This is My Body

Photo of San Francisco protesters by PolicyMic

Some really cool events stirring around in the media this week.

The first was a protest in front of a Victoria’s Secret store in San Francisco by a group called About-Face who promote a healthy body image. Policy Mic’s article, Protesters Strip Down In Front Of Victoria'sSecret To Promote a Healthy Body Image, reported on the event:

The protesters — including one male participant — gathered in front of the storefront and striped down into bras and underwear; their message was that "not everybody needs to be like that in order to be attractive, in order to be awesome in general," said Jennifer Berger, Executive Director of About-Face.

I just love this idea. How wonderful to see the looks of joy and adventure on the faces of those protesting. This seems like the richest way to talk back to advertisements and ideologies we do not agree with—show the truth.

A healthy body image begins with embracing the bodies we have, not trying to fit the ideals created by others.

In line with that, South Bay mother promotes positive bodyimage with Facebook page, is another example of a woman staking claim to her beauty. Jessy Kissinger is a mom who started a Facebook page for moms to post pictures of themselves in their bikinis. No matter what size they wear.

Kissinger told KTVU she is happy and is looking forward to taking her two children to the beach this summer without wearing a cover-up.

Wouldn’t it be radical if we all felt so awesome about ourselves that what our bodies look like would not be our main concern? Just think about how much extra energy we would have for other adventures in life.