Would you ever base your self esteem on whether or not you can run a marathon in Olympic time, or execute a perfect triple lutz ? Of course not—because you aren’t trying to be an Olympians.
So why in the world do we base our self esteem on whether or not we can look like a Victoria’s secret model—a group of women chosen for their genetics and their willingness to spend a ton of time and energy to look a certain way. A compilation of tweets show women lamenting the loss of self-esteem and proclaiming their body hatred after watching the VS fashion show. It makes no sense that we would base our self-esteem on whether we can grow taller, or change our bone structure or have the genetics to be incredibly thin, but that’s exactly what we’re doing when we look at models and feel bad about ourselves. Victoria’s Secret models are a genetic anomalies.
I would much rather spend that energy learning to see the beauty in everyone and waiting for Victoria’s Secret to do the same.
A version of this story originally appeared on iVillage.