Love it.

So, not off to a good start with the NaBloWriMo thing. But here is my first post and I will do my best to post for the rest of the month (fingers crossed). Here's my reason for not posting for the first three days of the month:

I'm up in Sydney visiting my dear family. The weather here is cool but the humidity is creeping in again already. Unlike Canberra where as soon as the sun goes away, it's cold again.

On to other things, like what I really want to post about today.

Positive body image. It's one thing that I've always been fairly good at maintaining. Mostly thanks to my Mum, who never allowed me to diet, and always encouraged me to maintain healthy habits for just that - my health.

Of course, I always have those bad days - everyone does. This morning for example, and yesterday. For some reason, just looking in the mirror, wearing outfits that normally make me feel good about myself, I felt... (now, I really hate the connotations of this word) fat.

The sad thing is, I know I'm not fat. I know I'm curvy, in a good way, a way that I usually like and am definitely not large. But for some reason, I was feeling bleugh.

Now, writing this at the end of the day, I feel better about myself. I just kept thinking to myself - you are a healthy, active individual, and skinny does not equal healthy all the time, curves are gorgeous. Out and about this afternoon I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window and felt happy with what I saw.

My point to all this... I have friends who have terrible self esteem about their body, or admit that they know they are hot, yet are constantly striving for 'perfection'. This is an issue that applies to many women and men. The statistics are more concentrated on young women, but it affects people of any gender and demographic.

I also want to emphasise that just because I am saying that big is beautiful, I am not saying that thin is ugly. All sizes are beautiful. I think people many people would lead happier and much healthier lifestyles if they accepted who they are, and grew to love what they saw in the mirror.

The Body Positive is an American organisation run by a good friend of mine. The aim of it is to reach people and educate them on how to love and care for your body without striving for the One idea of what people should look like that is seen so often in the media.

As a last note, I feel I need to explain my feelings towards the word 'fat'. The word, especially in Western societies, brings to mind ugliness. Some people are bigger than others. This is okay, but the words I think should be used are big or curvy. They do not imply the same thing as 'fat'.

Part of my problem is watching my friends use the word as if firing a bullet charged with hate towards themselves, their mouths twisted. Big and curvy are words that conjure beauty in my mind.

Finally, if anything I have said in this post offends anyone, I apologise. I do not apologise for my opinions, but only if they become misconstrued.