What's the skinny

The sun is shining, spring is in the air and students are nestled all snug in their beds while visions of boozy spring breaks dance in their heads.

There is, however, a noticeable anxiety that comes with springtime. Starting in January, the Ora L. Wildermuth Intramural Center and the Student Recreational Sports Center are crowded with an unusual force. A few brave souls even venture outside to do their athletics. Little flocks of runners start to sprout up along the sidewalks.

Retail stores begin blooming with flowery, terrifying new styles of swimwear, with straps appearing and disappearing in places you never even imagined. Women’s magazines begin touting covers emblazoned with bold pink text, promising instruction about how to “lose the winter weight” and “get the perfect beach body.”

While our hemisphere heats up, these magazines always have that promising “Swim Suits for Every Body Type!” feature, which, in actuality, encompasses perhaps three to four body types.

When I was a 12-year-old girl first discovering these women’s magazines, I knew the truth. There were really only two acceptable swimsuit types among middle school girls.

There were those bold enough to sport bikinis and the slightly more modest girls who went the tankini route. If you weren’t concerned about ostracizing yourself socially at every pool party for the next three years, you let your mom pick out an oversized one-piece for you and called it a day.

So what does it all mean? Let’s break it down, starting with the typical types: slim, athletic, pear-shaped, busty and the infamous “curvy.”

Despite the encompassing spread of conventionally attractive body types, there was no category at the time for “5-foot tall, boxy sixth grader with weirdly muscular legs.” There was, however, the dreaded, loaded, conflicting “curvy.”

This body type was always paired with the more conservative styles, often going just short of giving your swimsuit full sleeves and a hood. Maybe a full cape would have been an interesting addition to the tankini-swim-skirt combo. It was before the dawn of stylish one-pieces, so what was a girl to do when comparing herself to the hourglass figure in the magazine?

Looking back on all of those years of frustration and anxiety, I feel ridiculous. Why, as a tween girl, was I even trying to imagine myself in the body of an adult woman? As the weather warms, it becomes increasingly apparent that most of us have not escaped that feeling of middle-school pool-party dread.

If there is one thing I don’t look forward to every summer, it is the dramatic increase in body-negative language I hear from my friends and peers. I can’t help but observe the various levels of unhealthy behavior and discomfort people put themselves through just to feel confident in a few triangles of nylon.

Don’t sacrifice your personal wellbeing to your insecurities. Take in all of the warm, sweet, languid character of springtime. Let the sunlight reset your jumbled circadian rhythm, and remember, you are beautiful.

­— alliston@indiana.edu