“Lets go to the beach, beach” sings Nicki Minaj.
If only going to the beach was as carefree for most people as she makes it sound. My Voucher Codes recently compiled some jigsaw style images of what men and women said would be their ideal “beach bodies”. With the “ideal” man being made up of the body parts of David Beckham, Frank Lampard, Jack Wilshere and Tom Hardy and the “ideal” female being made up of K-Mid, Holly Willoughby, Lucy Meck and Cheryl Fernandez-Versini’s credentials it’s not hard to see that combining the “ideal” leaves us for from the intended. Afterall, there’s no such thing as “ideal” or “the perfect beach body”.
Many people dread that inevitable beach body reveal when on their summer holiday, but it isn’t just women who worry about getting their body parts out on parade. Would you believe that the biggest beach hang up is a persons stomach? At the body confidence stage I’m at now, I’m pretty gutted I haven’t been on a beach holiday this year and had the chance to don what the industry calls a “fatkini” but a few years ago it was a whole different story. When I get stressed I getting that horrible acid feeling in my stomach that only the mini Gaviscon men an extinguish and I remember once giving myself acid reflux from dwelling too much on the big beach reveal. I envisioned the moment I dropped my stylish kaftan coverup to reveal a stomach shaping and banger enhancing one piece which was carefully selected from BHS as some kind of Diet Coke moment… but with stares of horror rather than desire. Out would come my (several) pound of flesh and kids would stop mid icecream lick, men would stop applying sun cream to their wifes back, a young couple would stop frolicking in the surf… all to turn their heads and fix their eyes on my too wobbly belly and thighs that jiggled when I quickened up my walk to avoid the bare foot sand burn. In reality, I dropped my kaftan and nobody blinked. Nobody looked up and nobody even cared. Ice cream licking, sun cream applying and frolicking continued and I went about my business wondering why I had panicked for so long about what a beach full of complete strangers would think about what I look like in a swimsuit.
Because if those survey results are to be believed, most (if not all) of the people on that beach were worrying about exactly the same thing as I was when in reality we should all have been worrying about how long it would take to work our way through the beach bar cocktail menu. Y’know, the important stuff.
It’s so odd how we judge ourselves so much. I have exactly the same issue when on the beach; worried about my cellulite, stretch marks, wonky toe nails and pasty white skin- but then I look at other ladies and see similar and I don’t think anything bad about them. They are all just bodies and each one is different. Why am I so worried about my own? Odd isnt its!
Miss Tulip x
The Thrifty Magpies Nest