Body Image—It’s Not What You See, but How You Feel

“If you can learn to like how you look, and not the way you think you look, it can set you free.” — Gloria Steinem

“A woman’s relationship with her body is the most important relationship she’ll ever have,” says health and fitness expert Diana K. Roesch. How sad that often it is not a loving relationship, but rather a relationship that causes insecurity, fear, self-doubt, shame, guilt, low self-esteem, and all too often, self-hatred. It is reported that in the U.S., at least 5–10 million girls and women and 1 million boys and men are struggling with eating disorders—anorexia nervosa, bulimia, or compulsive overeating. Too many people starve, diet, purge, binge and exercise to the point of creating serious health problems.

Most people are at least dissatisfied and at worst even hate some parts of their bodies. This is especially true for women, but men have body image issues, too. The odds of finding a person who doesn’t have at least some body image issues are slim.

How to turn the self-loathing into self-loving?  It begins with small, positive steps.

Here are just a few.

• Find at least one thing you like about your body. Write it down. Tomorrow, find another.

• Practice good posture, hold your head high, straighten your shoulders.

• Tell your body how much you appreciate its wondrous abilities.

• Get rid of all the clothes that you don’t like or that make you uncomfortable.

• Challenge the media’s definition of beauty.

• Nourish your body with a healthy diet, regular meals, lots of water.

• Slow down and remember to breathe.

• Move your body; not just exercise, but play, dance, skip, stretch, roll down a grassy hill.

• Pamper yourself with comfortable clothes, soothing beauty rituals.

• Post signs telling yourself how beautiful you are, inside and out.

• Tell your friends how beautiful they are, inside and out.

The way to a positive self-image begins with a conscious choice to make peace with, have gratitude for, and love your body.