Kindness Is Always Beautiful
- Niky Philpot
- May 14, 2019
- 2 min read
Mental Health Awareness Weeks 13th – 19th May 2019
Body image is a person’s perception of the aesthetics or sexual attractiveness of their own body. Having a negative body image is feeling unsatisfied with our bodies and appearance. A person may self-conscious and may suffer low self-esteem often fixating on altering their physical appearance.
We’re all guilty of this to some degree. Beauty, hair, make-up, dieting, excessive exercise, all of which at a basic level we invest in because of some form of unsatisfaction. But when does feeling unsatisfied lead to mental illness?
As a society we live in a world saturated with unrealistic ideals of body image. We have entire industries that depend of the perpetuation of a person’s inferiority complex. These industries have a vested economic interest in keeping our self esteem low so that they can create a need, desire, want, to be able to sell us the latest diet pill, miracle cream, and heck yes, the latest beauty treatment. Hands up, as a beautician perhaps I’m totally guilty if you strip it right back, but it is not solely industries and media that affect a person’s mental health. We are all to blame.
Experiences and environment will affect a person’s perception of themselves. How we interact with each other, the things we say, comments we make, trends we follow. If these aren’t positive experiences throughout a person’s life when coupled with today’s aspirational image driven society, it is no wonder we are discussing body image and the effects on mental health.
What we need is a society that promotes both aspiration and inspiration: media, brands, friends and family. We need people that build us up, that make us believe we are good enough as we are. We need to instil confidence in those that need it most. If confidence is a marker of healthy self-perception and positive thinking, we need a fuck load more of it. If having your lashes or nails done gives you that confidence, that’s great, but please remember are so much more than your body.
Maybe from today we can all pledge to pay a compliment to someone every day. It wont only be a positive for them, it’ll release some seriously amazing feel good hormones in your brain too.
Love more, hug more, be kind, because kindness is always beautiful.
Some helpful num bers for you or someone you know...........
Samaritans 116123
Mind 0300 1233393
Beat 0808 8010711
#Self-Confidence
#Self-Esteem
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