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Tag: Self-Esteem

Body acceptance is a radical act of self-love

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Body acceptance is a radical act of self- love. 

Amy Pence-Brown, a 39-year-old mother of three, is a body image activist internationally known for her radical stand for self-love at the Capitol City Public Market in 2015.

Pence-Brown stood blindfolded in a black bikini, with the following message written on a chalkboard placed at her feet, holding markers in her outstretched arms inviting the crowd to support her radical declaration of self-love.

“I am standing for anyone who has struggled with a self-esteem issue like me, because all bodies are valuable,” her sign read. “To support self-acceptance, draw a heart on my body.”

By the end of her social experiment she was covered in marker, having been drawn on by young and old, men and women. You can watch the video here.

Three years later over 200 million people have viewed this stand for radical body liberation making it one of the most viral videos of all time.

“This is powerful. This is humanity,” she said. “This is a revolution. I’m honored and blown wide open with hope.”

The shift toward body acceptance

Amy’s “Stand For Self Love” changed me.

Her radical declaration of self-love cracked open something deep inside me. I felt our shared humanness. I, too, wanted to advocate for radical acceptance — of all bodies.

Professionally, I began to see a need for this work. As a former exercise professional and “eat this, not that” nutrition coach, I held the false belief that if we exercised and ate “well” — the two magical pieces to health — we could achieve a fit and healthy “looking” body.

I was wrong.

I learned this after having hundreds of intimate conversations, often filled with tears and stress with Jacksonsites and clients around the country.

I started seeing bodies and health differently, with my eyes wide open. I started seeing myself differently.

I had made a career out of being healthy to look healthy. I took a critical look at my own body image. When I did, the worries, fears and shame that I felt about my body over the years flooded through. Now, as a 54-year old woman, I’ve added on another layer to my body image: aging.

I want to be clear about where I am at now professionally. Most clients want weight-loss which makes perfect sense. Often they, like many of us, want to eat better to feel better, but the real hope is that eating the “right” foods will help us maintain an “acceptable” size or change our bodies. This is a normal and natural reaction to living in our perfectionist body culture that says there’s only one “right” way to have body. It’s based on the false belief that there’s only one body size or shape that’s “healthy” or “attractive.”

I help clients make peace and heal their relationships with food and their bodies. I help clients gain the crucial tools to achieve true health and well-being, and support them as they disengage from the latest diet trends or body ideal.

It’s been three years since Pence-Brown’s video went viral, and I still think about it. I reached out to Amy for her wisdom on being a body image activist and radical Idahoan. When I mentioned this column, she was both excited yet surprised, in the best kind of way.

“I’ve had a lot of pushback against body positivity for years in the region, due to a long-supported fat-phobic culture with a severe dedication to healthism,” she told me.

Though her work has received positive national and international attention, regionally that has not been the case. She hopes to “pave the way to this slow opening of minds, hearts and eyes to the possibility that there might be a new way, a better way, to live and enjoy our bodies than we’ve been taught previously.”

Fat (and thin) Girls (and guys) Hiking

Body positivity activism recently made its way to our community.

This past week I attended one of two “Fat Girls Hiking, Trails Not Scales,” body positivity hikes in Jackson. Founder Summer Michaud-Skog set the ground rules: Hikers were to refrain from diet talk, body shaming or weight loss talk.

The focus was on enjoying the outdoors in whatever body you’re in. Our Jackson group was represented by different body shapes, sizes, genders and ages.

“We love getting outside as a family and exploring, teaching our kids to move their bodies, respect the earth and enjoy the outdoors,” said Stephanie Marie Martinez, who brought her entire family. “Also teaching them that body type doesn’t dictate what you can do in your life. Be it small children or fat adults.”

Elevating the body acceptance conversation

I plan to provide new ideas and perspectives on how we see bodies and dive deeper into body image in Jackson and how we might redefine health and what healthy looks like.

I also want to be honest and up front; I am still learning to navigate body image myself. My intention isn’t to “fix” body image, self-confidence or self-esteem because we are not “broken.” My intention is to be of service to this community and News&Guide readers, to infuse our hearts and spirit with compassion, for ourselves and every body; to help us see our humanness and practice radical acceptance … of all bodies, no matter what your body size, shape, gender or age.

Our hearts are craving more — to be more than bodies.

“All bodies are good bodies, imperfect as we all are,” Pence-Brown said in an interview with People magazine. “Life is too short to go on hating yourself, so start loving yourself where you are right now.”

I stand with her and with you. Like yourself. Be a rebel.

