This is coming from a girl who used to have a very successful thinspo tumblr. I was a full supporter of it for a long time, and I looked down my nose at people who said “Thinspo is unhealthy!” thinking they just didn’t get it.
Yeah there’s the argument that thinspo is pretty warped, because it creates a world of unnatural people to compare with, people shot in the best light on their best day, after working day in and day out to look their best. But that’s not the argument I’m gonna address now.
The main problem with using thinspo to lose weight is that losing weight takes time. And every time you look at a picture of a thin person, it reinforces to you that you are not that person and that your body is unacceptable.
And if you tell yourself that every day, then every day you will be checking and re-checking to see if your body makes the cut.
And every day you will be disappointed. Because (I repeat), losing weight takes time.
But we are a society of people who want results and want them NOW. Without the hassle, without the patience it takes to get results.
If you were to show a child practicing an instrument a professional musician and say “This is where you need to be” and every day make them watch that musician and ask “Are you there yet? Why aren’t you there? You lazy bastard,” that child would eventually hate the instrument, find no joy in music, and think themselves incapable of the talent it takes to learn an instrument.
This is what we do to ourselves with thinspo.
You know how I finally lost weight? I ended up not giving a shit how I looked. I ignored my body. I ignored obsessing over calories and working out and crying after I ate an ice cream cone because “my whole week is ruined.”
Yeah, there’s the argument that thinspo creates low self-esteem by making an inattainable body image the standard. There’s that.
But there’s also the fact that thinspo just doesn’t really work. It makes you crazy. It makes you obsessive. And it keeps you from losing weight the correct way, because every day you don’t meet the “standard” is a day that you spend figuring out what more you can do to get there (starve more, work out more, obsess more).
I say, fuck this.
Make a stand. For yourself, for your body. Stop looking at it, stop comparing yourself to it. If you want to lose weight, fine, lose weight.
But for God’s sake, don’t do yourself the disservice of using thinspo as a weight loss method.
Revolutionary thinking? Probably not. But it could make a big difference in your life. I know, because it did in mine.
<3elle
