Serena Williams is on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar posing in a revealing gold dress and the image has not been retouched! Honestly this cover makes me feel happy. I am so tired of seeing the “fake” photos of women today. The exaggerated breasts, waists, and butts are completely out of hand. Women are starting to look like cartoon characters. The photoshop, filters, and plastic surgery being used to creat the image of a “perfect body” is literally skewing the way we think women are supposed to look. We are beginning to not even know what women’s bodies look like anymore. So thank you Serena for showing off in all of your natural realness! We need to see women with natural bodies. We need to stop telling women there is something wrong with their natural bodies. It’s gotten so bad that people are running out to get plastic surgery at alarming rates. The problem with plastic surgery is that women are becoming ill and dying from it.

So many women going under the knife makes it seem as if having the “perfect body” is as simple as making an appointment with your local celebrity plastic surgeon. If you know me you know I have always been against elective plastic surgery. My father was a physician and I was raised with an understandind of the dangers of surgery. If you don’t need surgery for health reasons you should avoid it.

While I know many women struggle with body image issues, (even I had to work through my own body image issues) having plastic surgery will not fix what you think about yourself and your body. Body issues and self esteem is something you have to work through in your mind, not your physical appearance.  Choosing to “fix” something through surgery to achieve the “perfect body” is a terrible idea. There is no such thing as a “perfect body.” Your body is perfect for you as it is. What is important is that you know your body is perfect for you.

We live in a society that teaches people, especially women, that if you don’t look a certain way you aren’t “beautiful.” And if you aren’t “beautiful” you can’t be “happy.” We are constantly reinforced with the idea that it is something outside of ourselves that will make us happy, that includes this false idea of the “perfect body.” That’s why the “beauty industry is such a huge business. From diets to body shapers, women with body image issues make businesses billions of dollars. That includes the medical industry. But what the medical industry isn’t telling you are the dangers that come with plastic surgery. And that’s what bothers me the most.

People are actually dying for the “perfect body.” And if they aren’t dying they are becoming ill. There is truly something wrong with this. No one should be dying for something they do not need in the first place. And what really disturbs me is how many young women are getting plastic surgery. Now that my daughter is hitting preteen age I’m adamant about making sure she loves her body as is.

And that is why seeing Serena on this cover just makes me so happy! We need more natural body women to show the world that natural bodies are beautiful and perfect as they are!

So from one Fly-Mommy to another, thank you Serena!

~Kai