The Problem The devastating affects of this barrage of artificial beauty are becoming more evident than ever. Young children are becoming victims of eating disorders and self-injurious behavior at an alarming rate. People, male and female, young and old, are going under the knife and needle to improve their looks.
According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2003 alone, 1,781,191 people underwent cosmetic surgical procedures such as tummy tucks, cheek implants, lip augmentation, liposuction, breast implants, and rhinoplasty. Another 7,401,495 had cosmetic procedures such as Botox, chemical peels, cellulite treatment, microdermabrasion, and soft tissue fillers.
In 2004, the number of surgical procedures dropped a bit (1,740,236), while quicker and less invasive procedures became more commonplace (9,210,627 people had non-surgical cosmetic procedures - up 5% from 2004 and and an amazing 40% since 2002).
The rise in using needles and knives to fix perceived imperfections is not the only indication that the image of "the perfect body" is having an extensive negative impact on our society.
The Statistics on Eating Disorders site says:
According to US estimates from The National Institute of Mental Health, between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of girls and women (i.e. 5-10 million people) and 1 million boys and men suffer from eating disorders, including anorexia, bulimia, binge eating disorder, or other associated dietary condition.
Not only does poor self-image and unrealistic expectations of beauty cause young people to fall into the horrors of eating disorders, a noted rise in young people self-injuring shows a growing trend of self-loathing and low self-esteem.
PRP Online notes in Understanding Self-Injurious Behavior that:
...It is estimated that one to two million people in the United States intentionally and repeatedly bruise, cut, burn, mark, scratch and mutilate different parts of their own bodies.1 This estimate represents only the adolescents and adults who actually seek help for the behavior....1 Favazza, A and Conterio, K (1988) The plight of chronic self-mutilators. Community Mental Health Journal, 24:22-30
and that:
...In recent years, however, there appears to be a dramatic increase in the number of younger and older adolescents who engage in self-injurious behavior...2 Pipher, M (1994) Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls. New York: Ballatine Books
This site is about self-love and loving yourself regardless of how you look. Whether you be skinny, fat, hairy, one-legged, male or female - it's all about loving who you are; not how you - or others - perceive you.
You'd be surprised the beauty that shines right on through to the outside when you truly love your inside.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to be fuller, thinner, or even slightly different. There's nothing wrong with a healthy lifestyle and healthy dieting. Wanting to change yourself is okay. Wanting to change yourself to the detriment of your well-being is not. You should want to change because it's a healthy, positive thing to do for your body; not because you feel that you "look ugly".
It's hard, no doubt, to love yourself every day. I try to practice what I preach, but it isn't always easy. I hope, with this site, to bring people together and give them a place to come for encouragement when they feel themselves slipping into negative patterns.
This site isn't about any other kind of acceptance but self-acceptance.
More people than we'd like to think about will never be able to love or appreciate their naturally beautiful perfections and unique imperfections. More and more people are undergoing surgery and medical procedures to be something they are not - to attain this false, plastic perception of perfection. More and more young people are making themselves sick or are outright physically injuring themselves because they do not like who they are or how they look.
This is a huge problem, and it's only getting worse.
The focus needs to be taken away from false images, negative attitudes and ridiculously impossible goals in appearance. People need to be reminded how to love themselves, their special and natural bodies and all of the beauty that is inside of them!
That is why I made this site. To spread the ideas of self-love and positive body image that are so desperately needed in today's society.
As to the name, it comes from "Pump It Up " by the beautiful and talented Missy Elliott - a verse that inspired me to create this site in the first place - "I love my gut, so fuck a tummy tuck."
In today's world, not a popular thing to say or even think! To love, or be proud of, your excess weight or society-perceived imperfections?! Unbelievable.
Yet, it was a loaded, and bold, statement that I felt said so much. lovemygut.com was created with those same thoughts in mind.
As a child, I watched my mother obsess over her weight. She was forever denying herself food and simple pleasures, always bemoaning the fact that she'd gained a pound here or added an inch there. I remember thinking I would never put myself through such mental anguish - that I would enjoy life, and food, when I became an adult without such pressure to be "thin".
However, as I grew into my teens, my pencil-thin frame began jutting out in all kinds of directions and before I knew it I had an ample chest, a huge butt and a decided little stomach pooch. This was not cool. However, I had no desire to start dieting, and I wasn't necessarily "fat" or "overweight"; I simply realized this was how my body was built - and I loathed it. I longed for the svelte and slender frames I saw on the girls and women in magazines. I wished for a flatter chest - one that didn't make all of my clothes jut out and make me look fatter. I pined, more than anything, for a much smaller butt than the "ghetto booty" I'd been given. With all of these curves and mounds, I could never look lithe and smooth - the image that was "beautiful" to me; the image I'd ever only seen in magazines and on TV.
Somewhere along the way - mostly due to a loving, supportive boyfriend who adored the parts of me I hated - I began to love my body, to appreciate my curves and mounds and swells, and to relish my round softness. I decided I didn't want to be stick-thin and "svelte". I learned to love what I'd been given, and do the best I could with the parts I was less happy about it.
It was a long, hard road - and that, more than anything - upsets me. Why was it so hard to fall in love with myself and to adore my own body? Because society is constantly shoving the idea down our throats that to be anything but "perfect" and "thin" is ugly or wrong somehow.
Long before I learned to love me, though, my own low self-esteem caused me to go through hell - and my poor body became the target. I was lucky enough not to fall into the eating disorder trap - most likely only because of childhood problems with my stomach - but by the age of fifteen, I was cutting myself. I eventually realized that someone who loves themselves, and their body, does not slice at it with a razor blade. This might seem obvious to most people, but to those that go through such pains, it isn't so cut and dry.
My body today still bears the terrible scars of those pain-filled days. I know what it is to hate yourself. I know what it is to hate the way you look, and even the way you act sometimes. I know pain. And if I can help even one person feel better about themselves in any way, then it was all worth it.
I only want to help others realize and find the beauty in themselves.
This page was last updated on May 12, 2006