(This article was originally published in the October 3, 2018 edition of the Jackson Hole News & Guide. Radical Acceptance is a new column focusing on promoting healthy body image and redefining health). 

Mirror mirror on the wall, what we look like isn’t all

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Your thighs are too big.

Your belly isn’t flat.

You have too many wrinkles.

Your stretch marks are ugly.

Your grey hairs make you look old.

Your cellulite is hideous.

Millions of women hear hurtful statements like those when they look in the mirror.

I was one of them. These were my statements. I bet they’ve been yours, too.

According the Institute for the Psychology of Eating, 97 percent of women dislike their bodies on an average day. Body dissatisfaction is so common it’s the norm.

That is a problem.

“The pressure to measure up to the American beauty ideal — thin, firm, smooth and young — is greater than ever before,” according to a Psychology Today article, “A Duty to Be Beautiful,” by Heather Widdows. It’s become normal to partake in the dizzying number of beauty products and procedures available to us. And as more and more of us engage in beautifying, those women who don’t may feel like their bodies are not OK as is.

Redefining beauty isn’t about choosing to participate in beautifying or not. Instead it’s about creating a cultural shift in how beauty is defined and how our self-worth as women is defined.

Over the decades, cultural beauty ideals have changed to include almost all body types, but it hasn’t been since the Renaissance that women’s natural bodies were viewed as beautiful.

Can we reclaim our natural bodies? And can we be more than our bodies?

Yes, we can. And it’s time we do.

To help us create that shift I examined research from two body image experts, Lindsay Kite, who holds a doctorate and runs More Than A Body and Renee Engeln, body image researcher, professor at Northwestern University and author of “Beauty Sick.”

“The message that ‘all women are beautiful, flaws and all’ is really nice. But it isn’t fixing anyone’s body image issues,” Kite wrote. “That’s because women are not only suffering because of the unattainable ways beauty is being defined. We are suffering because we are being defined by beauty. We are bodies first and people second.”

Engeln said messages that tell us that our looks matter more than our actions keep us tied to the mirror. The more space our physical appearance takes up in our heads, the less time and emotional energy we have left for living the rest of our lives.

That preoccupation of trying to attain unrealistic beauty standards causes increased anxiety, worry, feelings of failure, lowered self-esteem, disordered eating, relentless dieting and exercise obsessions, mental and physical health issues and overall diminished well-being, Widdows writes.

But we can change. We can unwind our culture’s beauty ideals from our self-worth. Two research-based body image strategies show us how.

Shift Your Compliments

First, shift your compliments to traits other than physical appearance. That may take more practice than you think.

My sister recently sent me a photo that captured the personality of my niece. She was lifting up her homecoming dress to show her Under Armour athletic boy shorts, a testament to her unique and funny character.

My natural reaction was to say how pretty she looked in her dress. Instead I said I loved her sense of humor and how feminine and strong she is.

Engeln recommends that we create a household where we don’t talk about appearance, though not because complimenting someone’s appearance is bad. Rather, the practice of complimenting someone for who they are and how they contribute to the world shifts the focus of worth off of appearance.

If you’re a mom who wants to break the body shaming cycle but is feeling behind, Engeln said it’s never too late to start. And don’t be afraid of messing up.

“Sometimes it’s hard,” Engeln said of this practice she’s been working on with her niece. “But I always try to correct it if I slip up.”

Curate Your Media

Second, be aware of the media you consume. Does what you watch, read or view help you feel good and empowered as you are? Or are you left feeling less than or not enough?

Notice if you find yourself comparing yourself with the before-and-after images on social media or clicking on the “how to get ripped abs in five days” articles or admiring the beauty ideals portrayed on the latest Netflix series.

The Beauty Redefined blog, penned by Kite and twin sister Lexie, beautifully described the problem of comparison.

“Self-comparison divides and conquers us, tricking us into seeing each other as enemies instead of allies and bodies instead of souls. When we mentally remove ourselves from the competition for beauty and attention that pits us against each other, we can finally unite in empathy and sisterhood.”

Clear out messages of body perfection and make room for body positive affirmations.

Even as a body image movement global ambassador, I still sometimes compare myself with unrealistic beauty ideals. But my thinking has changed. It’s not that I love my stretch marks and cellulite or think my wrinkles are beautiful. But I don’t hate them either. I just … think they’re human.

Let’s redefine beauty. And let’s be more than our bodies and beauty.

I want to apologize to all the women

I have called pretty.

Before I’ve called them intelligent or brave.

