Love Your Body or Get the Body You Want?

Recently I've seen a lot of publicity about "loving your body." Celebrities are criticizing photoshop; actors are refusing to lose weight; bloggers are blogging about falling in love with their fat. In direct contrast to this, there are those who insist that you should never be satisfied until you are the strongest, fittest person in every room you enter; there are countless memes instructing you to beat yourself up (literally) until you achieve the shape you see in magazines, and there are those who tell you that you will never be the right shape until you hate what you see in the mirror more than you love cake (or whatever other unhealthy habit you have). I don't see this extremism and criticism in just about any other aspect of lifestyle. Can you imagine if we started telling single people to hate being single? What if we told people that the only way they could ever find relationships was to hate being single more than they love that quirky habit that has scared off a couple potentials? What if we told them that it was wrong to want to be in a relationship and that they should learn to embrace every aspect of being single and vow to never get involved? What if single people started shaming people in relationships and people in relationships started saying that single people were evil? I propose that we can learn to love our bodies, AND work on making them healthier. The way those of us who waited longer than we wanted for a relationship had to learn to love ourselves as single people while still looking. I hated my body for years. I was told that if I hated it, I should just change it. Obviously I didn't hate it that much, or I'd do something about it. But every time I looked in the mirror and hated myself, I became more discouraged. I tried every diet and every exercise, and when it didn't fix me, I hated my body even more. Then one day I found someone who loved my body and told me every day that it was perfect. And I started to see that it wasn't so bad. So I was encouraged. And I found an eating plan and the proper medicine for the hormone imbalance I'd always struggled with, and I started to lose weight. And I was encouraged some more. As I became more encouraged, it became easier to maintain the things that worked for me. Not only that, but just by being more comfortable with my body, I started to walk and dress a bit differently, which made me feel even better. I am still not where I want to be, but now I kindof love my body. It's not an acceptance of defeat. I'm not saying, "I'm fat and I'm never changing so get over it!" and I'm not saying "I now look like a super model and everyone who doesn't is a loser." I think we need to learn to love ourselves as we are; body, mind, and soul, AND we need to realize that our current state is temporary and allow ourselves to want to get better. And while we are at it, could we extend that same acceptance to those around us?