Body Image Autobiography

During my sophomore year at UNC-Charlotte, I signed up for HONR 3700: Body Image and had the opportunity to complete a Body Image Autobiography as one of the first assignments in the class. There were 12 questions to answer that included subjects like how I view myself, what am I confident in, what am I proud of, what I like about myself, what I do not like about myself, how my view of myself affects other aspects of my life, and my role models. Each of the questions required at least two paragraphs to fully answer. In total, the 12 questions took up 9 pages. This artifact represents major growth in the context of self-actualization in my life.

 

To be honest, the subject of body image is not something I am very comfortable discussing and I really stepped out on a limb when I signed up for this class. In high school, I would never have signed up for a course that discussed how I view myself and others. Maybe it is a stereotypical guy thing, but discussing the things I like about myself is not difficult to do, but, the weaknesses are challenging. I would normally shy away from this type of writing assignment, but I decided to go all in on this particular questionnaire. Ms. Molinary, the professor for the course, promised to let our work exist in a non-judgmental atmosphere, which eased my concerns. The questions were very probing and personal, but I tried to be as honest and candid as possible. For example, one of the questions asked what I like and do not like about my physical appearance. I wrote:

 

“One thing I really like about my physical appearance is my smile. I had braces in middle school, so my teeth are straight now and I’ve always been told that I have a really great smile. Since your smile is something that most people notice about you first, I've always been really confident in my smile. Two other things I like about my physical appearance are my eyes. My eyes used to be just plain blue, but I noticed several months ago that they’re actually blue, green, and yellow. The outside of the iris is blue, while the inside of the iris is yellow. The two colors mix together in the middle to make green. I’ve never seen anyone else with eyes like that before, so I consider that something special about myself. Also, a lot of people have pointed out to me that they really like my eyes. There are some other assorted things about my body that I like, but those are the two that stand out the most.

 

There are several aspects, however, of my physical appearance that I don’t like. One thing I don’t like about myself is my skin. I have a condition, atopic dermatitis, which leaves patches of noticeable dry skin on my arms and legs. The patches of dry skin are a different tone than my normal skin, so it’s really easy for people to see and point out. It’s pretty embarrassing when someone points a dry patch out and asks what it is. Another thing I don’t like about my physical appearance is that I’m a little bit chubby. I’ve always had a little extra fat on me, especially on my stomach. All girls talk about are guys with abs and I definitely don’t have abs that you can see. It’s something I’ve dealt with for as long as I can remember, so recently I’ve been working on my physique.

 

I know for a fact that I think about the things I dislike about my body more than the things I like about my body. I just believe that, as humans, we are almost always concentrated on the faults. We know ourselves better than anyone else, so we also notice our downfalls more. My psychology professor, Dr. Maisto, said he was panicked about his presentation because he knew there was a fault in it, but his mentor said that nobody is going to notice it because it was so complex. Dr. Maisto knew more about the subject than anyone he was presenting to, so he would be the only one who would notice the minor problem. Much like this, I see myself every day, so I know pretty much everything that’s wrong with me. Someone who doesn’t know me very well isn’t going to be able to pick out every single part of me that isn’t perfect because they don’t know me as well as I do. Most likely, there are going to be far more things that are good about a person than are bad about a person, yet all we can think about are other people noticing our faults. I know that I am always self-conscious of other people noticing things about me that I don’t like about myself.” 

 

This assignment was a struggle because I was asked to get a lot more personal than I normally would prefer. At first, I was going to put down answers that were true but also watered down. Since I had only met Ms. Molinary one time, I was not very excited to let her know my biggest insecurities. Even as I wrote my answers down I was uncomfortable. Looking back on the assignment, I do not like reading about my insecurities. However, I am definitely more comfortable talking about my body and myself than I ever was before. I am learning to be comfortable with who I am, and I am realizing that there is no reason to be ashamed. Every single person in the world has aspects of their body they are not very fond of, but it is important to accept who you are. Although this is just one part of the process of self-actualization, becoming comfortable with my body and its imperfections is one I struggled with the most. This process of self-actualization will hopefully continue in the future and assist with this aspect of my life.