About Body Image

When you look in the mirror, do you like what you see?

Is your body image positive or negative? If your answer is negative, you are not alone. Many women feel pressured to measure up to a certain social and cultural ideal of beauty, which can lead to poor body image. Women are constantly bombarded with "Perfect body " images. By presenting an ideal that is so difficult to achieve and maintain, the cosmetic and diet product industries are assured of growth and profits. It's no accident that youth is increasingly promoted, along with thinness, as an essential criterion of beauty. The message we're hearing is either "all women need to lose weight" or that the natural aging process is a "disastrous" fate.

Other pressures can come from the people in our lives.

• Family and friends can influence your body image with positive and negative comments.
• A doctor's health advice can be misinterpreted and affect how a woman sees herself and feels about her body. 

Learning to love what you see in the mirror

And don't forget your kids!

Parents’ attitudes about appearance and diet can affect their kids' attitudes. 

We all want to look our best, but a healthy body is not always linked to appearance. In fact, healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes! Changing your body image means changing the way you think about your body. At the same time, healthy lifestyle choices are also key to improving body image.

• Healthy eating can promote healthy skin and hair, along with strong bones.
• Regular exercise has been shown to boost self-esteem, self-image, and energy levels.
• Plenty of rest is key to stress management. 

Your body image plays a role in your children

"On a diet, you can't eat." That is what one 5- year-old girl had to say in a study on girls' ideas about dieting. This and other research has shown that daughters are more likely to have ideas about dieting when their mothers diet. Children pick up on comments about dieting concepts that may seem harmless, such as limiting high-fat foods or eating less. Yet, as girls enter their teen years, having ideas about dieting can lead to problems. Many things can spark weight concerns for girls and impact their eating habits in potentially unhealthy ways:

• Having mothers concerned about their own weight
• Having mothers who are overly concerned about their daughters' weight and looks
• Natural weight gain and other body changes during puberty
• Peer pressure to look a certain way
• Struggles with self-esteem
• Media images showing the ideal female body as thin

Many teenage girls of average weight think they are overweight and are not satisfied with their bodies. Having extreme weight concerns — and acting on those concerns — can harm girls' social, physical, and emotional growth. Actions such as skipping meals or taking diet pills can lead to poor nutrition and difficulty learning. For some, extreme efforts to lose weight can lead to eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia. For others, the pressure to be thin can actually lead to binge eating disorder: overeating that is followed by extreme guilt. What's more, girls are more likely to further risk their health by trying to lose weight in unhealthy ways, such as smoking.