I am sorry I made it sound as though

something as simple as what you’re born with

is the most you have to be proud of

when your spirit has crushed mountains.

From now on I will say things like, you are resilient

or, you are extraordinary.

Not because I don’t think you’re pretty.

But because you are so much more than that.

— Rupi Kaur

Like yourself. Be a rebel.

Size or shape doesn’t define your health

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Your body is not a billboard for your health. Your body is your home.” — Amy Pershing, founder of Bodywise

When we look at our health and bodies from this perspective, we can make room for self-compassion, tolerance and patience. Yet American culture focuses the lens on our physical appearance, convincing us that our health is defined by our size or shape. This is a distorted idea of health.

We need to zoom out. We need to widen the lens and look deeper into an evolved definition of health. We can’t assume someone’s health status, abilities or goals based on the size or shape of her body.

“Fit bodies don’t necessarily tell the story of a healthy person, nor do (larger) bodies tell the story of a lazy person,” wrote Erin Brown, an author for Girls Gone Strong, a body-positive health-and-fitness website focused on female empowerment. “You can’t know everything about a person’s behavior or life by simply looking at her body.”

No ideal shape or size

Healthism — a preoccupation with health as a primary achievement of well-being, as first defined by political economist Robert Crawford — emphasizes personal responsibility while ignoring important social determinants of health. In a world steeped in dieting culture and healthism, it can be assumed that many people have already been trying to change their eating habits (maybe for years), and their inability to sustain such changes has resulted in feelings of shame and self-doubt.

Thus, trying to maintain or attain a body that culture portrays as healthy may take us further away from health.

The truth: We’re not all meant to be some “ideal” size or shape. If we all ate exactly the same way and had identical exercise regiments we would still look vastly different from one another.

Body diversity is part of what makes us human.

“The body is our home, our temple. Just as everyone’s literal home looks different so does everyone’s body and that is something to be celebrated and respected. If we can cultivate inner peace and a feeling of home within, then we can take that with us everywhere rather than looking to external sources to feel comfortable, welcome and at home.”
– Ariel Mann, Yoga Instructor

Widen the lens, redefine health

What does an evolved definition of health look like?

Health is mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. It’s about nourishing your whole self, looking through a wider lens from a whole human being perspective, not just your physical body. It encourages us to honor our deepest self and empowers us to see our truth. Health exists on a continuum that varies with time and circumstance for each individual.

And one thing that health doesn’t define: your self-worth.

Factors that affect our health include: genetics, environment, life experiences, access to health care, socioeconomic status, culture, trauma, illness, age, community, education, social support, sleep, spirituality, stress level, stigma, self-esteem, safety, self-care routine, employment and job security, physical activity, mental health, relationship with food, body and self, individual thoughts, feelings, beliefs, happiness, relationships, connection, sense of purpose … you see where I’m going here.

So how can we honor true health?

One way is to speak our authentic truth, to tell our stories and to express our experiences as a human being. We often struggle to speak openly about what we are really experiencing in our lives and what’s really affecting our health. When we focus on weight, thinking we need to change the size and shape of our body, our lens focuses on food and exercise — a very narrow view.

When we widen the lens we see all the things that impact health.

Perhaps you’ve been through a divorce. Maybe you’ve experienced an illness, injury, death in the family or a traumatic life experience. Yet somehow your body is the problem? We need to reinforce the complexity of the human experience instead of reinforcing health as the pinnacle of success and happiness.

Last month I read an article in The New York Times, “Why Your Cardiologist Should Ask Your About Your Love Life,” in which cardiologist Sandeep Jauhar describes research suggesting diet and exercise alone are not enough to roll back heart disease.

“It is increasingly clear that our hearts are sensitive to our emotional system — to the metaphorical heart, if you will. Doctors like myself are trained to think of the heart as a machine that we can manipulate with the tools of modern medicine,” Jauhar wrote. “Those manipulations, however, must be accompanied by greater attention to the emotional life that the heart, for so many years, was believed to contain.”

But what are we told by experts to do when our health is poor? Exercise more. Eat better.

While certainly these can be healthy strategies, we need to look at our health from a whole human being perspective. It’s time for a paradigm shift for health. Let’s widen the focus of the lens and see ourselves as more than our physical bodies.

You can decide what health means to you. Redefine health. Your size and shape doesn’t define your health.

(This article was published in the October 31, 2018 Jackson Hole News and Guide).

Mom’s body attitude can shape daughter’s

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“Mom, I’m fat.”

No mom wants to hear that comment from her daughter.

