Sizing Up The Generations "Through Thick and Thin"

As some of you may know I work in a nursing home. I work in activities, so I have a lot of interaction with the residents. In these interactions I have really learned a lot about the differences in the generations. Most recently I was sitting with a resident who was looking over some magazines. One magazine in particular caught her eye. It was one that had the actress who plays Kate from This is Us on the cover. The title was "learning to love myself." The resident didn't really seem to comprehend what exactly the title meant. To her there was no question about loving oneself, so she questioned why someone would have to learn how to love themselves. I explained to her that the actress is a large woman and has had body and self-esteem issues. Being overweight she has had to learn how to be comfortable in her own body and deal with what the media and others feel is appropriate and inappropriate. Again the resident was a bit confused. She didn't understand why the woman had issues with her body image.

It was in this moment I really thought about how the media today really has an affect on anyone. When these residents were growing up they didn't have all the social media and television and everything that today's generations have. They weren't being pushed from all directions to have the perfect body. They weren't being disgraced for not having the body that society felt was perfect. They were allowed to be themselves and didn't have all the types of media telling them what was wrong and what was right. Today we have too much pressure to have what society deems the perfect body. We should be allowed to be ourselves. We shouldn't have so much pressure that we have to learn to love ourselves, it should be able to come naturally. We should be allowed to be happy in our body no matter how big or little we are. We shouldn't be judged on our looks no matter what. Why can't we go back to when people were free to live without judgement on their looks and weight? Can't we be allowed to love ourselves naturally and not need to learn to deal with who we are?

The gap between generations is growing bigger every day. Our society and the way it views things is getting out of control. With all the various social medias we have, we have allowed others to take control of our lives. We no longer have control over our own lives. We let others control how we look, what we eat, what we do in our lives, what we wear, and even how we parent our children. What has our society become? Is this what we really want?