When you think of stereotyping, the first word that probably pops into your head is judgment or categorizing, and you probably don’t consider it to be a big deal because it seems to almost be a part of our nature, and in actuality it is.

People these days, especially teens, want to feel comfortable in their own bodies; they want to feel good about themselves and not have to worry about others saying negative things about them. But it’s so hard for people to feel good about themselves when people constantly judge others for their looks, how they dress, their personality, their body shape, or their economic status.

For example, jocks are stereotyped to be mean and big and very over-confident about themselves; cheerleaders as very preppy and screechy girls; cliques with hyperactive personalities as weird; Asians as having big brains; smart people as geeks;  and so on. Don’t be so quick to judge a person by what you see. If you really got to know a person rather than basing it on what you hear and see, you’d be surprised at the results. A jock can be sweet and have somewhat low self-esteem about himself; a cheerleader can be very shy and reserved; cliques with hyper-active personalities can be suffering with a disorder or maybe they just learned how to have fun; and there are Asians that aren’t that talented in the subject of smartness; and smart people aren’t all geeks, maybe they’re just trying to feel accomplished of themselves or make them and/ or others proud of them.

For once it would be nice to just walk across a crowd of people and feel that not all eyes are on you, judging you, analyzing your whole silhouette to find something they can categorize you with; for once to feel completely secure in your own body no matter what you’re wearing, what size you are, or what you look like.

So the next time that you stereotype somebody else, remember somebody can be right there stereotyping you, also.

Remember, no matter what size you are or what you look like, you are what you make yourself, not what somebody else makes you out to be.