There are a few phrases that make my blood boil immediately:
“Just relax!”
“Girl push ups”
and of course, “Beauty is wellness”.
My anger around this phrase is because alignment with beauty ideals is often at the very price of health itself, and it pretty much always has been. From ancient Greek men rubbing pigeon droppings on their head to “cure” baldness (they had never heard of dysentery or pink eye, I guess), 19th century women breaking ribs to lace their corsets tighter (it’s not as if breath is our vital life force or anything), Victorian women bathing in arsenic to bleach their skin, (who cares if you’re dead as long as you’re pale, right?), to the tanning bed days of the early aughts (who cares if you’re dead as long as you’re tan, right?), to going on unnecessary cleanses that are at best bad for your bank account and at worst the beginnings of an eating disorder…none of this is new. What we consider beautiful has almost always been at odds with our well-being.
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