Bukunmi Ogunwale: Love Yourself, Because You’re Beautiful Too!

You see I don’t just understand it when someone says I’m too thin for their liking. I mean, who asked for your opinion? And if I didn’t ask your opinion didn’t yo’mama teach you to keep quiet when you don’t have anything good to say? Whose business is it anyway if I’m short or tall, dark or light skinned, slim or plus sized?

I’d say again irrespective of how you perceive me, I am beautiful too.

While many think it’s in “vogue” to body shame someone else and measure them against another person. While some may think beauty for a woman is about being over 5ft and bone thin with a high cheek bone and collar bone, and that a man is only handsome when he is over 6ft tall and has six packs. Shior. All na format.

Many beautiful and dark skinned women are bleaching the life out of their skin because they think only light skinned women are beautiful.

Plenty ladies at cinema, shopping malls are killing their legs with heels they are uncomfortable walking in, because they feel the need to use those heels to fill in for their disadvantage in height. Babe, you are beautiful even if you are not more than 2ft tall. You are good looking even if you are as black as charcoal. It is your heritage as an African woman to be dark skinned so embrace it.

In fact the whole wahala about body and body types is so insane. The slim lady is consuming load of junk food and destroying her health because she wants to add some flesh and be accepted by friends and society. The plus sized curvy chick is on serious diet (come and see how diet orisirisi is making money out of people’s body insecurities) just so they can become thin like that girl on the next street that eats everything but won’t add an inch to her belly (they don’t know that girl is on a mission to add plenty weight, so she can even have small curves like the fantasizing plus sized curvy lady).

The craze is a societal and media thing. We body shame slim people by calling them names like Letter I, Slingo, Tirin Gbe Ku, Lepa Shandy, flatty;  we paint curvy ladies as the dream size to achieve and all your problems are over (many musicians have sang in praises of well-rounded and curvy ladies). Then they turn right on the curvy ones and start calling them names like Orobo, Eru Ole (thief’s load), Fatty Bum Bum, Fatty and then they start showing slim women in luxury clothes as the desirable body type. What is it we want as a society sef?

But rather than follow societal confused prescription on body types, weight or size why not focus on eating healthy and dressing right for your body type? Enjoy being who you’re meant to be.

Eniola Badmus aka Gbagbo Bigz Girls is a beautiful plus size woman who understands her body, dresses right and looks confident every time you meet her. I’m not sure she has ever been a slim girl, so struggling to attain a size zero may only leave her miserable. On the other end of the scale is Iyabo Ojo, who has also come to accept herself and grace her slim body in the chicest outfits.

While society may keep shaming you for being too big or too small, too light or too dark, there are men drooling over you left, right and center only as long as you keep your body and not desperately become someone else. There are men who like big women, busty women, big ass women, slim women, dark women, women with small burst and small ass. All kinds of specs has a male market (if we consider women as products). We have people who fancy us just the way we are and enjoy day dreaming about us. Some of the heaviest women I know have very good looking men as their partners same for slim women. So why are we killing ourselves over yellow, afin, black or brown colour? How many albinos have you seen unmarried simply because of their skin colour and how many beautiful women whom you sort to become, women who seem to be the standard for beauty are unmarried? You see, there is an irony here. Reason? Well while beauty is in the eyes of the beholder our shapes, body types, skin colour and height is only skin deep. Your personality is what really makes you beautiful.

Your beauty is about your character, your personality and attitude to life. Optimism and confidence would also help in bringing out your inner beauty. Except you are “deformed” in a major way like maybe your nose is where every other persons eyes is or your boobs is behind while your ass is in front (I believe there are corrective surgeries for those). Except you have these major abnormal deformities, girl! You’re as beautiful as beauty gets. Not even a limp or polio affected leg or short hand or small breast is big enough to dampen your beauty or harm your chances of finding true love. So stay healthy and happy, surround yourself with relationships and people who appreciate and love you, because YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL, JUST THE WAY YOU ARE.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime