In the essay “Chicken Hips” by Catherine Pigott, she discussed the pressure of society, and how, in context, they were pressured to think that the only way they could be appreciated was to succumb to society. I disagree that, for Catherine, joining the gym was a good idea. First of all, Catherine claims that while she was in Gambia, “it was obvious [she] fell far short of their ideal of beauty”. While being in Gambia, Catherine noticed that the skinnier the American people were, the more “the Ideal they represented no longer made sense”.
She had realized that to be beautiful she did not need to try to be like the other girls she saw, but just to be herself and be happy with whom she is. Catherine also claims that she felt like she could be herself in Gambia because people didn’t judge her there and they just tried to get her to eat more and be more ”big”. She felt as if they didn’t judge her as much as the people did back home. Even though she said such things… she secretly didn’t feel like herself, so when she got back home, she went to the gym.
Another reason as to why she went to the gym was because she felt like everybody was judging her for her looks and thinking that she should be skinnier. I agreed with her decision to go to the gym because it is a healthier choice than dieting to make [Catherine] skinnier, but even though I agree with that… I disagree with the whole choice because she should feel safe in her own skin and love who she is, Not who everyone wants or makes her to be. She will not be able to love who she is if she can’t realize that no one is perfect. Like everyone around me always says: “If you can’t love yourself, you can’t love anyone else”.
