Among the 'Best Of’ posts for BAP, this one was the most accessed the summer of 2022. If you’ve been a subscriber since then, you are probably well-versed on it. OR, maybe you wanna check back through it and see if you’ve changed since you read it the first time.
*Developing was a paid post, so I’ve pasted it below for everyone’s access.
When I was twelve years old, I started developing, and I was just horrified. No one ever taught me how to deal with the attention I would get with that body, so when I started getting it, it scared me.
~Erin, 24, Girl Culture, Lauren Greenfield
The thing about accepting our bodies, if we are in the kind that go through a monthly cycle, is that they are changing all the time. If you are able to accept your curves or your height or your skin today, it is almost magical how you may wake up tomorrow and see something different in the mirror than you did last night. Depending upon what your hormones are doing this time of the month, or what you ate last night, or how much you were in the sun or if it is allergy season, much of how you look is changing constantly. A night of eating salty snacks and sobbing through a movie will mean you wake up looking differently than if you spent the previous day lounging at the beach.
This is one of many reasons why having to look an exact way is so painful- it is impossible for a body to remain static from day-to-day.
Because fluid retention is highest on the first day of a woman’s cycle, our weight will usually be the highest at this time than other weeks. Weight gain happens on weekends and during holidays. Not like, maybe if you are bad- it is a normal way of being and happens to people across cultures, ages and genders.
The ability to be flexible is really a key component in body acceptance. Because our bodies are changing day-to-day, not to mention year-to-year. True body acceptance means being okay with my body now, even if it changes by tomorrow. And that level of acceptance goes much deeper than how we look.