Yet never before have our girls been more obsessed with their weight and appearance. Girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer or losing their parents, according to the Council on Size and Weight Discrimination.

Chronic dieting, low self-esteem and eating disorders are affecting them at alarming rates.

• Girls as young as 6 worry about their weight.

• 89 percent of girls have dieted by age 17.

• 15 percent of young women have disordered eating.

• 42 percent of girls in grades one to three want to lose weight.

• 45 percent of boys and girls in grades three through six want to be thinner.

• 51 percent of 9- and 10-year-old girls say they feel better about themselves when they are dieting.

• 81 percent of 10-year-olds are afraid of being fat.

Those statistics come from the Body Image Therapy Center. Though the numbers may convince us that raising body-confident girls is impossible in a culture focused on thin as the healthy ideal body type, we can make a difference.

Parents, teachers, mentors and health care professionals have the power to create that shift. Our girls need us to take a radical stand to accept all bodies and the girls who live in these bodies.

The most important thing we can do to promote positive body image is work on our own body image.

“Over 97 percent of women have at least one body-hating thought every single day, and 91 percent of women are dissatisfied with some aspect of their body,” said Alexia Conason, a clinical psychologist and the founder of the Anti-Diet Plan.

Those statistics have risen to epidemic proportions due to our disordered culture, which focuses on our flaws and pairs our self-worth with our pant size or the number on the scale, Conason said.

But there’s good news.

Girls who have a mom who is not self-critical of her own weight are 40 percent more likely to be body positive or body neutral, despite the cultural messages that teens see and hear every day, according to a Yahoo survey.

When we work on our own body image we support our girls.

If your daughter says she’s fat, how you respond matters.

Typically, we say “Oh, you’re not fat.” Yet that only reinforces that fat is “bad” and undesirable. Instead, let’s be authentic and honest in our communication with our girls. Be curious. Ask her questions such as: What caused her concern about her body size and why does she feel this way? Then listen deeply.

Practice empathy, the ability to understand and share her feelings. Can you relate to how your daughter feels about her body?

Don’t be afraid to acknowledge your own struggles with body image and why it’s important to have a healthy relationship with your body. Let her know she’s not alone.

Use the inevitable questions and challenges regarding body image and eating choices to strengthen your relationship with your daughter. Let her know “we’re in this together.”

So instead of telling your daughter that she’s not fat or her thighs aren’t too big, teach her to see bodies and health from a broader and more realistic perspective.

Teach her to take a critical look at the media she is consuming. Social media in particular plays a large role in the daily lives of our young people. Check in with your daughter and discuss how social media images often portray unrealistic bodies ideals. Have her unfollow any feed that doesn’t make her feel good in her body now. Then, together, check out body-positive social media feeds to replace them.

Teach your daughter to separate self-worth from appearance. Create a list with her of all her strengths and accomplishments — qualities that have nothing to do with her appearance.

“True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are; it requires you to be who you are,” said Brene Brown, author of “The Gifts of Imperfection.”

Break the habit of body criticism. Our girls are listening. Comments like “Ugh! I feel so fat today.” Questions like “Do these jeans make my butt look big?” Statements about food like “Oh, I can’t eat that, I’ve been so bad this week.”

Our kids model our behavior.

“A new study by Webb et al (2018) posited that hearing ‘fat talk’ from one’s family may reinforce notions of a thin ideal and self-objectification which in turn may make women less attuned to the internal workings of their own body, eat less mindfully, and rely more on environmental or other external cues to guide their eating,” Alexis Conason wrote in Psychology Today.

Show your daughter how health looks different on every body. Have her question the cultural assumptions that smaller bodies are healthier than larger ones, that all weight loss is good and all weight gain is bad. Health comes in different sizes and shapes. Together look for examples of her favorite female athletes with different body types.

Let’s be the body image role models our girls need. And don’t worry about making a “mistake” when you find yourself challenged by how to address a body image concern. Just circle back and try again. It matters.

“Adolescents are inundated with messages about the importance of attractiveness and body size from sunup to sundown,” said Nicole Rue, a Jackson clinical psychologist specializing in disordered eating, compulsive exercise and poor body image.

“Parents occupy privileged positions to communicate to their children that human value is multifaceted by acknowledging, encouraging and genuinely appreciating non-appearance-based achievements and proclivities.”

I would love to hear ideas from our community. Where do you see challenges with teen body image?

Let’s create solutions. Let’s act radically in our community to prevent our daughters from fearing fat more than war, cancer or death.

