If you feel good, you look good. ....

Towards a Happy and Healthy body

We all want to look good, but it’s also important to feel good in our minds and souls, writes Meaghan Seymour.

I like to think that I don’t have any self-confidence issues when it comes to my body image. However, my eagerness to defensively refute the depictions of women I see in advertisements or on movie screens tells me that being constantly bombarded with picture-perfect women really does pinch my nerves. It’s hard for most women to escape this.
In my early 20s, I spent a few years working as a fitness trainer. The most difficult aspect of that job (besides finding the energy to choreograph 6.30 am aerobics sessions) was supporting the many women who were struggling with notions of what they thought they should look like. I was saddened to see beautiful, smart and accomplished women harbouring obsessions with getting “skinny”, holding up magazine clippings of fitness models as their motivation.
Many Muslims stress the importance of inner beauty and may make sweeping claims that hijab and modest dress codes protect and exempt us from developing unhealthy body images. Yet Muslim women are no strangers to this pressure to look good either.
A quick look at some of the postings on Muslim-focused websites, with titles like “Why every Muslim woman should own a pair of skinny jeans”, or “Thin thighs in 30 days”, makes it evident that Muslims are also perpetuating low self-esteem and reinforcing the idea that there is one desirable way to look. While we claim that the counter-culture of Islamic fashion aims to relieve us from the global media’s perceptions of beauty, some feel that we have joined forces with it, rather than combating it.
I won’t go into the well-known, numerous reasons why we should eat healthily and be moderately active, or the long-term health benefits that will indefinitely outlast physical appeal. I definitely do condone the idea that health, strength and overall wellbeing ought to be the primary goals of starting a healthy eating or fitness regime, which will benefit not only our physical body but our state of mind, too.
But while I, like most women, am tired of being reminded of the many ways that I’m apparently failing to adhere to these constructed standards of attractiveness, I’m more fearful of the damaging impacts this attitude can have on one’s spiritual wellbeing – especially when it’s presented through “Islamic” sources.
I’ve heard it repeated all too often in lectures or print advice columns on marital responsibilities: men (our husbands) are “visual creatures” and thus require us to take extra care in order to satisfy their visual needs through our appearances. But I wonder about the effect of acknowledging this claim – are we just reinforcing beliefs that men are entitled to wives who look like the women they see on television screens and in magazines?
The Muslim community is not immune to marital problems caused by partners who turn to porn, infidelity or other outlets with the justification that their spouse’s appearances just “[do] not fit the bill”.^[i] How do we even begin to confront issues like these that have the potential to cause much distress to the ones having their self-confidence torn apart?
One of the articles I mentioned above suggests that Muslim women (wives, in particular) have a responsibility to compete with the enticingly dressed non-Muslim women they see in the streets, by modelling tight-fitting skinny jeans at home for our husbands. This sort of mundane competition and narrowly defined ideals of beauty don’t seem to reflect the dignity that we claim Islam affords women.
Our Prophet (peace be upon him) reportedly loved beauty in all things, including having been known to appreciate a woman’s beauty.^[ii] However, I’d like to assume that the women of his time, who managed to sufficiently beautify themselves without fancy gym equipment, oodles of beauty products or dietary supplements, and without being held to unrealistic standards, were fancied for being natural beauties.
It is also worth noting that women in his time were reportedly advised to stay away from drastically changing their natural appearances^[iii] as well – much unlike today.
And let’s not forget that the Prophet (pbuh) reportedly said that religious character is given credence over good looks, especially when it comes to choosing a spouse.^[iv]
While it is important to aim to maintain an appropriate body fat percentage for good overall health, our appearances shouldn’t necessarily be our sole motivation. Nor is it beneficial to focus on sculpting ourselves to preconceived ideas of perfection over being healthy.
I’m not saying it’s a bad thing to want to look good. What I am saying is that I think it’s even more important for us to strive, with the best of our individual abilities, to feel good in our bodies. It doesn’t – and shouldn’t – matter whether the beautiful shapes, sizes, curves and proportions that we have been individually created in are being represented in the media.