In a response to bullying and negative comments online, fitness trainer Cassey Ho filmed a powerful short film which asks the question, what would you change about your body if given the chance?
Cassey Ho, who has her own health blog and YouTube channel Blogilates, is a popular fitness personality online, but like most bloggers and YouTube stars, she has been a target for negative comments and bullying. As a fitness trainer, many of these negative comments fall into body shaming. She filmed “The ‘Perfect’ Body” to acknowledge her own body insecurities and show that the media’s idea of a perfect body is not real:
“When you look in the mirror, are you happy with what you see? Or do you stare at yourself, pinching your fat away, lifting up your butt, pushing in your boobs, wishing you looked like a VS supermodel? It’s hard to be content with the shape of your body when people are constantly telling you how fat you are. The backhanded compliments, the mean comments, the cyber bullying – all of this messes with us…and it hurts. What if getting flat abs and bigger boobs was as easy as a click. What if you could stop all the hate and just photoshop yourself right now, in real life? What would you change?”
The video already has over two million views, prompting Ho to post a follow-up to her original comments. She was particularly concerned about people who saw the airbrushed version of herself as aspirational:
I wanted to post again because there was a weird phenomenon that happened when I posted this photoshopped picture. On the very same photo, I got some people praising me and others degrading me.
What worries me is this: 1. That some people think this is real and that it should be “goals.” 2. That some people still think it’s not good enough.
It’s tough knowing what’s real and what’s not when magazine covers and music videos are photoshopped (yes, music videos), Instagram pics are photoshopped, and so many women are getting surgery. How are we to know what kind of beauty can be naturally achieved when everything around us is so deceiving?
If you want to know what you can do to help stop body shaming, all I ask is that you share the video with at least 1 person. That’s all.
Thigh gaps, flat stomachs, curvy butts, it is all a lot of nonsense that has very little to do with real health. It is far more important for a person to learn how to care for their body by eating well and exercising regularly, and if they can learn to love their body and feel comfortable in their own skin, that is even better.
(Source: Bob’s Blitz)