Articles

Body Image

Developing a Positive Body Image –

Yes, It is Possible
Have you ever heard yourself, or someone you know, say the following:
“Does this dress make me look heavy?”
“Do these pants make me look heavy?”
“I look so fat.”
“How do you feel?”………
“Fat” (By the way, fat is not a feeling)
“If only I could lose 5 more pounds.”
Or someone pays you a compliment and you put yourself down instead of just saying, “Thank you.”
What does looking good mean to the teenagers of Rye? Does it have to mean being emaciated or doing whatever it takes to achieve a certain physical appearance? What does feeling good mean? Does it have to involve obsessive calorie-counting, over-exercising, taking laxatives, using diet pills, or even throwing up? It doesn’t have to mean any of those things. Unfortunately, some of our teenagers do define looking and feeling good in these unhealthy ways.
While most of our country struggles with obesity problems, locally we are seeing quite the opposite. In our community, there are very few people who are overweight.
Today, our youth are bombarded with images of models who set unrealistic standards that our kids are trying to attain. Who are the role models for our youth today? No longer do they look toward scientists, writers, or others in the academic arena. They look toward celebrities or those in the public eye who are revered for their appearance. This is encouraged by television, magazines and the radio. Our children need to know that there is more to life than inflated breasts and a flat stomach. It does not have to be this way.
What can we do about it? How do we make a change?
First, as adults we can take an honest look at their own relationship to food and body image. We can examine our own satisfaction level, feelings of shame, and how much the culture and the media have impacted their views. It is important to know what your own feelings are about your body and how you deal with those feelings. If a parent is proud of their body, regardless of the size or shape, they send a strong message. However, if a parent is unhappy with their body – they easily teach their own children how to be unhappy as well. Remember, children tend to model their parents, especially their same-sex parent, and they learn much more by our actions than by our words. Parents set a very powerful example and they are the vehicle from which our youngsters receive most information about their body image and their self-worth.

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“Body size acceptance is not related to weight or actual body size, but to self-esteem and emotional health. The true indicator of a good body image is a good self-esteem – not the ability to fit into size 2 jeans”
In an effort to model healthy relationship to food adults can:

1) Try to minimize “diet” and weight talk, an activity that requires all of us to look at our own eating and exercise rituals, attitudes, and preferences about weight and size.

2) It is also beneficial to raise awareness to our culture’s extreme obsession with excessive thinness. Talk to you kids about the media’s messages that distort his/her perspective by countering destructive messages with ones based in reality.

3) It is good to encourage a healthy lifestyle that supports everything in moderation – all food groups, including sweets and dessert, as well as exercise.

4) Help your child to develop a sense of self that extends beyond body image. The adolescents who fair the best under all of this intense pressure to be thin are those who are vested in community service. Self-esteem is drawn from productivity and contribution.

5) Teach your child that there is no such thing as an “ideal” body. Beautiful bodies come in all sizes and shapes based on each individual’s unique strands of DNA.

A few thoughts to remember:

“Scales only have the power which we bestow upon them. Imagine if I said, “My self worth is determined by my toaster”

“I don’t believe in ‘body flaws.’ To believe in them, you have to believe in one single ideal body and I emphatically do not. I know what I am supposed to look like – I am supposed to look like ME. And since no one can look more like me than me, I am as close to perfect as it gets. I don’t need to look like anyone else OR any other version of myself.”

“I don’t have body flaws and neither do you.
What we have are differences!
And they are what make us beautiful…..
What makes us unique……
What make us who we are…..”

A useful resource is www.empoweredparents.com. Some information for this article appears on their website.

Casey Carlucci DeCola, LMSW