This Video Will Change Your Ideas About Your Body

I know in my head that stunning celebrities and wafer-thin super models are basically genetic freakshows. I understand that the average human body looks nothing like what we see on runways and in movies and in the pages of magazines. I know that comparing my legs to those of Heidi Klum is akin to a Welsh Corgi comparing herself to a Greyhound and that's okay because Corgis are freaking adorable! They don't need to look like lean, lithe Greyhounds in order to maintain considerable appeal! And I also understand that said celebrities and supermodels have considerably more motivation to achieve these flawless physiques given their place in the public eye and their professional obligation to be attractive — not to mention the fact that their bank accounts and professional connections allow for intense trainers and fancy skin treatments and those super-secret anti-aging hyperbaric chambers and fountains of youth I'm convinced people like Sandra Bullock and Michele Pfeiffer sleep in each night and drink from each morning.

But, a video posted this week by Upworthy further drives home another reason why we should not compare ourselves to these images of 'ideal' beauty. What if these perfect bodies (assuming that the overriding idea of perfect is a thin, long-limbed, toned, smooth-skinned, symmetrical creature) aren't, in the flesh, 'perfect'? What if those people who appear to be the most perfect aren't even perfect enough for those creating glossy advertisements and magazine spreads? What if the media-perpetuated perfect body doesn't even exist in reality? I've always known about the ubiquity of airbrushing but this minute-long video shows the leg-lengthening, eye-enlargening, collar bone-enhancing absurdity of it all. Don't feel badly that you don't look like a supermodel. Maybe supermodels don't even look like supermodels.