I might make a few enemies here by knocking the whole thinspo concept, but I’d just like to weigh in on something I just noticed. Please don’t go harassing the tumblr this is from, especially not on my account. Really.

So, missswoonypants is back (huzzah), but on a new tumblr. (You all can find her here.) The reason she doesn’t have her old name is that it appears to have been taken by another blogger, from whom I have reblogged this image. Once again, do not harass the blogger to give up the name back to Swoony. And, please, please, do not harass the blogger about the content of their tumblr. (Trigger warning: Severely skinny people, encouragement to an appearance of near starvation, the blog itself in its description acknowledges that it is “unhealthy”.)

Now, I’ve got a pretty big problem with the nature of that tumblr, but I’ve got a problem with this image as well. For a pretty stupid reason. A rhinoceros isn’t a horse.

Hear me out here.

I’m about 5’1. Both of my parents are overweight. Maintaining a healthy weight was a huge struggle for me a while with a lot of yoyoing between being underweight and overweight. I was friends with a little of tall, skinny girls in middle school and high school. While I started out very skinny because of a childhood illness, I got curves fast once I became healthy and went through puberty and it scared me shitless.

I went between a lot of unhealthy habits. Emotional eating, starving myself, setting unrealistic goals for myself that didn’t even make sense. I would see my tall, skinny friends and then look at myself and not see the inherent value of my own body. My butt was too big and my legs were too short and I would go between trying so hard to just get bone skinny and getting so frustrated that I couldn’t be that I would just eat and think “fuck it, may as well embrace this crap”.

I’m at a healthy weight now and an ideal BMI. I’m at a great place fitness-wise. I kickbox, I run, I lift weights, I dance. I have jogged across a major bridge both ways. I was confident enough to put up a picture of my chest and arms on here. There are hiccups here and there where I sit around and think, gosh, I wish I was about five inches taller and had a smaller butt, etc etc. 

But the fact stands that you can’t turn a rhinoceros into a unicorn because, even at its best, a rhinoceros isn’t meant to be a unicorn. Its body is built for other purposes. The way it is made serves it perfectly. It couldn’t do rhinoceros things if it was a unicorn.

Not to mention, oh yeah, unicorns don’t exist. They’re fantastical creatures somebody dreamed up.

So, you know, I see my friends and see how their bodies serve them. And then I’ve seen myself outrun them, out-lift them, etc. I can see how my body serves me, when I respect it and use it for good and don’t expect it to suddenly grow another four inches and flatten out in some places.

I guess I’m just asking you all to be the best you that you can be. I’m sorry for the cheesy. I promise I’ll go back to the smut.