Colin, 18, Gay, Pennsylvania. (Now that we've gotten that out of the way...)
If you like Will and Grace, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Disney, Harry Potter, Nerdfighteria and/or hot men, you should totally follow me. (That is not to say I'm a hot man. You can make that decision for yourself)
Boys don’t understand the horrible view girls have of themselves
And I don’t think that you realize that, minus the boobs (but hey, for some guys maybe not), this is how we see ourselves when we look down as well.
Negative body image is not a problem exclusive to females.
Scrolling Through My Dashboard
- Me: Oh.
- Me: That's what I'm supposed to look like.
Guys Have Trouble With Body Image Too
I think that we as a society forget that a lot.
I’m in no way trying to take away the importance of measures being taken to encourage young girls to accept their bodies and not try to live up to a nearly-impossible standard set by society, but that’s all I see–Everything is focused on young girls.
I may not be a teenage girl, but I have trouble with my body image as well.
I can’t look into the mirror without feeling overweight even though I’m not. I can’t stare at my face without seeing imperfections. I spend so much time on my hair that sometimes it looks worse than when it started.
Why does nobody pay attention to the teenage boy who can’t accept his body?
A Little About My Body
I’ve been struggling with my weight and my self-image probably since the the 6th grade. At least, that’s when I noticed that I had a bit of a midsection. There’s no words to make it pretty – I was fat.
It wasn’t always that way. Before my parents separated there was always somebody home with me, and that meant that there was always somebody to tell me to stop eating junk food or to get off of the computer. After my Mom had to get a job that wasn’t so.
So I ate, and didn’t move much.
Meet Colin right before 7th grade.
Yeah. You can see the overhang of the stomach and the man boobs (moobs) forming. I don’t think I even cared, though. I honestly didn’t think to myself that I was overweight.
Say hello the hips of 8th grade Colin.
And the protruding stomach of almost 9th grade Colin.
Then, at the beginning of my 9th grade year, I broke my leg and was subject to a wheel chair for about two months. Doesn’t exactly facilitate exercise, and given that I couldn’t walk properly for a while, I gained a lot more weight.
Here I am the Summer before 10th grade.
Can you say A-Cup?
That October I was the heaviest I’d ever been: 197 lbs. Around then I started to care. I hated taking my shirt off even when I was by myself because it was a reminder that I was huge.
I also wasn’t fond of my face. Or my style. But that’s for another day.
Things began to improve, and by LeakyCon 2011 (last July) I was down about 8 or 10 pounds. This past August things definitely started to change.
I had began doing an aerobics video (sometimes), and I wasn’t eating as much. I lost a lot of weight really fast, and it/I wasn’t the healthiest. I still felt fat, I still felt ugly.
I’m in a better place now. I eat healthy, I exercise, and puberty has been helping with… leveling everything out. There’s still work to do, but I never thought I’d be in a place where I’d post a shirtless photo on the internet. (See the last two posts)
