Introduction

The weight loss industry is worth an enormous amount of money with women being the target of advertisers. It is important for those intending to go on a diet to question their motives and ask themselves, "Am I doing it for myself or am I being fat-shamed into doing it?" It is important to just be happy being you before you consider changing anything in your life because unless you are content there will always be something that you need in order to be happy.

Just be yourself

The human race is like licorice all sorts, you never know what you are going to get. There are as many personalities as there are people and there are a variety of shapes and sizes. It is therefore to accept who you are but at the same time change what you can change.

You may have no control over your build but you can choose what you put in your mouth. You may have no control of what talents you have been given but you have control over what you do with what you have been given.

The world puts unrealistic expectations on people and especially young women. They are expected to look as glamorous as those who appear in the glossy women's magazines. Is it any wonder that so many women suffer from low self esteem?

If women think that they have too much pressure on them to look as fabulous as a Hollywood star, many of them expect men to have the perfect physical body. Let me tell you my story:

I have always been skinny; all through my life I meet women from time to time who say "You're too skinny," and so on. Once a young lady was telling me about her boyfriend and how he looks after himself. He had a good physical body. She was having a dig at me. At the time I was jogging six miles+ per day and was competing in athletics every weekend. Sometimes on both Saturday and Sunday.

As with all of the comments that have been made about me being skinny I have never taken offence nor suffered from an inferiority complex or low self esteem because of it. My shape has never bothered me. I have just accepted it as who I am.

But...

I can understand why women would have their self-esteem attached to their weight when there is so much pressure on them to have a nice figure, but what they are really doing is living to please others rather than accepting who they really are.

It is important to accept who you are and not let your body shape determine your self worth.

You shouldn't allow comments by others to determine your self worth either. If others cannot accept who you are then that is their problem not yours.

The bottom line is that you can only live your life according to your own circumstances and not compare yourself with others because it will be similar to comparing apples to pears.

Your value is not determined by what others say about you. It is not determined by your dress size, or by your achievements. You may see the achievements of high profile sports people being applauded on TV but this will all pass. There are thousands of unsung heroes whom society takes for granted but they do their work day after day without complaint and without even a modest round of applause.

My suggestion is to focus on a "healthy eating" mindset rather than a "lose weight."

It is far easier to achieve a goal based on what you eat and how much you eat rather than it is to lose weight.

Like all things in life worth striving for, losing weight takes effort and sacrifice and only you can decide whether the outcome was worth it all.