Body Image

"Body Image involves our perception, imagination, emotions, and physical sensations of and about our body"

I have never thought about body image being a problem for African American Women. In fact I personally feel that we are the most comfortable with our bodies. The only things that come to mind as being a complex of body image for black women is with hair and skin color. There is this whole issue of who has good hair and who has bad hair. Then we have the light skinned women vs. dark skinned women. I myself can admit to feeling inferior because I was dark skinned. Let me put out the disclaimer that this was a very BRIEF moment in my life. But, body image is all about one thing, and that is loving yourself. It's ok to benchmark, competition is probably the only thing keeping individuals afloat. However, we cannot look at everyone we see and then look back at ourselves and ask the question "Am I ok?" Thanks to the media, oppression from the dominant white patriarchal society, and bad parenting we now have what you would call self haters, otherwise known as anorexics, bulimics, bleachers, obsessive weave and relaxer wearers, and yes dare I say it tanners. What is it with people? Is no one happy with themselves???!!!!