By Sarah Nathalie Weber
Body Shaming
Self - Love
Acceptance
Issue no.: 1
Table of Contents
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Editor’s Letter
A Curvey Woman’s Point of View
Body Positive Art
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Movie to Watch
Another Aspect of Body Shaming
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Why Yoga is Always a Good Idea
A Friendly Reminder
4 Easy Steps to Start Gaining Self-Love
Editor’s Letter Welcome to the 1st issue of Pose for Me. This zine celebrates the female body in all shapes, sizes, and colours and teaches us the importance of self-love and acceptance. I know most women feel uncomfortable in their own bodies and have low self-esteem in some sort of level. So do I. We don’t like to show off our curves and small imperfections. But why not? We should all feel comfortable in our own bodies and appreciate our flaws and imperfections, rather than despising them. All women are beautiful and different from each other, which is what makes us unique and amazing. We all deserve the feeling of being good enough and to feel comfortable in the body we have. For this issue of Pose for Me, I would like to provide you with an interesting interview and a small Q&A, with dear friends of mine, who both have experienced the cruelness of body shaming and the scares it leaves. I will also be exploring the benefits of practicing yoga, as well as encourage you to start gaining more self-love in order for you to accept your body. I have also decided to analyse an amazing body positive illustration, by the talented artist Stephanie DeAngels, who we should all keep an eye for in the future, since her illustrations are fascinating. Recommend you a fantastic movie to watch on the days you feel sad, is also on my agenda on materials to provide you, to spoil you as much as possible. I hope you will enjoy this issue of Pose for Me and hopefully find yourself a richer and happier person. Lots of love, Sarah Weber Editor-in-chief
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A Curvy Woman’s Point of View
Q&A with Mathilde Pedersen
What is your occupation? Unemployed. I’m just waiting for next fall so I can get started on my dream education. Name: Mathilde Louise Pedersen Age: 22 Where are you from? A very small town called Hyllebjerg located in North Jutland in Denmark.
Which education did you take? I went to something called gymnasium. It’s similar to high school. How many siblings do you have? I have 5 siblings. 1 big sister and 4 big brothers. Best place to eat? There is this great place in Aalborg called Falafel House. They make the best falafel ever.
First job? Dishwasher at a restaurant.
Favourite movie? I would have to say the kid’s movie “Peter Pan”.
Current job? Unemployed, unfortunately.
Favourite book? The first edition of “Peter Pan” I’m a really big fan of the whole story behind it and I just can’t get enough of it.
Dream job? Either a photographer or musician. I am not sure yet and still have to figure it out. Favourite food? I looooove chocolate.
Favourite colour? Easy, that’s red. Are you a dog or a cat person? Cat. No dog person. I can’t choose. I like both cats and dogs. Which social media outlets do you use? I mostly use Instagram, but I am also a regular user of both Facebook and Snapchat.
How would you describe your personal style? Pretty casual and a bit boring. I like to wear black/dark colours clothing. Where do you see yourself in 5 years? I’m actually hoping to have moved to England and working as either a photographer or musician. I just want to be happy and live my life the fullest. What kind of exercise do you practice? Right now, I have an injury and therefore not able to exercise, which makes me really upset. I normally exercise cardio twice a week, boxing once a week, and strength training twice a week as well. What is your opinion about body shaming? I believe body shaming is the human way of gaining more self-confident. By pointing out other people’s imperfections, they make themselves feel better about their own flaws and body.
Which part do you like & why? I really like my smile, my eyes, and my face in general. You can tell the story of each individuals by looking at their faces. I find this very fascinating and therefore appreciate my face and the story it tells people I meet on my way. If you were to change anything about yourself, what would it be? As I mentioned earlier, I’m not a big fan of my belly. I used to be really big and have tried to lose weight a bunch of times. Sometimes I succeeded, but after a while, I would gain weight again. My body and skin have therefore been under a lot of pressure, by gaining and losing a lot of weight, so the skin on my belly has not been able to follow up on all the changes. I always have this is mind when I’m picking out new clothing, and I don’t feel comfortable in bathing suits.
