Thank your body

Last week I saw a post on Facebook that the mother of a young woman shared. It was poignant and made me sad—and angry.

The mother had taken her daughter shopping for a dress for an upcoming formal. When the daughter tried on a lovely long red dress, the sales clerk told the daughter she needed to wear Spanx if she intended to buy that dress. For those unfamiliar with Spanx, just know they're undergarments intended to make the wearer look slimmer and more shapely.

What was the end result of that comment? The daughter felt ashamed of her body. There was nothing wrong with her body as it was. The clerk was going for perfection, no doubt. But who among us has a perfect body? And who cares?

In posting the photo of her daughter, the mother shared her anger that the clerk made her daughter feel ashamed of her body. This is nothing new. We women have been told for centuries that we should be concerned if our bodies aren't perfect, perfection always being defined by some external entity, of course.

Let's not fall for this. Let's be proud of our bodies. Let's be grateful for all those bodies do for us. Walk. Hold and hug. Draw. Type. Run. Create new life. Breathe. Fly planes. Design buildings or clothes. The list is absolutely endless.

And let's care for our bodies. Give them healthy food, sufficient rest, good exercise. Let's not let anyone shame us into hating our bodies. Enough of that already.