Body Perception: To Talk About It Or Not To talk About It? / Percepcija tijela: razgovarati o njoj ili ne?

Recently, I've been thinking  about body perception and body positivity a lot. As much as I'm all for body positive movements and  diversity, I felt like we were perhaps talking about it too much. I wondered is it really true that everyone is unhappy with their body or is just a fashionable topic these days. I questioned whether we need that much talk about our bodies. Everyone and their grandmother talked about their struggle with accepting their body and I wasn't sure do we really need it- or to be more precise I wasn't sure do we need that kind of amount of that kind of talk. To be honest, I'm still not sure. What kind of role models are we ladies being for girls (young girls and little ones) if all we talk about is our body? What about our intellects? What about our tastes? What about our soul? Are we sending them a message that we're ultimately only a body? That it is all it matters?

U zadnje vrijeme dosta razmišljam o percepciji tijela i pozitivnom odnosu prema tijelu. Koliko god da sam za pozitivno razmišljanje o tijelu i prikaz raznolikosti, imala sam neki osjećaj da možda previše o tome razgovaramo. Pitala sam se je li istina da su baš svi nezadovoljni svojim tijelom ili je to samo moderna tema ovih dana. Pitala sam je li zaista potrebno toliko razgovarati o našim tijelima. Svi živi i neživi su pričali o svojoj borbi prihvaćanja vlastitoga tijela i nisam bila sigurna je li to nešto što je doista potrebno ili da budem preciznija, nisam bila sigurna je li nam potrebna tolika količina takvoga razgovora. Bit ću iskrena i reći da još uvijek nisam sigurna. Kakav smo mi dame uzor za mlade djevojke i djevojčice ako je sve o čemu razgovoramo naša tijela? Što je s našim intelektom? Što je sa našim ukusom? Našom dušom? Je li im šaljemo poruku da smo zapravo samo tijelo? Da je to sve što je bitno?

What kind of message are we conveying if the biggest struggle of our life is the one with our body? Shouldn't we care about other things as well? I mean, sure it is important to love's one body but is it really the most important thing? Is our relationship with our body really that important that it should come before everything else? To me that is a potentially harmful message. The message that all we should care about is our body. There are a lot of contradictory messages about what kind of body perception we should have out there, but most all of them have in common is- they're all about the body. There's a catch in there. We're not just our body. I was getting tired of it all. All that talk about how we should love our bodies, feed our bodies, take care of our bodies.  I wanted to scream: 'What about our brains? What about our soul?' Long story short, I was pretty certain I won't talk about it on my blog. Then I changed my mind. Yes, I changed my mind and decided to talk about it, so here we go.

Kakvu poruku prenosimo ako je najveća borba u našem životu ona s našim tijelom? Zar nam ne bi trebale biti bitne i druge stvari? Mislim, naravno da je bitno voljeti svoje tijelo, ali je li to stvarno najvažnija stvar? Je li naš odnos s našim tijelom toliko bitan da treba sve drugo staviti u pozadinu? To je za mene potencijalno štetna poruka. Poruka da je sve o čemu trebamo voditi računa naše tijelo. Postoji puno kontradiktornih poruka o tome kakva bi trebala biti naša percepcija tijela, ali sve te poruke imaju nešto zajedničko- sve su o tijelu. No, tu postoji kvaka. Mi nismo samo tijelo. Ukratko, već su mi sve te priče dosadile i svi ti govori o tome kako trebamo voljeti svoju tijela, hraniti svoja tijela i brinuti se o svojim tijelima. Došlo mi je da vrištim: "Što je s našim umom? Što je s našom dušom?" Može se reći da sam bila poprilično sigurna da neću o tome pisati na svome blogu. Onda sam se predomislila. Da, predomislila sam se i odlučila sam itekako pisati o tome, tako da idemo u te vode. 

Not only am I going to talk about body perception in this time and place, but I'm going to write a series of articles on this subject. Because we can't pretend that it is not something that doesn't exists. This body issue. We're constantly bombarded with information about how many people die from anorexia and obesity. We're told we need to need to do something about. But what exactly? Our society tends to believe that there must be X solution for everything and everyone. We are firm believers in the solution. Not a solution, something that can be different for everyone and may even be dependent on situation, but in the solution that must work for everyone in every situation. Be thin and you won’t get sick. Be a certain weight and all will be well. As long as you don't weight too much or too little, you've got nothing to worry about- that is the message we're often receiving. However, life is not as simple as that. We're more than a biological machine that needs to be weighted regularly to make sure it functions well. 

