Focus on the good you see in yourself instead of always pin pointing the "faults"

The term ‘body image’ includes the perceptual, affective, cognitive, and possibly behavioral aspects of the body experience of an individual. (Cash & Pruzinsky, 1990 as cited in Tiggerman, 2004) Meaning the appearance, functionality, feel and the cognitive sides of one's body experience.


The western culture tends to idealize thin or "skinny" women when it comes to the female body; curves are only allowed on your chest and behind, god forbid anywhere else. As Tiggerman points out, society tends to shame us on the shape of our bodies and our weight in an absurd way. Anything and everything about the female body is under a microscope called the media. Easy example; snapchat. I use snapchat quite a lot, and the trending news articles tend to follow the same pattern. Most of the news regarding women are focused only on their bodies. This ranges from a nipple-slip to "horrible"/sexy beach pictures - of course this depends on what articles you read, Buzzfeed tend to know what they're doing (example). But overall, women are still (it's 2017!) being objectified to an incredibly unhealthy standard. Every day we are fed articles on how unsatisfying our current body-shapes are, how we can and should be “better versions” of ourselves by changing the way we look;

Online advertisements (as well as in magazines and television, are mainly targeted to make us feel like our bodies are lacking somehow; shape-wear that presses your inner organs but gives you a nice hourglass-shape, tea to help your digestion but essentially gives you diarrhoea, lotions that magically increase the size of your ass, etc. The list goes on. We are being brainwashed into thinking we will never be good enough the way we are.

I’m not saying this is how all advertising is done, luckily people are getting smarter about these things. But sadly most of it still feeds on our insecurities. Ironically, these insecurities are often created by the media. They tell us we are only desirable if we look a certain way, only accepted if we dress a certain way and only worth it if we fit a specific mold. Companies take advantage of this "need" created by the media, by selling products we didn't even need in the first place.

My journey

Most of my body image issues come from figure skating. I was never genetically designed to be the ‘optimal’ body shape for the sport. I’m not saying there is a right body shape, my body just tends to collect fat and create muscle very easily and figure skating requires a balance between having muscle and being lean. Everyone tended to strive to be as skinny as possible, we were being weighed from as young as 12-years-old. I now know they always did it with my best interest at heart, but I suppose I was never in the right mindset for the following. Years and years of nutritionists’ lectures, coaches telling me I should lose weight, weight loss being glorified, an adult squeezing my fat rolls (which in retrospective were nonexistent at the time this happened) and telling me ‘this is not what an athlete looks like’, I was done.

I had spent a good 10 years focusing on how my body was not perfect, how it kept failing me every single day. My relationship with my body image was unhealthy. Constant focus on how I looked poisoned my mind in a way, pushed me into a shell and prohibited me from making friends freely. In high school I was not happy. I was not happy with my life, my life revolved around my body image, I kept thinking everyone else must see it too, it cannot all be in my head. I have no idea how it got to the point it did, but I got tired of being angry at myself, at my body, for not being the unrealistic image what I wanted it to be.

So, I quit. And I was relieved. It took time, but once I got further and further from the feeling of not being good enough, I felt freedom I’d never felt before. I did not have to strive to be perfect anymore. I did not have to conform to this ridiculous standard I had created for myself in my head. I have now realized looking back, that even when I tried to lose weight it never worked when it came from a place of hate. Weight loss for me was always a result of joy, I went on runs because I felt strong that day, I used the exercise bike because I wanted to feel how well my leg and ass muscles worked, I craved for the exhaustion and pain it brought the next day because it made me happy. All the positive feelings weight loss has ever given me where the ones that came from me feeling strong and powerful, thus exercising, rather than feeling like I needed to get rid of something on my body – fat rolls, cellulite whatever it might have been.

The 'non-quick' fixes

I don’t think there is one specific way to rid yourself from the expectations society has given you, and the ones you've given yourself. For me, not giving an f works. My body maintains a relatively healthy weight all on its own. I trust that it knows what it’s doing. It does amazing things to keep me alive every single day. Least I can do is appreciate and love it just the way it is. As long as I make sure I give it the vitamins and nutrients it needs, I tend not to worry about stuffing myself with candy and ice-cream. I have some whenever I crave some. I exercise when I feel like exercising. But all of it comes from a place of happiness. I no longer binge eat to comfort myself, nor do I escape the house to go on runs where the rain tastes sweeter than the tears on my cheeks.

I tried to avoid getting too serious with this post. It is merely the tip of the iceberg of my thoughts on the subject. The body image pressure on all sports is high. I got once told by an adult, when I was about 15, that I didn’t have ‘enough discipline to be anorexic’. Now I wish I would have opened to someone more about the pressure I felt. And I wish someone would have taken me seriously. I know way too many cases of eating disorders within my field of sport, within my small circle of acquaintances, it is insane to think about how many more are out there. While some sports require you to be lightweight and small to essentially succeed (or the contrary), we should teach children that it is more important to be happy with yourself than to win medals.

Even outside sports, the media pushes ridiculous body standards on young children. I find it odd and slightly disturbing that young children walk around in heavily sexualized clothing. And this is all because of the media. We cannot teach young kids, or older ones for that matter, that the most important thing for a woman to be is "sexy" or "attractive". What happened to being smart, compassionate or funny? The social media is obsessed with the image of ‘self’, and these young millennials are learning this behavior. I love social media, but I am old enough to understand it is not a representation of reality. I know enough not to compare my behind the screen material to someone else's finished film. Social media is essentially self-advertising, not a representation of the reality.

Disclaimers and stuff:
I know I targeted most of this towards women, I guess it was an easier way for me to arrive to some kind of conclusion. This does not mean men are excluded from the body image pressure created by the society, quite the contrary. I have written this post now about five times over, and my thoughts still seem to be all over the place. And I still have a bunch of thoughts on the subject that might never see the light of day. Generally, I think it is important to be aware that there are many companies that use the social media and ads in a certain way. These companies feed you insecurities you do not need to have, and then try to sell you “quick fixes” for them. They’re just trying to gain money, that's all.



Anyway, you do you girl (or boi). Make sure you’re doing it to make yourself feel happy. Do not let anyone, and I mean anyone - your partner, family member, coach, peer etc. convince you you're not good enough just the way you are. Love your body, it’s your home, its where you'll spend the rest of your life. Being in war with yourself is not only dangerous and exhausting, but stupid. I think the right approach is to let everyone love their bodies first, and then educate them on what is considered healthy and what isn't.

References:

This post was inspired by a TED Talk by Iskra Lawrence. She is an amazing model breaking the beauty standards within the modelling industry. (link below)