“I need to start working on my spring break bod.”

“I really need to lose 10 pounds before spring break!”

“I’m only eating salad from now, until spring break.”

I bet that you have heard one, or even all three, of these phrases multiple times in the past few weeks. Everyone is striving to look their best on the beach, but when has it been taken too far?

Okay, I understand that most of us will be on the beach for spring break in bikinis…exposing most of our body to all college students out there, but I don’t think that is an excuse to starve yourself to have the “perfect” body.

Newsflash: your body is already perfect just the way it is! We weren’t created created to all look the same, our bodies are crafted to fit our unique selves.

This thought didn’t fully cross my mind until I revisited a documentary I last watched my senior year of high school, “America The Beautiful”. This Netflix documentary takes its viewers on a journey around the country to see how others feel about beauty, physical appearance, and social media. During this film, the director interviewed both a 7 year old girl and 12 year old girl, who both insisted they were ugly. No girl at that age should ever feel ugly, ever. The girls couldn’t say specifically why they were ugly, they could only reference pictures of celebrities and ads of models to how they are supposed to look. How sad is it that at the prime of their youth, they feel so awful about their appearance?

This Netflix binge then sent me into a spiral looking at video after video of people’s perception of beauty. I came across a “slam poem” of sorts by a 17 year old girl, Savannah Brown. In this poem she states, “I would go home and put on a sweatshirt with my eyes closed, denying myself the right to be shown myself because I didn’t dare want to insinuate beauty in regards to something so insulting as my body.” As the poem continues, her tone intensifies stating the way she felt due to what social media and society told her how to feel. In the end, she tells her viewers how she is focusing on loving herself and not begging for the love of others. “When I first learned that no one could ever love me more than me, a world of happiness previously unseen was discovered.”

Lastly, what urged me to write this post instead of study for my midterms, was National Eating Disorders Awareness Week. This week is recognized during the last week of February every year (February 26th-March 4th for the 2017 year). I find this fitting as spring break is coming up soon for University of Alabama students and I think it is important to spread awareness about this problem.

• It is a complex, and very serious mental illness
• It is not easy to spot someone with an eating disorder
• It is not “a diet gone out of control”

I know that we all find ourselves aimlessly scrolling through Instagram or Facebook wishing we looked like someone we aren’t; I personally find myself doing this constantly. We feel as if there is a never ending search for the perfect body…and we are right. Because there isn’t one perfect body, every body is perfect.

Starving yourself will do nothing but harm your body, but you know what will immensely help your body?! Fueling it with nutrition and positivity!

I want each of you reading this to know that you are so beautiful and so loved. Don’t let social media, society, or cruel people tell you otherwise. Your body is your temple, fuel it properly and don’t deprive your body of what it needs. So screw the “spring break bod” and bring on body positivity! xoxo