On a scale from 1-10, how confident are you? Has anyone ever body shamed you & what did I would say a solid 7. I know that I am a they say? fantastic person, even though I might forget Yes, unfortunately. I have been called; fat, from time to time. ugly, and wrong many times throughout Do you like to look yourself in the mirror? my life. YES! I always start off my day by winking to What part of your body do you not like &why? myself in the mirror. I’m not afraid of what I see in the mirror anymore, because I have My belly, because I have loose skin and started accepting my body as it is. stretchmarks after gaining and losing a lot of weight. 3 4
Body Positive Art
Illustration by Stephanie DeAngelis
Stephanie DeAngelis creates stunning body positive illustrations of chic women relaxing at home in a lovely colour palette. She has a great passion for storytelling and wants to portray women in the female form within art. She finds her inspiration for her illustrations from her plants, any food in noodle form, and funk music from the 70’s. This illustration of a naked women relaxing and eating pizza is to find on Stephanie DeAngelis’ Instagram feed with the caption: `Nightly habits of highly successful woman.´ The woman is as mentioned before naked and in a relaxing position. From the way she is posing, you can tell that she is not ashamed of her female curves. She is actually really proud of her curves and don’t want to hide her eating habits of pizza. Even though pizza is a fast food, and probably not the healthiest choice, the women is still eating it, probably because she likes it and doesn’t care about gaining a few extra pounds. She eats want she wants and not what society tells her is appropriate. Stephanie DeAngelis is therefore encouraging women to be proud of their bodies through her illustrations. She is portraying women as beautiful and sexy, despite of their curves and want all women to love their bodies as they are. To find out more about Stephanie DeAnglis and her amazing illustrations, we recommend you to visit her website; www.stephaniedeangelis.com
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Movie to Watch For this issue of Pose for Me, we would like to recommend a fantastic movie for you to watch. We know the movie is a bit old, since it came out in 2018, but we just can’t get over it. This is the “go to” movie after a hard breakup, bad day at the office, or horrible shopping day. We love how the movie always encourage us to think better about ourselves and how it makes us feel unstoppable.
falling of her bike and hit her head instead. She knocks herself unconscious and wakes up feeling completely different than before. She now sees herself as a new and beautiful person and loves her self-reflection in the mirror.
She starts acting more confident about herself and applies for her dream job as a receptionist at the head office of Lilly LeClair. Her new confident allows her to do wonderful things such as entering If you haven’t already guessed which movie we a bikini competition, invite a guy out, gain a lot of are talking about, it is of course the movie attention by everyone she meets, and have a lot of called; `I Feel Pretty´, starring the wonderful and influence on her job. But as quick as she amazing actress Amy Schumer. In the movie, gained all her new confident, as quick it she works at the make-up brand; Lilly LeClair, disappeared again. She then ends up where she but instead of actually working at the head office started. Feeling all small and ashamed of her in midtown, she is hidden away in a cellar room, appearance. In the end of the movie, she finds out, with another “unattractive” male colleague. that she had been herself all the time. She is very ashamed of her appearance and She never changed appearance as she thought, doesn’t like her body at all. She makes a lot of but just gained a lot of confident, so she could attempts to make herself prettier, but it never turns be herself without being scared of other people’s out the way she wants it to. After watching a ton opinion of her. of hairstyle tutorials on YouTube and trying to work out at the local SoulCycle, she decides to Even though we have revealed a lot of the stay inn and watch a movie. The movie inspires movie to you, we still think it’s worth a watch. her to through a coin into the local fountain in the So why don’t you snuggle up in front of the TV middle of the night, while saying out loud; tonight with a bowl of popcorn, soda and “I wish I was pretty.” The morning after she maybe a big creasy pizza, while watching a wants to give SoulCycle another try, since the great movie, that will make you feel pretty? wish of being pretty didn’t work, but she ends up 7 8
Another Aspect of Body Shaming Interview with Laura Jørgensen
When we talk about body shaming, we often associate it with overweight, cellulite and stretchmarks and often forget about the other aspects of it. One of those aspects involves being skinny. I have a friend, Laura Jørgensen, who as a young teenager was very skinny. She often experienced being called “too skinny” by strangers and used to be force-fed with cookies and cakes by her grandparents when visiting them. Laura is, however, still tall and very slender, even though she has gained more female curves. At her job, she is still being asked to eat another cream cake by her colleagues. She is now 19 years old and is studying Fashion Media and
Communication at London College of Fashion before returning to Denmark to continuing studying. Since Laura has always been used to living in Denmark and experience body shaming there, it really surprised her when she came to London.
“I feel the whole atmosphere is very different here compared to Denmark. I don’t feel the same negative approach towards body shaming, as I do back home. The people here seem to be more accepting about other people’s appearances. That makes me really happy.”
Laura says with a smile on her lips. She doesn’t meet the same negative responses about her body, as when she lived in Denmark. Laura feels more relaxed and is not worrying about what other people think of her. Even though she doesn’t experience body shaming in London on the same level as back home, she still believes that body shaming is a big problem in society in general and says: “Many people experience body shaming while walking down the streets. The people they are passing are either verbally calling them out or looking at them with disgust on their bodies.”
