Forms of Rhetoric: Body Composition

As a health writer with a particular interest in body image, one of the issues that crops up time and again for people who are trying to come to terms with themselves has to do with body composition.

Body composition refers to how we look and how the body distributes our weight. Three people of the exact same height can all look (and be!) a healthy weight, even if the variations in weight between them are 10 or 15 lbs. The reason for this is body composition: everyone has different amounts of fat and muscle, and we all carry that fat and muscle differently depending on where we store fat. Our body shape can be a determinant in how big or small we appear, due to proportion. So, one contributing factor is based on body shape, which is likely going to be due almost entirely to genetics (and therefore be nearly impossible to change). Another major factor is how we present and hold ourselves- and this is something which we can change, if we so desire.

This is where the rhetoric comes in to play. When we are aware of how our individual bodies distribute the fat and muscle, we can project confidence or insecurity depending on how we carry ourselves. Although we all know that we shouldn’t “judge a book by its cover”, it is human nature to make quick assumptions based on first impressions. This is unavoidable. We can minimize the potential for poor judgments to be cast upon us if we perceive ourselves as looking professional and confident, because if we perceive ourselves to be this way, we will become this way.

Even if you are unhappy with your body composition and are having difficulty coming to terms with it, you can trick yourself into changing your own perspective. Dressing in sloppy or too-small clothing is not going to make yourself feel as good as it will if you wear clothes which are appropriately fitted to your body shape. When you accurately assess yourself in the mirror and are honest about how you feel about yourself and why you feel that way, you can take the necessary steps to reacquaint yourself with the body you’re in, and to figure out how best to present yourself to the world to project precisely what it is that you wish to project.