Love Your Body, Love Yourself
Young Workers March 17 2016The body beautiful is the idealised image of how we should be according to the media. Videos, photos and advertising daily portray the ideal body’, so that everywhere we go we are being saturated with pictures of ultra slim models and glamorous celebrities. Twitter, Facebook and other online social media platforms dispense, resend and re-tweet information at lightning’ speed. For young people these communication channels are the norm for sharing images and comments, conversing with peers and opinion forming. The internet and social media have become our community, our village shaping our views of society and people.
The message is that there is only one narrow standard of beauty to aspire to. Our self-confidence and our self-esteem become tied to this ideal body’. But stop for a moment and ask: is there an ideal body’ and if there is how many people are able to achieve it?’
Research shows women are much more critical of their appearance than men because they are much less likely to admire what they see in the mirror. 8 out of 10 women will be dissatisfied with their reflection and more than half may see a distorted image.[i] Young people in particular, regardless of their gender are affected by poor body image. Men are expected to look a certain way, such as a body builder or a skinny rocker.[ii] The ideal size for a woman is to be small, thin and preferably under size 14.[iii]
Studies show that the value we place on body image means attractive people have distinct advantages in our society. For example they have been found to be:[iv]
- More popular, both with classmates and teachers;
- More likely to get a job and receive a higher salary;
- Found guilty less often in court and when found guilty they receive less severe sentences;
With such importance placed on attractiveness, and the proliferation of the ideal body’ in the media it is little wonder so many young people aspire to the ideal body’.
Love your body, love yourself is a philosophy that should be nurtured and embraced to address unrealistic expectations of physical beauty and to help us become more comfortable with our natural appearance. Such an approach would promote body confidence, diversity and the acceptance of a broader range of beauty. When we begin to accept there is no such thing as the perfect body and stop trying to achieve the impossible, in a small way we are on the road to changing our mind-set and ultimately loving ourselves.
The Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) shows that the standards of beauty in our society have become harder and harder to attain over the centuries and that the current media ideal of thinness for women is achievable by less than 5% of the female population.[v] The research also found that very attractive’ people may not be looking in the mirror out of vanity but out of insecurity and that there are disadvantages to be considered attractive. Those deemed attractive have greater pressure to maintain their appearance; they do not trust praise of their work or talents, believing positive evaluations to be influenced by their appearance.[vi]
The Centre for Appearance Research (CAR), part of the campaign for body confidence, produced a series of films on body image for BBC Learning. Two professors at CAR, Dr Zali Yager and Senior Research Fellow DrPhillippa Diedrichs worked with the BBC with the aim of busting body image myths. The film, aimed at secondary schools, investigated the commercialisation of body image ideals. Ultimately the film was encouraging everyone to create their own positive beauty legacy, so that they can grow up feeling confident about the way they look.[vii]
We can love ourselves by practising gratitude for what we have thus building on our inner-self. The aim is to move the focus away from our size and our body shape. WikiHow[viii] suggests that when we have a bad experience, rather than letting it get us down, we can instead ask ourselves what we can learn from it. And by not being negative or over-critical of ourselves, but by forgiving ourselves and keep going, we are more likely to be using positive thought processes than negative ones. We are also less likely to bash or criticise someone else, as our own self-love and self-confidence has grown.
Feeling good about ourselves, smiling a lot helps to improve our own self-image and the way others see us. And in surrounding ourselves with people who love themselves, we begin to adopt and make new goals that regardless of our body-shape, race, gender or sexual orientation, we are able to acknowledge that all humans are equal and society becomes far richer when diversity is encouraged.
Compiled by:
CWU Research Department
RD16-03-25
[i]“Images and reactions: what we see and how we feel about it” accessed via http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html on 14th March 2016
[ii]“Body Image Inquiry” by Young Minds accessed via the web on 14th March 2016 https://www.youngminds.org.uk/assets/0000/2611/Body_Image_Inquiry_response.pdf
[iii]“APPG Image Report is Just one Part of a Larger Campaign”, 18th June 2012 accessed via http://www.hoffingtonpost.co.uk/jo-swinson/appg-body-image-report-is-part-of-larger…
[iv]“Mirror, mirror, a summary of research findings on body image” online 14th March 2016 by Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) accessed via http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html
[v]“Mirror, mirror, a summary of research findings on body image” online 14th March 2016 by Social Issues Research Centre (SIRC) accessed via http://www.sirc.org/publik/mirror.html
[vi] ibid
[vii]“Be real, the campaign for body confidence (CAR) accessed via http://www.berealcampaign.co.uk/help-and-resources/?tag=Films&key=category
[viii]“How to love your body”, WikiHow accessed via the web on 16th March 2016 http://www.wikihow.com/Love-Your-Body