15- Destiny D: Body Image

 

Maintaining a healthy body image is a very common struggle throughout the world. Everyone wants to change something about themselves. Most people are so insecure about their appearance that they fall into dangerous disorders. 

It is very difficult to go through the day without having to deal with some kind of backlash on the way you look. The beauty standard is to be thin, this leads to the common acceptance that thin bodies are the only pretty body type. You see this ugly belief everywhere and everywhere from social media posts to who is treated the best at school.

Too many people struggle with eating disorders, and their body image. Physical education is a class that should not be forced onto students as it can be damaging. In this class they do teach you important things like how to stay healthy, but they also push this annoying beauty standard onto the students.

Pe has one very common body image in mind for those involved, and no one is an exception. This image is enforced by the exercises that the students are required to do, all while the teacher gets to sit back and tell them how their bodies could look “better.” A grade is passed based on the “effort” the students give most of the time. Teachers can't be sure how hard someone is trying and students are often punished when they don’t get to the expected outcome. 

Pe doesn’t teach students anything other than that their bodies aren’t good enough. It should not be a requirement, because of the way it is taught and what it represents. Younger audiences are delicate. They are all still trying to figure out how they feel about themselves, and they don’t need to be instructed by such a physical class. 

I agree that it is important to teach students how to be healthy, but healthy isn’t going to look the same on everybody. In order for PE to be effective it needs to become optional and less body oriented. Those who enjoy the harder aspects of PE should still be allowed to enjoy it. 

If it is going to remain enforced there should be some kind of exception for those who don’t want to participate, or can't. Teaching students about the ways that they could exercise, what foods are healthy, and the different types of healthy bodies is a lot less damaging than teaching them that their bodies aren’t good enough. 

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