Draven Jackson
Staff Writer
The time has come again for men and women everywhere to strip off their clothes, put on a swimsuit and go enjoy a relaxing day at the beach, pool, lake, etc.
And along with the arrival of summer comes the arrival of trying to find an attractive bathing suit, which, let’s face it, is not always the easiest task.
You go into a store, maybe even three or four, and try on a handful of bathing suits to find just one that you feel fits you best.
A few weekends ago, I went to the Dillard’s sale store in Montgomery and tried on probably 10 different suits. Do you know how many I came out with?
One.
Finding a bathing suit for the summer season is so incredibly hard because we all want to look good and show some skin, but are afraid of showing too much skin. Society has convinced us that our body shapes dictate what we can wear.
I am here today to tell you that none of your preconceived beliefs about what you can put on your body are true, regardless of whether you’re a size 0 or a size 14. If you want to wear a two-piece, a one-piece or any other specified number of pieces, then do it!
According to an article entitled “Bloomers to bikinis: bathing suits throughout history” published by CNN in 2013, 20 percent of women said that they were concerned about what the public thinks when they go out in swimsuits. The same article also said that 46 percent of men feel that their abs aren’t beach or pool ready.
Here’s an easy way to get a beach body: take your body, put it in a swimsuit and go to the beach. See? Easy.
As someone who has worn a bikini at 125 pounds and at 185 pounds, I know that how I feel in my swimsuit has absolutely nothing to do with my actual body mass; it has everything to do with my confidence.
If you want to wear a bikini but you feel like it won’t look right on you because you’re “too big” or “too scrawny,” I am going to go ahead and tell you that your doubts are all in your head. The same goes for men who feel the need to wear T-shirts at the pool to cover up their “dad bods.”
And anyway, everyone seems to be into the “dad bod” these days; I mean, look at the still-hunky Leonardo DiCaprio. But, I think it’s about time mom bods and child-bearing hips came back into style, too! I mean, if being curvy was the body ideal for a woman like Marilyn Monroe, I don’t see why I should be complaining.
It’s time to step out of your head and put on that bathing suit you’ve been eyeing at the store. If you feel like you look good, then, more than likely, everyone else will, too.
It’s all about confidence. The thing is, no one can tell you how to find confidence— you have to find it for yourself.
One thing you can try is looking at yourself and saying one nice compliment about your body a day. It’s so easy to tear ourselves apart; what we really should be doing is thinking, “Dang, my hair looks great today!”
No matter your body type, just tell yourself something nice every day. Trust me, it’ll do wonders for your state of mind.
Not to mention, the less time you spend worrying about how you look in the bathing suit you bought last week, the more time you can have to relax and have fun with you friends and family. So, go out there and enjoy the sand, the sun and the sea!
After it stops storming, of course.