Now when your daughter says “I’m fat” you can let her know that it’s not what she sees in the mirror that needs fixing, it’s the culture.

(This article was published in the January 23, 2019 edition of the Jackson Hole News and Guide).

How to embrace your aging body – Fifty is the new fifty

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“Defy your age — get your body back.”

“Take the 10-year social media photo challenge.”

“fifty is the new 30.”

What do all these messages tell us about aging in today’s body-centric culture?

Don’t.

When I turned 50, I’ll be honest: I’d been thinking about aging a lot leading up to that birthday. There’s no doubt that my body was visibly aging. Yet I knew I wanted to share a healthy body image message about growing older and how we can radically accept our bodies despite living in today’s anti-aging culture.

How can you choose to see your aging body differently?

  • by detaching your self-worth from our appearance
  • practicing gratitude for your present body
  • honoring aging as a privilege (no matter what your age!)
  • seeing your body’s true purpose

I’ve learned to accept that my outside appearance is going to change no matter how many creams, potions or procedures I try.

One of the greatest gifts 🎁 of aging is that it can encourage us to look deeper than the outward appearance, beyond the reflection in a mirror. That type of introspection helped me separate my identity from my appearance.

One of my favorite authors, 67-year-old Anne Lamott, said it best:

“Age has given me what I was looking for my entire life — it gave me.”

Separate your self-worth from your appearance

Reflect and ask yourself the following questions:

  • Who are you? What makes you uniquely you?
  • What feeds your spirit?
  • What brings you joy and happiness?
  • What are your special gifts that you are contributing to the world?

Cultivate your inner beauty and focus on feeling good from the inside out instead of trying to change the outside to feel good on the inside.

Aging is a privilege, a miracle

While navigating life and feeling good in our skin as we age isn’t easy, when we practice gratitude and self-compassion and ditch self-criticism and comparison, we can acknowledge aging as a gift. Or, as poet Rupi Kaur said, a miracle.

The anti-aging industry keeps us invested in trying to stay young by creating contests, like the Instagram 10-year challenge, which asks users to post a photo from today and one from 10 years ago. The underlying message: Show how little you’ve aged. But our bodies are meant to change as we live.

The new challenge that I propose to you is to shift from seeing aging as something to defy and see your body with gratitude in the present. The signs of aging — our wrinkles and lines — tell our story. They make us real. They speak our truth.

View your body with an attitude of gratitude

“As a society, we don’t talk about aging as a celebration of a life well-lived,” Mary Robinson said in a blog post titled “Coming to Peace With Aging.” “We scrutinize and shame it if we are talking about it all.”

Have you ever looked back at a photo of your younger self and thought, “I wish I had that body now?” Yes? Take a pause and remember back then. More often than not you’ll find you were critical of yourself then, too. We’re often stuck in such a pattern, never happy with the present self.

But your body is miraculous at all ages. And it’s truly a privilege to get to see it change through the years.

Be more than your body

Our culture and our egos have convinced us our body is who we are. But when we change the way we see our bodies, how we feel about them also changes. What you focus on expands.

What’s your body’s purpose? Choose to view your body not as an ornament but as a vessel for living your best life.

Turning 50 was a gift that allowed me to see aging from a body-positive perspective.

I don’t need my younger body back. I don’t need to feel or look like I’m 30.

Aging has allowed me to see my identity as separate from my appearance. It taught me to have gratitude for my body today and see aging as a privilege. It taught me to see my body as a vessel to give my unique gifts, as a messenger for helping others make peace with their bodies — not as an ornament.

Love yourself now, no matter your age. Be a rebel.

If only our eyes saw souls instead of bodies how different out ideals of beauty would be. – Lauren Jauregui

P.S. Interested in more body image articles? 👇

Ditch Post-Pandemic Body Talk

Mom’s Body Attitude Can Shape Daughter’s

Body Appreciation is Key to Healthful Aging

Imagine Your Life Without a Diet

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(This is the second of two articles on dropping diet mentality. Read part one, “A healthy eating tip for the New Year: Ditch the diet,” here.)

Imagine if you woke up New Year’s Day and weren’t consumed with thoughts of having to fix your body.

Imagine not refusing the brownie because it’s not on your list of approved foods on your “diet” to get thinner.

That doesn’t need to be a dream if you stop believing that food and total body vigilance are the answer.

In the first part of this article, I suggested that if you’re thinking about dieting — that is, using willpower and restriction to control your eating — don’t.

So if not dieting, what can you do to take care of your whole health instead? Try something radically different. Transform how you eat. Transform how you view your body. Move on with your life, the ultimate reward of pushing diet culture off your plate.

