My Views, My Thoughts: “Slim Thick Wit' Yo Cute Ass”

Now, in a previous post I mentioned that I was a skinny baby, a fat kid then a skinny teenager but I didn’t say what I am now. I’m an inbetweener. I’m one of those people that scream summer body every year but then my summer body doesn’t look any different to my winter body lol. But, one thing is certain I’m not ‘slim thicc’ which is the current body shape trend.

Just like hair, fashion and beauty, body shapes also come in and out of style but to me this makes no sense. Unlike material things your body isn't something you can quickly change or something you choose. Yes you can modify it by losing weight or gaining weight but if you're born with a B cup bust even if you go to the gym you're never going to grow into an E cup. So, how can society tell us what's 'in' and what's not. Your body is uniquely yours and while being unsatisfied with something is normal, there is a difference with wanting bigger boobs and believing that if you had bigger boobs everything that's wrong with your life would change. This just isn't true; the grass isn't greener on the other side. This is where issues arise, people buy the body they want and then when the problems in their life are still there they get another surgery, still imagining the perfect version of their body. But, perfection isn't real.

Being from an African background curvy shapes have always been celebrated but often while simultaneously putting down those with slimmer figures. When I lost a lot of weight at 15 I now had a new dilemma I was now too skinny. Extended family members and even random people at parties would ask me where's my bum, tell me I'm too skinny. While the celebration of curvy bodies in the black community is great for women who have this shape as they were underrepresented in the media this is damaging to women with slimmer frames. Just like the curvy girls we are under-represented so are slim women because the slim women in the media don't look like us. Yes, you had Naomi Campbell and Tyra Banks but up until recently that was it. To be honest as a 15-year-old shopping in New Look they weren't exactly a realistic fashion idol.

Recently, my body has changed a lot and by recently I mean since February. When I came home for Christmas my mum's close friend (I won't name names) asked me why was there a space at the bum bit of my jeans, and to be honest it was a fair question there was a lot of excess fabric. But, when I came back for summer and wore the same jeans she complemented me on how nice my bum looked in them. Arguably, you could say I'm lucky that I filled out a bit, but don't get it twisted I'm not Nikki Minaj. If I hadn’t had a second mini dose of puberty, would being slim still be a big insecurity of mine.

As I was saying before, the current ideal body shape is 'slim thicc' a combination of a voluptuous figure but a toned tummy, legs and arms; the new ultimate bikini body. In this age of body confidence, you might believe that the issues of curvy vs slim are issues of the past especially since 'slim thicc' is the new thing which in theory means that everyone is at least half way there, but you'd be wrong. The other day on Twitter I saw a video of two curvier girls laughing at bikini pictures of slim girls, in the photos you could the girls' ribcages which is normal in a lot of slimmer girls. The girls making the video even went as far as to insult them. Now, this I have a problem with. Why should the self-love you have for your own body mean that you have to put down others? Yes, these girls could be an analogy and fully represent what people my age think but the amount of retweets and likes suggest otherwise. Yes, there were comments about how rude the girls were being but there were still some about how right they were. I'm not an idealist, I don't believe that one day we'll all hold hands in a perfect world and sing Kumbaya but I do believe that every generation should be better than the last. In this case my generation is disappointing me.