study by Refinery29 says that 69% of women have felt judged based on their bodies and appearance. So not only are we not happy with the way we look, but then we feel judged by others for the way we look, making us feel even more insecure.
The second thing I discovered is that body image comparison and body consciousness start at a much younger age than you would think. That same study by the PNMC found that 40% of elementary school girls want to be thinner. These girls haven’t even started puberty yet and they’re already worried about their body image. Fast forward a few years and 53% of 13-year-old American girls are unhappy with their bodies, and this number grows to 78% by the time the girls reach 17 (PNMC).
I think my last realization hit me the hardest. I’ve always been aware that society and the media have saturated our brains with what we’re “supposed to” look like, but I never quite understand how truly unrealistic the standard was for physical appearance. According to a study by dosomething.org, only 5% of women naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media. The PNMC study went a step further and found that the average American woman is 5’4” tall and weighs 168 pounds, while the average model is 5’10” and weighs 110 pounds. The standard is so ridiculously high, but unfortunately we ridicule ourselves if we don’t meet it.
I know that’s a lot of stats. But I think it’s important for us to understand how rampant this problem really is. We have to remember that we are not alone when it comes to wrestling with body image comparison, and that this struggle is a battle worth fighting. I know it’s so tempting to compare yourself to every “perfect” looking girl you see, whether she’s a contestant on the Bachelor or someone you follow on Instagram. But I can promise you that there’s so much more to life than achieving the world’s standard of beauty.
Paul actually talks about this concept in his letter to the Galatians. He says, “Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10) As followers of Jesus, our goal in life is to grow so that we are more like Him. I don’t know if you know this (I had to Google it just to be certain), but there are no first-hand accounts of the appearance of Jesus. ZERO. No one in Scripture talked about what Jesus looked like. Instead, they talked about His character. They talked about how He loved people and helped people who couldn’t help themselves. He wasn’t worried about pleasing people, especially when it came to the way He looked. In fact, He even spoke about this in the sermon on the mount, where He said this:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” (Matthew 6:25-26)
If we take both of these passages into account, the one from Galatians and the one from Matthew, we can draw two very important conclusions.
1. Our goal is not to look a certain way in order to please other people.
and
2. We are so much more than how we look on the outside.
Isn’t that so freeing? What Paul and Jesus were both trying to communicate is that you don’t have to put this stress on yourself to appear perfect. You don’t have to succumb to the pressure of looking a certain way or having a specific body type. You can rest in the fact that your Heavenly Father who created you makes no mistakes. He didn’t mess up when He gave you that color hair or that body type or that skin color or that birthmark on your leg that you hate so much. Not a single element of your appearance is a product of God saying “Oops!”. That’s just not how He works.
A few months ago for my birthday, my grandmother bought me this wooden sign. Painted on this sign is part of a verse from Proverbs 31, and it says “She is clothed in strength and dignity…” (Proverbs 31:25). I hung this sign on a wall in my bathroom, so I see it every single morning when I’m getting ready. It has become a wonderful reminder to me that it doesn’t matter which outfit makes me look the thinnest, what color lipstick I wear, or whether I have a good hair day or not. My Heavenly Father isn’t concerned about any of those things. Above all else, He wants me to be more concerned with being like Jesus than looking like the world. And that’s what He wants for you too.
So, tomorrow morning when you wake up and look in the mirror, instead of picking yourself apart and focusing on what you don’t like about yourself, I hope that you will try to see yourself as your Heavenly Father sees you - beautiful, strong, chosen, and loved. I hope you understand that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. I hope you remember that you were created in the image of God, and sweet friend, that will always be enough.
Photo by Katie Sutter