Begin by relearning how to eat.

The problem with any diet is that “most people trying to control the size, shape or weight of their bodies have learned to put the rules of the new plan before their body’s actual needs,” according to BeNourished.org, a website focused on healthy eating and body image.

Intuitive eating is the antidote because it’s based on the opposite premise. Instead of restriction, you are guided to tune into internal cues and your body’s needs. That includes learning to honor your individual hunger, fullness, satisfaction and which foods make you feel best.

Essentially, intuitive eating is just … eating.

But because “diet mentality is so deeply ingrained in societal beliefs, that intuitive eating, our natural way of eating, is considered revolutionary,” says the Loving Me Project, which encourages women to live a purpose-driven life.

When we no longer live by external food rules and societal beliefs that our bodies are too much or are not enough, we can get on with our lives.

What are you really “hungering” for? If it wasn’t about controlling your food to transform your body, what would you focus on each new year — and the rest of your life?

“Letting go of the idea of a smaller body, means creating space for a bigger life,” The Loving Me Project says. (You can follow the project on Instagram at @the.lovingmeproject).

Think big, not small, in the new year – without a limited view of “what’s healthy” — where diet culture wants to keep you focused, continuing to spend your time, money and energy, year after year. Instead use your head space to answer these questions:

• What would a life beyond dieting and body worry look like for you?

• What do you really want out of life?

• What really matters most?

• What would make this upcoming year extraordinary?

Envision your future as if it’s already happened. Describe the diet culture-free life you would create for yourself, and email me your answers at tanya@tanyamark.com.

“Diet culture steals your joy, your spark, and your life, which is why I call it, ‘the life thief,’” said Christy Harrison, author of “Anti-Diet.”

Don’t spend your life thinking you’re broken, a project to be fixed. Don’t be the 90-year-old woman refusing the fresh-baked brownie from her granddaughter because she’s “watching her waistline.”

Do something radical in the new year: Don’t diet. Listen to your body and live fully.

Tips for the New Year:

Listen to your body

Ready to learn how to listen to your body’s internal cues?

Transform your body image, not your body. It’s what you think about your body that’s the real challenge.

“I am too fat,” “I’m too skinny,” “I have too many stretch marks,” “I don’t have enough muscle.”

What if we swapped the endless pursuit of fixing or hiding our bodies, believing that our bodies are not enough or too much, to pursue a healthy body image instead?

What if instead of trying to change our physical appearance, we adjusted our mindset, our thoughts?

Focusing on changing your body image verses changing your body, can produce life-changing benefits. This switch can boost your self-esteem, banish persistent body anxiety, promote comfort in personal relationship, improve your relationship with food, reduce unhealthy dieting habits, improve your relationship with exercise, reduce the risk of developing an eating disorder, decrease social isolation due to body worries.

And most of all, changing your body image can improve your overall quality of life. Controlling your body shouldn’t be your life’s work.

Remember: “You are not alive to just pay bills and lose weight,” says Caroline Donner, author of “The F*ck It Diet.”

Read to re-learn how to eat?
Intuitive Eating: Do you need to re-learn how to eat?

Ready to transform how you view your body?
5 Steps to a Healthy Body Image

Why ‘You Look So Skinny’ Needs An Upgrade

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Compliments are great, right?!

Of course, we want to tell someone when they look great. Who hasn’t complimented someone who has obviously lost a significant amount of weight?! We probably all have. But we may be doing more harm than good…

In 2013, after finishing nutrition school, I weighed the least I’ve ever weighed, which was far less than when I was 16 years old. Yet I was complimented for how lean and fit I looked. The truth is this was an unhealthy weight for me and it was a result of being overly obsessive with my food choices and exercise. It was a result of having an unhealthy relationship with food. And while back then I loved the compliments, now I see how they reinforced my desire to stay at this unhealthy weight.

If you have to restrict, purge, over-exercise, or punish yourself (including your mental health!) in order to stay there (or get there), your body is not meant to be at that weight. – Gina Susanna, @Nourishandeat

Here are a few more human factors to consider as well.

What if someone’s weight loss is the result of a terrible breakup? Loss of work? Illness? Unbearable stress or depression?

What if that compliment is phrased as “Wow, you look so much better!” Well, this could easily cause a mental tailspin for the recipient. Were they judging me before, thinking I should look better? Was I loved less by them before I lost the weight?

