I know some absolutely beautiful women who wear size 2. I know women who are equally as beautiful who wear a size 22. Or bigger. I keep trying to lose weight. Trying is a loose term seeing as ordering water instead of tea or buying salad instead of fried okra is a challenge. Let me tell you something you already know: I’m a big girl. I have no problems admitting that. I recognize that there are scientific health reasons that I should lose the weight, but then dumplings happen. And waffles. And egg rolls, and chocolate, and creme brûlée, and cupcakes. Bread carbs are the devil and the gym doesn’t serve good snacks, so I’m still working on it. But in all seriousness, we have a problem in this country. We have a problem, no, an obsession with beauty in this country. We fault our friends for being too big or too small. We judge people for taking one to many trips to the buffet, but we chastise our friends who wouldn’t be caught dead at one. Beauty is bottled and sold, not observed or appreciated and it certainly isn’t natural. I have no plans to be a size two. For one, it is physically impossible. But secondly, that’s not how I perceive my own beauty. I say love your own brand of beautiful, but not the kind you pick off of a shelf, the kind you were born with. It doesn’t matter if your beauty is big or small, it’s yours. So throw out Cosmo and People Magazine, stop paying attention to these commercials, and ignore the number on the tag in your clothes. Don’t be afraid to have another dumpling, or, if you prefer, to skip them altogether.

Yours in Activism,
Karli Janay

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