Before we get started, I want to tell you something really important.
If you only read this one sentence, you’ll walk away with the one thing you need to know.
You are beautiful.
While you may want to change things about yourself, you should know that you are naturally beautiful from the tips of your toes to the top of your head, and throughout your heart and soul.
Poor body image is not age specific and starts younger than you might imagine. Consider these statistics from Parenting magazine:
- 42 percent of kids in first through third grades wish they were thinner.
- 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of becoming fat.
- 51 percent of 9- and 10-year-old girls say they feel better about themselves when they are on a diet.
This weekend I attended a modern dance performance called Justice for Some. Throughout the performance, issues such as gay teen suicide, body rights, bullying, marriage rights and the right to vote were highlighted through dance, architecture, video, and music composition. There was also a large focus on body image.
They shared the horrifying statistic that 42% of kids in first through third grades wish they were thinner. I was shocked that a child that young would care about weight, until I remembered weighing myself when I was 9 and 10 and writing it the magic number in my diary. I wasn’t overweight, but I wanted to be thinner.
Why was I thinking about how much I weighed when I was 9 years old, and why haven’t I ever stopped thinking about it? I consider myself to be well adjusted and health focused, but that number on the scale has always been important. I know it’s important for many of you too. Then again, how can it not be when every magazine headline we read says things like….
- “Flat Tummy Tips” – 17 magazine
- “I Lost 107 lbs. for Good” – Allure magazine
- “Your Fastest Way to Lose Weight” – Glamour magazine
Weight loss tips are on every cover of every beauty, fashion and health magazine along with other helpful recommendations about how to make your eyes look bigger, butt look smaller, and what shoes to wear to make your legs look longer. You don’t even have to read magazines to be bombarded with these messages that scream at you when you checkout at the grocery store. Why do we continue to be slaves to media manipulation?
What could we do with the time and energy we spend hating our thighs? What could we do with the money we spend trying to look younger and thinner? What could we do with the attention we give to our mirrors?
One thing I’ve learned from fashion Project 333, in wearing only 33 items for 3 months, is that no one notices or cares if I wear the same dress more than once a week and the same few pairs of shoes over and over again. No one notices if I forget mascara, or wear a different color lipstick.
If you’ve ever tried on more than one outfit, analyzing different angles in the mirror, trying to decide if you fit the part, you know that kind of self absorbed behavior is not healthy. Natural, maybe. Healthy, no.
Why do we compare ourselves to other people we see every day and even worse to fake magazine cover bodies?
My daughter is a dancer, and I wonder if body issues are magnified for her and other teen dancers. She tells me her dance teacher tells her students they are beautiful, almost every day. Some parents are cautious about telling their children they are beautiful because they don’t want to put too much importance on looks. I disagree wholeheartedly. Tell your children they are beautiful every day, and let them know what beauty really is.
Beauty is…
- compassion
- love
- generosity
- gratitude
- laughter
- grief
- friendship
- selflessness
Karen Walrond, a beautiful mother, writer and photographer wrote The Beauty of Different
Cyclists and other athletes admit to using performance enhancing drugs, often not to be the best version of themselves, but to keep up with the other drugged athletes. When we synthetically change ourselves, we change the whole playing field. It makes me wonder how we will we keep up with our Botoxed, liposucked, lifted society? Measuring up, in terms of size and looks is exhausting. 40 is not the new 20 and 50 is not the new 30.
To alleviate body image issues in children, teens, and men & women of all ages…
- Notice the beauty in everyone you meet.
- Tell your children they are beautiful.
- Stop asking if you look fat in that.
- Find the beauty in different.
- Reflect on something more important than the image in the mirror.
- Do something beautiful for someone else.
- Create beautiful art to be a beautiful artist.
- Treat your partner beautifully to become a beautiful partner.
- Stop comparing.
- Stop believing that the answer is on a magazine cover.
- Know that nothing you buy will make you feel beautiful for very long.
No outfit, haircut or new pair of heels has ever made me feel as beautiful as I do when I am giving, creating, collaborating and connecting with other beautiful people.
When you recognize that you are paying a little too much attention to how you look, think about how you can give some of your beauty to the world. When you give your beauty away, you only get more beautiful.
This was a beautiful post. I agree that we should all be telling our children they are beautiful, every day. I can only hope and pray that this might allow my daughter to escape childhood with her sense of self in tact!
Clara, with your help, she will be just fine.
This is a great post with some sad and shocking numbers.. I have nieces of all sorts of ages.. Passing this along to my FB group, personal page and twitter!
Thanks Heather. Awareness is 1/2 the battle!
My mother used to be afraid of making me or my sister arrogant by telling us that we were beautiful.. Fortunately she discovered you’re not making arrogant kids by giving them a compliment every once in a while, so now she does. I like the message of your post!
http://thefashiondiet.blogspot.com/
Cindy, Great point. I’m glad your mom came around.