A few readers at Beauty Redefined weighed in on this topic. One said, “When my mom was sick and three months later passed away, I was so stressed out and grief-stricken that I lost about 20 lbs. Everyone at work complimented me and told me to keep doing whatever I was doing because it was really working for me.”

Our culture reinforces the body image ideal that thin is desirable.

It’s time to shift the conversation.

In Heather Widdows’ article, A Duty To Be Beautiful, in Psychology Today, she says, “That (the) preoccupation of trying to attain unrealistic beauty standards causes increased anxiety, worry, feelings of failure, lowered self-esteem, disordered eating, relentless dieting and exercise obsessions, mental and physical health issues and overall diminished well-being.”

We can teach our daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters (and all human beings) that they are more than their bodies. We can do that by shifting the way we speak about bodies.

A person’s appearance is the least interesting thing about them. So, what can we say instead to turn the conversation to things that actually matter? How about…

It’s so great to see you so happy and healthy!

Or…

You’re so much fun to be around!

Or…

I love your perseverance.

If you really want to give a looks-based compliment, pair it with a compliment based on their character. For example,

You look incredible! I admire your ability to set goals and really pursuit them!

And finally, if you want more strategies to create a more positive body image for yourself or future generations, checkout my latest article in the JH Woman special section of the Jackson Hole News and Guide, Mirror mirror on the wall, what we look like isn’t all.

As always, I would love to hear your thoughts, comments and questions. I’d love to keep the conversation flowing. Let’s chat!

  • Tanya

Social Media Body Positive Feeds to Follow

Posted on by tmAdmin

Support a healthy body image by following these body positive social media feeds. Fill your feed with realistic and positive images of bodies and health.

The messages that you see and hear everyday matter and influence how you feel about your own human body.

Pick the ones that speak to you and resonate with you and make YOU feel good, now.

BEAUTY REDEFINED

Twins, Lexie Kite, PhD and Lindsay Kite, PhD have become leading experts in the work of body image resilience through research-backed online education available on their website, social media, and through speaking events to tens of thousands across the US. Beauty Redefined changes the conversation about body image by telling girls and women they are more than beautiful. Lexie and Lindsay assert positive body image is about feeling positively toward your body overall, not just what it looks like. Check out their book More Than a Body.

THE BODY POSITIVE

The Body Positive is a nonprofit organization that teaches people to listen to their bodies, learn and thrive. Our ultimate goal is to end the harmful consequences of negative body image: eating disorders, depression, anxiety, cutting, suicide, substance abuse, and relationship violence. Check out Connie Sobczak, co-founder of The Body Positive’s book Embody.

CHRISSY KING

From author and Instagram personality Chrissy King, an exciting, genre-redefining narrative mix of memoir, inspiration, and specific exercises and prompts, with timely messages about social and racial justice, and how the world needs to move beyond body positivity to something even more exciting and revolutionary—body liberation. Check out Chrissy’s book The Body Liberation Project.

THE EMBRACE MOVEMENT

Started by founder Taryn Brumfitt, the Body Image Movement (BIM) is on a mission to change the belief that your body is not an ornament, it’s the vehicle to your dreams. BIM is on a quest to end the global body-hating epidemic and believes that everyone has the right to love and embrace their body, regardless of shape, size, ethnicity and ability.

AMY PENCE-BROWN

Amy Pence-Brown is a fat feminist mother, writer, artist and body image activist for the past nine years who became internationally know for her radical stand for self-love at the Capitol City Public Market on August 29, 2015, in Boise, Idaho, which was documented in a blog post, photographs and a video viewed over 200 million times. Her message about the value of all bodies no matter what their size, has been covered by numerous media outlets, including CNN, USA Today, Cosmopolitan, People, TODAY, Huffington Post, Upworthy, HLN, the Dr. Oz Show, SHAPE, xo Jane and Fitness magazine. Amy’s radical stand for self-love is the inspiration for my column Radical Acceptance, in the Jackson Hole News and Guide, which focuses on promoting positive body image and redefining health.

SUMMER INNANEN

Summer is a Body Image Coach, author of Body Image Remix and host of one of my favorite podcasts, Eat The Rules which is dedicated to body image, body positivity, self-worth, anti-dieting and feminism.

ASHLEE BENNETT

Ashlee is a body image therapist whose mission is to help you develop a healing relationship with your body, which involves mental, emotional, physical, social and spiritual domains of life.

SONYA RENEE TAYLOR

NYT Bestselling Author & founder of The Body is Not An Apology committed to radical self-love as a path to liberation.

DR. COLLEEN REICHMANN

Colleen is a licensed clinical psychologist, eating disorders specialist, and body positive activist.

