Among some very insightful posts on the blog "Weightless" is this one on ways to recognize poor body image....
In this day and age, it seems like a positive body image is a rarity. Whether you fit today's skinny standards or wish you did, most women have issues with their bodies. Some may argue that bickering with one's body is as old as time. We frequently hear friends and family lament about their thick thighs or pudgy middle. Personally, whether I'm with family or friends, an hour doesn't go by without someone saying that they shouldn't be eating that much, must skip dessert, need to lose weight or can't fit into a shirt that was recently roomy.
Here's a list of indicators that your image may be suffering more than usual (and ways to fix it below that):
- You notice only negative things in the mirror, car windows, storefront windows, etc. Instead of seeing your positive physical traits, you're more likely to be found bashing your body, and nitpicking at every nook and cranny.
- You have a tough time taking compliments. It isn't that you're too polite to take a compliment; it's that you truly believe you don't deserve them.
- You rarely think you look good. Even wearing a favorite outfit doesn't help you to feel good in your skin. You rarely feel beautiful or even pretty.
- You compare yourself to everyone. For many of us, comparisons are as natural as breathing. But, while you're comparing your appearance to everyone else's, you rarely have anything good to say about yourself. It's always, "her thighs are so much slimmer than mine." "Her waist is much smaller." "I wish I had her body."
- It takes you forever to pick out an outfit -- more often than not. Do you have a moment -- more like many moments -- where you've been cooped up in your room, trying on tons of clothes? You can't see your floor, partially because it's overflowing with clothing and mainly because your face is filled with tears. There's nothing wrong with your clothes-it's just that everything is wrong with your body.
- You skip events because you don't think you look good enough. How often have you declined an invite to a dinner date, party or other engagement because you felt too fat to leave the house?
- You criticize your body regularly. "My stomach is gross." "My thighs are enormous!" Do these phrases resemble your daily mantras?
Click here for 5 solutions to your bruised body image.
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I didn't meet a friend visiting the state because I feel so large and unattractive that I am embarrassed to be seen by others. This is not the first time I've done thia. I've missed out on many events due to the shame I feel at being big in today's exercise-crazed society. I have started to go to the gym, like the poster above, hoping to make a change that will make me proud of myself.
CB,
Your attitude is part of the problem that makes the real women among us with a healthy weight feel somehow inadequate.
I am 49 years old. I measure 5'8" and weigh 150 lbs. I have a BMI of 23. I am fit and healthy. I wear a misses size 10-12. Yet according to the fashion industry and people like you, I am fat. And yes, even though I am at a healthy weight and BMI for my height, I am overly critical of my appearance because. I feel unattractive because I don't look like the anorexic, nipped, tucked, air-brushed, and photo-shopped models and celebrities that I am told I should look like.
Yes, I have jiggly arms. I nursed my children so "the girls" aren't as perky as they were when I was eighteen.
If size 4 clothes are "cuter" then that reflects a narrow minded fashion industry's view that the ideal woman is a stick figure with boobs and that those of us who aren't don't care about nice clothes.
The saddest part is that we convinced ourselves that they're right.
Peregrine
I am a size 4. I have had 2 children. I still look at my reflection and am grossed out at what I see. I know that a 4 is supposed to be considered small but why does it look so much bigger on me?
Touched a nerve, didn't I ? Watch "Super Size Me", I can't stress that enough. In fact it should be mandatory viewing in all P.E. classes in all middle and high schools. I was on staff in a high school for 11 years. Four of those years were spent running a dance class as choreographer and instructor. The class had some VERY overweight girls and their XL sized performance costumes had to be altered to fit their VERY large bodies. By the way, they were the laughingstock of the P.E. department. Other students mocked and ridiculed these girls saying, among other things, that "...dance class is where the fat girls go so that they don't have to do anything..." That notion was of course false because I treated those fat girls the same way I did all the girls, fat or not. I had expectations of them and I didn't lower the bar. But, just think how much easier their high school experience could have been had they been packing around less girth. There's a reason why weight-loss programs are encouraged by doctors.
By the way, I nursed my two kids as well. I am 54 years young, 5'2" and pushing 119 lbs. I use clothes size as a gauge to help maintain where I want to be. I am not a slave to fashion, HOWEVER, co-workers have often noted how stylish I look and I intend to keep it that way. I find that most women I see in public are looking frumpy and matronly in their thirties and forties. It doesn't have to be that way...but perhaps women become "resigned" to their "fate"---funny, fate has the word fat in it.
Fat is not beautiful as evidenced by that globular looking crap that doctors suck out during a lyposuction. Ever seen that blubbery stuff? Disgusting! And to think that's inside your body!?!
In keeping with the theme to take care of our bodies, I neither smoke nor do I drink in excess and scripture refers to the mandate to take care of our bodies
People can be as delusional as they wish. But, there's no getting around it. Fat is not something to accept it's something to eliminate.
P.S. to Peregrine: I'm a real woman too. There's no pretending fat is okay. You just got defensive.
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