This bad behaviour is obviously unacceptable, but unfortunate the truth. Some people have the struggle of keeping their opinions and thoughts to themselves. Growing up being underweight and always having to listen to other people telling her to gain more weight, she had a hard time accepting her own body. “I used to be very unsatisfied with my whole body, because I was very skinny and wanted parts of my body to be curvier and more feminine,” she says with a sad look on her face. It is very obvious to tell, that it has been a big problem for her and made her unhappy in the past. It then really pleased me to hear the following words from her; “However, I have over the couple of years grown into accepting how my body is shaped and I now enjoy watching myself in the mirror after getting all dressed up.”
Laura is today overall happy about her appearance and accepts her body as it and isn’t as concerned about other people’s opinions anymore. She still has some small imperfections, that she would like to change, as the size of her hands since she believes they are too big.As she has accepted her body as it is, she encourages other to do the same.
“I think, that all bodies are beautiful and worth of love, no matter the look and shape. I believe that confidence is the best outfit, whether you are curvy, skinny, tall or small,”
Even though we never intent to body shame one another, we need to keep our choice of words in mind. We might often be concerned about other people’s appearance when they seem unhealthy skinny and especially when it comes to the people we love. But maybe they are already aware of it and trying their best to gain weight. We therefore need to be more careful when stating our concerns and keep our opinions to ourselves. Then we will not end up body shaming anyone.
Laura says at the end of our conversation, while opening the door to the hallway, to go for a run.
*Illustration of Laura Jørgensen
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4 Easy Steps to Start Gaining
Self-Love
1st step: Stop comparing yourself to other women We see beautiful women every day, and it’s so easy to compare ourselves with them and then immediately feel embarrassed of our own body. But we need to keep in mind, that they have imperfections too. They, as yourself, have flaws as they are not proud of. Flaws they wish they could change. Instead of comparing yourself to these women start admiring them. Admire their confident and self love. Learn from them. 2nd step: Stop criticizing yourself Finding negative things about your body, is always much easier than finding positive things. We women always seem to be focusing on our flaws rather than our strengths. But what is the point of criticizing ourselves? The only achievement we reach, is to feel even more sad about ourselves and our looks. 3rd step: Look yourself in the mirror and allow yourself to think positive thoughts about your own image It can be very hard to look yourself in the mirror without felling embarrassed and sad. All we see is our flaws and imperfections. But try to stand in front of the mirror and take a really good look. If you are not confident about looking at your body, then look yourself in the eyes. Say out loud positive thoughts like; “I am good enough, I am beautiful, I am sexy, I am confident, I am perfect, etc.” You might not believe these words, but once you get a hang of it, you will start to believe them. Trust me. 4th step: Remember you are not alone Always keep in mind, that you are not alone about felling insecure and embarrassed of your own body. Ask any woman. We all have some flaws we are not proud of. We all wish to change a few things. Having the feeling of being too fat, too skinny, or too asymmetrical is natural. Being satisfied with ourselves is very hard and require a lot of practice. But we will get there, one step at the time. 11
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Why Yoga is Always a Good Idea Yoga has been a huge trend among a large percentage of people throughout the entire world the last couple of years. But why? As you probably already know, yoga is a very good exercise to lose weight and increase your flexibility. But it also has other benefits.
It makes you happier Yes, it’s true. Yoga does make you happier. While you are practicing yoga and trying your very best to perform all the different and difficult poses, it helps bring a smile on your lips. You will, however, need to practice yoga consistently, to reach a consistent happier you.
It helps you focus Do you ever find yourself being unbelievable bad at focussing on your job or during school? If yes, you should probably consider yoga. By practicing yoga regularly, you learn to distract yourself from your thoughts and to be more present, which will play a huge role in increasing your ability to focus.
It increases your self-esteem This is the most important benefit of practicing yoga, if you ask us. We always want you to feel the best and be happy about yourself. Yoga has the quality of letting you access a different side of yourself and feel forgiveness as well as being part of something bigger, if you let yourself be patient and practice yoga with the intention of self-examination. We hope, you have become more aware of the benefits of yoga and now acknowledge why yoga is always a good idea. 13
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A Friendly Reminder Remind yourself daily of how special you are and that you are good enough, no matter what other people might say. Live your life the way it makes you happy and always remember to be yourself every step on the way. Eat the food you love. Wear the clothes you fancy, and dance like nobody is watching. Your life is yours to live. Enjoy it!
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Price: £ 8