Hi everybody! My name's Helen and I've been asked by Rise Above
To talk about body confidence, being healthy and loving yourself.
I am a personal style, fashiony, hair, beauty
Blogger whatever you want to call it, right.
So I have actually had issues with this considering
I'm not your standard model size kind of gal.
So I'm going to be talking to you about this kind of thing and things to bear in mind
About body and your body and loving yourself and everything.
And not let the world put you down.
Okay being a fashion blogger and being online and having your photo taken
Being sort of around and everything and looking at things on mediums and stuff.
My personal experience
Is for example, I have many times been deemed as a plus-size model.
It's not like I have a problem with plus-size models
It's just more of the fact that I've been asked to be a plus-size model
For say a magazine or a blog
Or a website's blogger's part of their website.
Fact is I'm a size 10 to 12 and my point being
That just because I might not be really, really skinny
Or like model size, they're asking girls like me
That are slightly bigger than what they would usually use as a model
To represent their plus sizes
And if I'm going to be honest, I was slightly offended by that.
Because in reality
I'm a normal kind of girl.
I'm a normal size. Which leads me onto my second point.
If we were to see a model on the catwalk that was a size 12-14
Everybody would literally be like
There would be some massive uproar
However, if you saw a size 12 to 14 to 16 girl or even bigger down the street
You wouldn't even bat an eyelid.
The media are putting down our throats
What we think we should be looking like and what our expectations should be when
In reality, it's not like that at all.
Nobody actually cares.
Point number three.
The media does make everything worse.
We are bombarded with advertisments
With editorials, with videos of girls
That are quite small and again, I'm not slamming, I'm not hating on skinny girls
I'm just saying, that the amount of smaller girls the media use for advertising and everything
Which they're selling to a large amount of people
They're forgetting that who're they're selling to aren't always
That small or that size. So they make it a lot worse because
They're kind of forcing us to look at these images and make us feel bad about ourselves
Because we don't look like that or that, that swimming costume
Is not going to look good on me because I'm not a size 0.
Or that those skinny jeans are going to look terrible on me because I don't have thin thighs.
Point number four.
This imagery being forced down our throats can't make you feel bad.
You need to remember that everybody is a different size.
We need to stop letting the media making us feel bad about our bodies.
We need to stop letting Tumblr, fashion blogs, magazines making us feel awful because
We don't look like the person on the image.
That is the online world.
That is the virtual world.
The corporate companies, the magazines they're trying to sell to you.
But they're not using people you see every single day to sell their items.
Which makes them not have an idea of what reality is.
What is reality? It's the people around you.
The people in your friendship group, in your family, people walking down the street.
They are the real people.
There's no perfect body.
People have big bums, big boobs, big thighs, big calves.
You could be a size 8 on your top but
Because you've got booty, you could be a size 14.
This leads me onto my final point
Don't let the number on the tag let you feel bad.
I'm a size 8 to 10 on my top half
But I'm a size 14 on my bottom half.
Purely because I have a big butt.
Everybody is different in different places.
Also, shops aren't that great at keeping their sizes consistent.
In one shop, I might be a 10
In another, I might be a 14.
Don't look at the tag and make yourself feel bad
Because it's larger than normal or smaller than normal.
That's absolute rubbish.
Everybody is different in all their different ways.
All that matters is you go around wearing your clothes with a smile on your face.
We need to remember
That there is no perfect size or no perfect body.
Everybody is different. Everybody has their own qualities.
So to sum it up is - love yourself.
Be healthy, be happy, make sure you're looking after yourself
And remember don't try and define yourself by what you see on TV or in a magazine.
And don't also try to define yourself by the sizes you see in your clothes.
You are what you are and you should be completely happy with who you are.
Because you are beautiful.
I hope you all have a lovely day and goodbye!