Beautiful. I caught wind of you article through Karen’s tweet. Do you mind if I link this to my blog? I have a spot for links to awesome and mindful articles such as yours.
Thanks,
Angela
Angela, I would be honored if you would! Thank you.
This is a beautiful post! Thank you so much for this reminder. It is so incredibly easy to forget this in our culture. I truly enjoyed this and have printed it to post next to my mirror at home.
Excellent post! I would add that we need to stop judging not only ourselves, but others too. It can be easy to look at someone and assume they are overindulgent or lazy based on their appearance but when it comes down to it, we have no idea what his/her life is really like or how hard they are on themselves. Compassion and empathy go a long way.
Teresa, This is so true. Everyone has a story and personal struggles.
Courtney, you are so beautiful in every way. I lve you.
Mom
Love you too mom! 😉
Thank you, Courtney. I’m an obese woman who has been on every diet there is, gaining and losing the same 50 pounds over and over and making my life miserable. I hope I can learn the truth of your post.
Karen, I hope so too. I have gained and lost the same 20 lbs for the last 20+ years and I’ve got to wonder if I didn’t pay it so much attention if I would weigh about what I do know anyway.
My best recommendation is to turn the focus off of yourself and onto helping someone else. Let me know if this post sparks other ideas or if you have questions. I’d be happy to help if I can.
Such an important post. We need to constantly emphasize the beauty within.
Perhaps you can get this piece on a website for eating disorders.
Harriet, That’s a great idea. Do you have something in mind? I’m happy to share it where ever it might be helpful.
Courtney…would it be okay if I have compassion, generosity, love…am a great partner to my husband…AND have a well-toned butt, too? If not, I shall RUN..not WALK to the nearest grocery store and buy a quart of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream and consume it with a plastic spoon in the front seat of my car in the parking lot.
Love this post….I admit to having a little of that self-absorbed thing going on.
Susan, Put the ice cream down! I highly encourage well-toned butts and taking care of yourself. Next week’s mini-mission will help you with the self-absorbed thing. 😉
thanks so much for sharing this=I love Karen and her book and can;t wait to get my hands on one for myself (i borrowed a friends!)
Having two daughters it is so important that what I say about myself is positive because I know they are listening. Self talk can be so negative and it is so important to give ourselves a positive image…especially if I want my girls to have a healthy one too!
Rani, That is so true. Our children learn from things we say and do, even when we don’t intend the lesson to be for them.
It saddens me to see that our girls are being targeted from a very young age through magazines. Not only are they fed the myth that being skinny will make them happy, they are being fooled into believing that without fame, possessions, supermodel beauty and the “right” boyfriend (who relies on them for his sexual gratification), they are worthless.
I recently read a very interesting book/ magazine called “Faking It” which examines the impact of magazines on girls and women. It is available through the Women’s Forum Australia and I would recommend it to anyone else who feels passionate about this issue.
Giselle, Thanks for the book recommendation. As parents, we have to educate our children about things they hear and see in the media and from others.
SO, SO true and important. This is the root of many peoples’ problems. That poor self image affects everything you do! I, too, want to pass this along to my blog readers.
Thanks Cathy, I really appreciate that!
Funny enough, my mom always made me feel like my looks were NOT what I had going for me (she flat-out told me as a kid that I was not pretty, in her honest Asian-mama kind of way), and I appreciate her so much for it. I don’t fuss over my hair or makeup (I wear none) like my friends do because I know that it’s what’s inside that counts.
Chung, Thanks for your unique perspective. Inside is what counts!
Important post, and beautifully written. Thank you!
Courtney, I love your list of what beauty is. It’s so much more than appearance. It’s the differences, but it’s also the similarities. Like when I am struggling with something and someone else is too in this big world, I find beauty in that too.
I found you by way of Twitter. Thank you so much for those wise words n I will certainly do my homework! I enjoy sites like yours immensely because in this sometimes chaotic world where we wear so many different hats at the same time, it is not only wise but imperative that we slow down n connect w ourselves, others, nature, LIFE! When I get to my home computer this weekend, I will certainly return to follow you by way of blog.
I meant to leave this comment on 7 Ways To Simplify Your Life post. Sorry!
Wonderful article. I really got in touch with myself. I have been wearing eye liner and eye shadow for all my life. I feel naked without it, and didn’t have the self confidence to go without it, not even to to the store. Well after reading your article I thought what do I got to lose, I was curious to see if somebody would really notice or say something to me, like “something is different about you.” Well I did it, I went to class last week with not eye make up on. I did feel like people knew, but after a while I got over it, It really was no big deal, and I was making a big deal about it all my life. Thank you for posting, I really am starting to find comfortable connections with myself and keep the inner simplicities that are important in my life.