Ne samo da ću pričati o viđenju tijela u ovom vremenu i mjestu, neću ću o tome napisati čitav niz članaka. Jer se ne možemo pretvarati da je to nešto što ne postoji. Taj problem tijela. Stalno nas bombardiraju s time koliko ljudi umire od anoreksije i pretilosti. Govore nam da nešto moramo poduzeti u vezi toga. No, što točno? Naše društvo vjeruje da postoji X rješenje za sve i svakoga. Čvrsto vjerujemo u to rješenje. Ne u neko rješenje, nešto što može biti različito za svakoga i ovisiti o okolnostima, nego u određeno rješenje koja mora djelovati u svakoj situaciji za svakoga. Budi vitak i nećeš se razboljeti. Neki broj na vagi je sve što ti treba. Dok god ne težiš previše ili premalo, nemaš se o čemu brinuti- to je često poruka koja nam se šale. No, život nije tako jednostavan. Nismo samo nekakav biološki stroj koji treba redovito vagati da bismo bili sigurni da dobro funkcionira. 

Yes, physical health is important. Obviously, being overweight or underweight doesn't help our health situation, but there is also such a thing as mental health and that is equally important as well. Stressing over everything we eat is certainly not good for our mental health. Eating healthy is important but it is not the only thing that is important. We are more complex than that. We shouldn't value ourselves solely on base of what we eat. We need to start looking at ourselves and other human beings as human beings again and not as machines for calorie conversion. I'm sorry, but I have to add another thing- being able to use google doesn't make one a physician, alright? Everyone's a doctor these days. Everyone is telling everyone what to do with their body. One person can be told both to lose weight and gain weight a number of times in the same day, depending on perception of other people! It is true that people always exchanged 'recipes' and 'theories' about what might be good for their health, and I would even say that this is not necessarily such a bad thing, but today they seem to have taken it on a whole new level.  Today there is a body shamming virus that is spreading at alarming speed so perhaps we should exchange recipes on how to stop that. What is interesting is that every body type gets criticized at least occasionally. I'm pretty sure that noticing if someone has gained five pounds would have been considered impolite in the past, but today you'll get five opinions about your weight on your way to the store. It is like everyone is doing CAT scans of your body in their head. How do people even make time for eye contact? Everyone is a doctor, everyone's got an opinion- and even worse they think you should be grateful for their opinion.

Da, fizičko zdravlje je važno. Očito je da pretilost ili podhranjenost ne pomaže našem zdrastvenom stanju, ali postoji i mentalno zdravlje i ono je jednako važno. Nekakva prevelika briga oko svega što jedemo nije dobra za naše mentalno zdravlje. Jesti zdravo je bitno, ali nije jedina stvar koja je bitna. Složeniji smo od toga. Ne bismo se trebali vrednovati samo na temelju onoga što pojedemo. Moramo se početi promatrati, sebe i ostale, kao ljudska bića ponovo, a ne kao nekakva uređaje za preradu kalorija. Žao mi je, ali moram još nešto dodati. Korištenje googlom ne znači da je netko doktor, u redu? Svi su danas doktori. Svatko svakome govori što treba raditi sa svojim tijelom. Nekoj osobi može biti rečeno da smršavi ili se udeblja nekoliko puta u istom danu, ovisno o percepciji osobe koja joj to govori! Istina je da su ljudi uvijek imali običaj razmjene recepata i teorija o tome kako poboljšati zdravlje, ali danas je to prešlo na skroz drugi nivo.  Danas hara virus kritike na račun tijela koji se brzo širi, pa možda bi trebalo razgovarati kako ga zaustaviti. Ono što je zanimljivo je da se svaki tip tijela barem povremeno kritizira. Poprilično sam sigurna da bi se nekada prije smatralo nepristojnim primijetiti da je netko dobio dva kila, ali danas ćete dobiti pet mišljenja o svojoj težini na putu do dućana. To je kao da vam svatko regenski skenira tijelo u glavi. Kako ljudi uopće više imaju vremena za kontakt očima? Svatko je doktor, svatko ima mišljenja- i što je još gore, misle da trebate biti zahvalni na njihovom mišljenju. 

All in the name of health. All those critics about our own body and the bodies of others. Only a handful of people seem to remember that body hate can't be healthy. Neither when it is directed to ourselves, nor when it is directed to other people. People have a hard time talking about subjects such as ED or obesity without getting  emotional, and in many ways that makes perfect sense. ED, underweight condition and obesity claim lives. They are serious topics. What worries me, however, is that some people use them as an excuse for body shaming and bullying. Body shaming is never a solution. No matter what your health situation might be or what the health situation of some other person might be, you should never body shame either yourself or anyone else. We should never be ashamed of our bodies. End of story. This should be obvious but unfortunately it is not. All those warnings about anorexia seem to have only made people too zealous in their criticism- they found an excuse for body shamming. Tragic, really. Another example how deeply rooted problems can never be solved easily.  So, I guess I have to write about body perception after all. It is perhaps one of the greatest frustration of our time.

