Jessica Smith’s is starting a body image revolution, by writing a book for 5 year olds.
When I was growing up there were no characters in books or on television that looked like me. I grew up with Barbie and Disney Princesses. There was no diversity in the characters I saw, just beautiful flawless females who I aspired to look like.
But that was never going to happen.
I was born missing my left arm – my parents were devastated and told by doctors that it was simply ‘one of those things’.
When I was 18 months old, doctors advised my parents to have me fitted with my first prosthetic limb. Unfortunately while struggling to get used to it, I accidently knocked boiling water on myself and suffered third degree burns to 15% of my body. Not the easiest start to life.
I grew up looking and feeling different – in a society where so much emphasis is placed on physical appearance and the desire for perfection – I felt isolated and alone. I struggled to understand and come to terms with my identity and physical appearance. I had no control over the fact that I had one arm or significant scaring; I certainly didn’t ask to look this way. So, I convinced myself that I needed to attain perfection in every other aspect, anything I could control I did. I starved myself believing it was the only way to feel accepted within society. I thought that if I could just have a body like the models I saw on TV and in the magazines then maybe people would see past my other obvious ‘imperfections’. Maybe then I’d be ‘normal’.
At 14 I was diagnosed with anorexia, bulimia and major depression. I of course kept all this hidden … and battled with these secret illnesses for almost a decade longer.
I was in my early 20’s I hit rock bottom and was hospitalised, spending six weeks in a rehab facility in Sydney.
My hospitalisation came as a shock to many, because I had been deceiving those closest to me for many years. On the outside my life seemed wonderful, I was a successful swimmer travelling around the world representing Australia and I was a high achiever academically on scholarship at university completing a science degree.
Regardless of our physical appearance we are ALL subconsciously and consciously pressured to conform to societal beauty and body ideals. The constant barrage of negatives messages and images that we are fed via the media has fundamentally resulted in generations of people who believe they aren’t perfect and therefore should hate who they are and the way they look.
So I decided that I had to do more.
For more pictures of Jessica Smith and the incredible things she gets up to…(Post continues after gallery.)
Jessica Smith
I toyed with the idea of writing a biography, with the aim of putting pen to paper to share my story to inspire others.
Top Comments
As a primary school teacher, I found it difficult to explore the topic of diversity with my students because there was such a lack of picture story books that engaged the students. Because of this I had a group of students who decided to create their own book and published it to the iBooks store. You can check out their book via the link on their blog post. http://anappleaday.global2....
Thank you for being such an inspiration and for sharing your story! Your book will be read in thousands of classrooms for many years to come!