It seems that decades of advertising and the portrayal of women in the media has led us to believe that there is only one type of beauty in the world, the type that is toned and svelte. It’s not surprising that women feel the need to look and act a certain way, but when is it time to forget about weight loss and start to love and accept your body the way it is?

We come from a culture that obsesses with weight, and more specifically weight loss. There are endless articles on the Internet about how to drop a few extra pounds and the best way to do it, as well as motivational quotes and images. Everywhere you look it seems there is a message about health/weight loss/beauty, but those three things are not interlinked.

Here's why you should stop obsessing and start living life: We need to remember that we are all different.

Women come in different shapes and sizes, bodies vary, and so do metabolisms. Being naturally bigger is not a bad thing, there is no need to compare yourself to someone else just because she has a smaller frame.

Being healthy means eating well and being active, it doesn’t mean fitting into a certain dress size—which is often unrealistic, because the women portrayed in the media have a very different body type. Once you understand and accept your body for the way that it is, you start to understand that what's really important, self-love.

Obsessing over weight loss is unhealthy, and constant dieting can have terrible effects on your body. According to Bustle, dieting improves your likelihood of binge-eating, and journalist Harriet Brown found s study which indicated that dieting affects your metabolism. The findings revealed that "people who have intentionally lost weight use 15 percent fewer calories than non-dieters"—which means even though you lost weight, you won't be able to eat the same amount of calories as someone naturally the same size as you. You will always need to have fewer calories to maintain your weight loss.

This proves that dieting is a vicious cycle and that the weight loss is usually temporary. Exhausting, isn’t it? So, instead of obsessing, hating your body, and being constantly depressed, it’s time to enjoy your food, smash your scale, and start realizing that life is more important than a couple of digits.

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