Scarleteen

Hi!

I keep getting stretch marks on my legs and bum and I don't know whether that's normal? I'm 15 and I'm a girl and I feel self conscious about them whenever I go swimming or just have my legs out in general, i don't understand why I have them to be honest and it's becoming more of an issue due to the number of them that keep coming

Hey Emmeline,

I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling self-conscious about your stretch marks. Stretch marks are absolutely normal! They happen when the skin stretches quickly (like during puberty) and the collagen production is disrupted, which results in those red/purple/pink/sometimes shiny white lines on your skin. It is a normal and healthy thing that your skin does to accommodate growing. Stretch marks are *very* common during puberty because you’re growing at a faster rate, so this is actually a good sign that your body has what it needs to do the growing. Plenty of folks (I’d actually venture to say the majority of folks) have stretch marks, so you are not alone in this either!

Does knowing how stretch marks happen help ease your worries? We can certainly talk more about those feelings of self-consciousness about your body, too, if you’re still feeling badly about it. I personally have gone through a journey with appreciating my own stretch marks, and I’d be happy to share some of what helped me if that sounds like it’d help you.

Hi! Thanks for replying so quickly and yeah some of your advice on how to deal with self consciousness would be great. It's just tricky when you see all these beautiful women on television and they have seemingly no imperfections

You are very welcome! We can certainly talk about how to deal with self-consciousness.

I think a sound start to this is identifying where these messages that bodies are supposed to look a certain way are coming from. It sounds like you’ve done this, too: you know that there are toxic messages in media (like television shows, movies, advertisements) that both implicitly and explicitly set expectations for how bodies are supposed to look. I also think the institutions that treat stretch marks as something “bad” are typically folks who align themselves with things like fatphobia, which we know is an initiative that has nothing to do with health and wellbeing and everything to do with profiting off of insecurities. Television shows also lean into profiting off of body insecurities, and they often depict certain bodies as more desirable than others. We know that not only is this flat out *wrong*, this actively impacts the folks who watch this, as you’re unfortunately experiencing too.

I’m going to send you two articles as well, they contain really helpful information on how to navigate body image struggles:

1. Sex Goddess Blues: Building Sexual Confidence, Busting Perfectionism. The section near that starts with “So, where do I begin” may be really helpful for you!
2. Seven Ways To Love Your Body

One more suggestion I have is to find and watch media that shows positive representations of diverse bodies, or just straight up bodies that look like yours and that you like! I will leave a note for the team to see what they might recommend, but I will think on it as well if you’re interested in some media with more positive messaging.

How does that all sound?