The truth about body image

We all want our next generation to be healthy. We know we should model healthy eating habits and physical activity for our children, but knowing how to model a healthy body image as a parent and as a community is extremely challenging. Should we want to change our bodies? Or feel good about what we have? With so many mixed messages, developing a healthy body image feels almost impossible.

More than 97 percent of surveyed women admitted on a Glamour magazine survey to having at least one “I hate my body” moment each day. Their research found that, on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts daily — nearly one for every waking hour. And a disturbing number of women confessed to having 35, 50 or even 100 hateful thoughts about their own shapes each day.

The National Mental Health Information Center found that girls are still three times more likely than boys to have a negative body image. But body image concerns for boys and men are increasing. If they are honest and open, many boys admit to being worried about how they look. The Journal of Pediatrics reported in 2013 that 90 percent of boys in middle and high school exercise occasionally with the specific goal of gaining muscle mass.

These messages that our bodies aren’t “good enough” come from the media we consume. When we watch certain shows or play certain games, we are exposed time and time again to “models” of good/bad bodies or good/bad houses or good/bad relationships.

This exposure changes what we think is normal and can distort our ability to see our own strengths.

People who are “thin” or “average” or “healthy weights” are just as likely to insult themselves as overweight people. We hear so much about the obesity epidemic that our minds are on constant alert for any sign of deficiency. Body image pressure is all around us. Some days, our defenses against it are stronger than others. On bad days, more unhealthy body image thoughts may be a symptom that “something else is going on.”

We take our stress and worries about our lives out on how we “feel” about our bodies. Whether you’re unhappy in general is a much larger factor in how you feel about your body than what your body actually looks like.

We need to start looking at what our bodies do for us rather than on how they let us down. Most teens watch an average of 22 hours of TV a week and then spend a lot of time looking at fat-free or toned bodies in the pages of health, fashion and teen magazines. This “standard” is impossible to achieve. Take a look at the 10 most popular magazines on the newspaper racks. The women and men on the covers represent about .03 percent of the population. The other 99.97 percent don’t have a chance to compete, much less measure up. Most ads are reproduced, airbrushed or changed by a computer.

As a community, and as parents, we need to educate our children on body tolerance; health comes in all sizes. Think of three people who you admire. Do they look like fashion models? How does their appearance affect how you feel about them? It is also important to remember that society’s standards have changed significantly over the last 50 years. The women who were considered the “ideal beauties” in the 1940s and 1950s (like Marilyn Monroe, size 14) were full-bodied and truly beautiful women, but they would be considered “overweight” by today’s standards.

As we enjoy the full freedom of summer, this is the perfect time for families to adopt a healthy attitude about body image. Adults can question their own mixed body thoughts. If adults are constantly dieting or talking about their “bad bodies,” how are children going to develop body confidence? Families are encouraged to eliminate talks about “diets” and beginning to question the status quo of what it means to be “beautiful.”

If we hear kids say, “I look/feel fat,” or, “I shouldn’t eat this cookie,” or, “My (insert body part here) looks fat,” the best response is one of understanding.

All of us have moments where we don’t feel good about how we look. We can allow children to talk this way and also say, “Hey, there are times I feel that way too.” Understanding first, we then can move toward skills. Give children ideas to feel better about their bodies. Name three things your body did for you today, take a walk, wear something comfortable, eat something healthy or study about healthy lifestyle choices. The best skill to have is building relationships based on secure attachments that value character over size.