Does this make my bum look big? On how we see ourselves & self-esteem

"In the words of Oscar Wilde 'Be yourself; everyone else is taken'." - Carol Lake*

Every morning on my way into work I walk past a newspaper and magazine stand. The last time I actually bothered to take a look at any of the magazines on their shelves I, unsurprisingly, found most magazines trying to entice me to buy them by promising me a quick and easy way to the perfect body. Taking their offer seriously I should have the perfectly tall, lean, muscular body structure with long legs, straight, white teeth, long fingers (but not toes) and radiant skin that I have always dreamed of.

Most women (and probably most men) are all too familiar with that dreaded look in the mirror in the morning. We find ourselves pinching the fat on different parts of our bodies, casting a skeptical eye over our oh-so imperfect bodies. Having been born and raised into a society and generation that is obsessed with the perfect body means it is easy to see all the things wrong with my body rather than those things that are great about it. The list of things that I would like to change about my body is probably much longer than the one pointing out all the things that I do like about myself. And yet I am happier with what I see in the mirror now than 10 years ago. 

Growing up I was never the lanky teenager my cousins were. Going to boarding school did not help my case and thus it has taken me a long time to accept and befriend what I see in the mirror. Now I still have good days and bad days. Some days I will avoid mirrors like the plague and on others I walk out the door with a smile on my face. Though I am very much aware of the fact that I am nowhere near as happy with myself as I would like to be and I still have a long way to go. 

It was the new Dove campaign that got me thinking about self-esteem and how we see ourselves. If you haven’t seen it you must either be a stranger to the internet and its various viral websites (congratulations!) or been away on holiday! The video has received as much praise as it has critique and while it remains advertising it is still a very powerful message that they are trying to get across. Before you continue casting your beady eyes over this blog post you should probably re-route via YouTube and watch the video.

 

In summary (if you are too lazy to actually spend 7 minutes of your life watching this) the video shows a former forensic artist for the San Jose PD who meets a series of women and asks them to describe themselves to him. Hidden behind a curtain he cannot see these women but rather sketches them according to their description, much like them describing a criminal for a police sketch. However, the twist is that they were also asked to meet another participant before meeting the artist and spend some time also describing the stranger to the artist, this time very much like doing a police sketch for a wanted criminal. Finally, the two pictures are hung next to each other and reveal the discrepancy between how we see ourselves and how we are seen by others. 

"Women are their own worst beauty critics," Dove states. "Only 4% of women around the world consider themselves beautiful... we decided to conduct a compelling social experiment that explores how women view their own beauty in contrast to what others see." In an age when young children are being affected by anorexia and spend more time obsessing about how they look than they spend time being kids (aka muddy, dirty little thugs!) it is vital that we realize what effects our obsession with perfection is having on our future generations.  

The Dove campaign got me thinking about how different the image of what I look at in the mirror and what my loved ones see must be. That where I can see eyes that are a little too close together, they can see their beautiful hazel colour that I usually fail to appreciate. Where they see a small and defined waist I see wide hips and not looking good in trousers. Yet, if you were to ask me about the favourite thing about myself I would always answer my nose. It might not be perfect and it might not be entirely straight but it is cute and looks like a ski jumping ramp. It is easy to wiggle and crinkles when I laugh. Unlike a few others of my prominent features I have always liked my nose. It is things like my rather large bum that I have had to work hard to learn to love. Over the years I have learned to see it through other people’s eyes and the fact that most guys I have dated seemed to have appreciated it has helped its cause enormously. 

I wish I could back to being the strong, free, confident kid I once was. The kid who wasn’t shy about talking to anyone, who made friends where ever she went, the kid of wasn’t afraid of scrapping a knee while climbing something. If there was a way or eradicating all the memories of being bullied in school I may never have lost touch with that side of me. That girl might not be sitting in front of her laptop thinking about self-esteem and self-worth but rather would be out and about worrying about much more important things such as world hunger and when aliens are going to invade planet earth. But thanks to the relentless cruelty of some “cool” kids it is only now that I am slowly but surely I am rediscovering her and myself; it is on the good days that I feel like I am her once again. 

*Carol Lake is Head of JP Morgan's Corporate Responsibility Agenda for Europe, the Middle East and Africa