LatinX Body Image

Throughout my years of observation, one of the things I have noticed within the Latino community is how much emphasis they put on the visual appearance of the human body. It is so important that it is almost one of the first things that my family mentions when greeting. "Tu te vez mas flacka hoy mija. Tu tiene que dejar de comer mucho porque tu te vez un chin gorda mija. Tu tiene que comer mas Wellington." So on and so on. While I do believe that people, in general, should watch the quality of food they consume, especially in this country when they are basically feeding us literal poison, too much emphasis on the physical appearance can cause low self-esteem. For the most part in Latino culture, women and men have certain ideal body images to strive for, each country with their own preferred body type. Focussing too much on the bodily appearance can hinder some people from going out and accomplishing greater things because that will always be a flaw of theirs in the back of their head. In the discussion, one woman mentioned how when she went to Egypt to meet her fiance's family, they were focused on the baby hairs that she had. That was interesting to hear because apart from the hair on your head, I personally never witnessed such an emphasis on body hair in Latino communities. It was interesting to see what other cultures find more relevant than other things in terms of the physical body.