Sve u ime zdravlja. Sve te kritike svoga i tuđih tijela. Samo se nekolicina sjeti toga da mržnja prema tijelu ne može biti zdrava. Niti kada je usmjerena prema nama samima, ni kada je usmjerena prema drugim ljudima.  Ljudima je teško razgovarati o temama kao što su poremećaji prehrane ili pretilost bez da postanu emotivni i to je doista i razumljivo. Poremećaji prehrane, neuhranjenost i pretilost oduzimaju živote. To su ozbiljne teme, no ono što mene brine je to što ih neki ljudi koriste kao izliku da maltetiranje drugih ljudi i iživljavanje na njima. Nikad nije u redu nekoga posramiti zbog toga kako ugleda. Bez obzira kakva bila vaša zdrastvena situacija ili kakva bila zdrastvena situacija neke druge osobe. Nikada se ne bi trebali sramiti svojih tijela. Kraj priče. To bi trebalo biti očito, ali nažalost nije. Sva ta upozorenja o anoreksiji samo su učinile ljude previše revnima u kritici- pronašli su izliku za posramljivanje drugih. Tragično, doista. Još jedan primjer kako se duboko ukorijenjeni problemi ne mogu jednostavno riješiti. Izgleda da ipak moram pisati o percepciji tijela. To je možda jedna od najvećih frustracija našega doba. 

Speaking about body perception, wouldn't it be nice if we could just see human bodies as being natural? Would it be nice to be able to say- I see every body as being beautiful in its own way. As being natural. Nature is beautiful. For many, it is beautiful by definition. Because it is natural. Human body should thus be beautiful by definition. Wouldn't it be also great to say: 'I don't feel the need for everyone to find me attractive.' Wouldn't that be liberating as well?  What is with this modern need to be attractive to everyone? Why do we need to feel approved by others on basis of our visual appearance? There are a lot of fighters for body diversity and body positive movements out there and some of them are doing a good job (while others are just promoting themselves and their particular body type), but let’s take a step back for a second. Why do we feel the need for others to perceive us as beautiful? Why shouldn’t we let them have their own sense of aesthetic that doesn’t include us? Why should be desperately fight for everyone to see a certain body type (often ours) as beautiful?  Why does  almost every promoter of curvy bodies feels the need to put down slim and skinny women? Why can't we just live and let live? Let's be a lot more polite and and a lot less know-it-alls when it comes to subject of other people and their bodies. Let's start with ourselves and reexamine our body perception. 

Kada već govorim o percepciji tijela, zar ne bi bilo lijepo kada bismo jednostavno vidili ljudska tijela kao nešto prirodno? Zar ne bi bilo lijepo reći, vidim svako tijelo kao lijepo na svoj način. Vidim svako tijelo kao nešto prirodno. Priroda je lijepa. Za mnoge, lijepa je po definiciji. Zato jer je prirodna. Tako bi i ljudsko tijelo trebalo biti lijepo po definiciji. Zar ne bi bilo odlično reći: " Nemam potrebu da me svi smatraju privlačnim/privlačnom?" Zar to ne bi bilo oslobođavajuće? Što je uopće s ovom modernom potrebom da budemo svima privlačni? Zašto imamo potrebu za tuđim odobravanjem na temelju našega izgleda? Postoji puno boraca za raznolikost tijela i pozitivan odnos prema tijelu i neki zaista čine dobre stvari (dok drugi samo promoviraju sebe i svoj izgled tijela), ali zakoračimo unatrag na sekundu. Zašto uopće imamo potrebu da nas drugi vide kao lijepe? Zašto im ne bismo dopustili da imaju svoju estetiku koja nas ne uključuje? Zašto bismo se trebali očajnički boriti za to da se svaki tip tijela (često nas) vidi kao lijep? Zašto skoro svaki promotor oblih tijela ima potrebu omaložavati vitke i mršave žene? Zašto ne možemo jednostavno živjeti i pustiti druge da žive?  Hajdemo biti puno pristojniji i puno manje pametnjakovići kada su tuđa tijela u pitanju. Krenimo od sebe i preispitajmo svoju percepciju tijela. 

Medium: markers on paper ( I decided to try something new). How do you like these drawings? It's been a while since I drew with markers and these ones were OLD but still I got what I wanted.

Medij: makeri na papiru (odlučila sam probati nešto novo). Kako vam se sviđaju ovu crteži. Odavno nisam crtala s markerima, a ovi su baš bili stari, ali dobila sam što sam htjela. 

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