CENTER4BODYTRUST

Confronting a weight and health-obsessed world, Hilary Kinavey, MS, LPC and Dana Sturtevant, MS, RD are a therapist-dietitian team who’ve been co-creating their Body Trust approach for over 17 years. Body Trust is scientifically grounded and greatly informed by social justice movements, liberatory frameworks, and embodiment theory. Like to read? Check out their book Reclaiming Body Trust.

TANYA MARK

Last but not least! My social media pages share positive messages about non diet nutrition, body image, intuitive eating and eating psychology to help you make peace with food and your body (and if you haven’t read my FREE GUIDE yet, you can grab it here).

Have a favorite body positive social media account that you love and would like to share it with me? I’d love to hear from you!

  • Tanya

Liking Yourself is a Rebellious Act

Posted on by tmAdmin

I am standing for anyone who has struggled with a self-esteem issue like me, because all bodies are valuable. To support self-acceptance, draw a heart on my body.

  • Amy Pence Brown

Taking A Stand

If you haven’t seen Amy’s incredible display of humanity and self-love, I highly recommend you take 4 minutes to watch her video.

I had tears rolling down my face because I too, have struggled with accepting my body.

heart. heart. heart. heart.

I think what affected me most about her radical stand for positive body image is that liking yourself is a _universal _struggle no matter what your size, age, shape, gender and more.

This video was shot in Boise, Idaho which is pretty close to where I live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I was so moved by it that I reached out to Amy to tell her about how I, too, believe in creating more conversation around positive body image, as a Body Image Movement Global Ambassador. I too want to make strides to bring more perspectives to my community. Her reply was that this was both really exciting and also surprising “in the best way”.

My hometown of Jackson Hole is …” a mountain town where most people look fit and healthy, (yet) a lot of self-loathing lies beneath the surface. In addition to people suffering eating disorders like bulimia, anorexia and binge-eating, others experience the same feelings to a lesser degree and over-exercise to compensate,” says Johanna Love in her 2016 article titled Love Your Body in the Jackson Hole News and Guide.

What Johanna said resonated with me personally and professionally. In my private practice as a Mind Body Nutritionist + Dynamic Eating Psychology Coach, I encounter a lot of stress and tears about our bodies from women and men (yes, men, too!) who are trying to maintain their appearance or change it to fit cultural ideals, and Jackson’s ideals as a fit, healthy mountain town.

So today, I’d love to share a few thoughts to help us to practice radical acceptance and see all bodies as valuable beginning with your own.

Feeling rebellious and want to take a stand for self-love like Amy?

Practice These Four Tips:

  1. Distance yourself from media that makes you feel “less than”

    We’re constantly bombarded with images of “perfect” bodies that it becomes extremely difficult not to compare yourself to these unrealistic images. You may be familiar with the expression “Comparison is the thief of joy” and that couldn’t be more true. Unplug more often and get away from mass media to give yourself space to appreciate things that bring you joy. For example, instead of flipping through that latest fashion magazine, why not read a fun novel or follow people like Amy Pence Brown on social media verses those that make you feel less than.

  2. Tune In

    Observe your thoughts. What is your inner voice saying? What sparks the negative commentary? Most of us are unaware of the things we say to ourselves and don’t realize the effect is has on us as a whole. The next time you catch yourself saying to yourself “you’re too fat/thin/loud/awkward/freckled/whatever…” notice how your body responds.

    When you attack yourself with negative words, your mind and body perceives this attack literally. This immediately puts the body in a stress response. Stress chemistry is not the body’s friend, unless you are being chased by a lion! What happens is that our sympathetic nervous system tells our body to release the stress hormones cortisol and insulin. Over a sustained period of time (read: every day that you express negative comments), these hormones tell our bodies to protect. Stress chemistry also wipes out our good gut bacteria, leaving us with weakened immune systems. Source

  3. Let It Go

    If you’ve ever said something along the lines of “I’ll start doing ____ when I ___ (for ex. lose X pounds), this one is for you.

    Let go of the conditions that surround your happiness and fulfillment.

    These thought patterns can lead to a life of constant self-rejection and downward spiraling. Through Mind Body Nutrition, which explores how you’re nourishing your whole self, we can dive deeper into what’s beneath those conditions you put on yourself and free yourself to be happy now, in the present.

  4. Be in your body – Embodiment!

    When was the last time you really felt in your body? When you weren’t speeding through life and distracted by _____ (everything under the sun)?

    Embodiment is the ability to get out of our heads and into our bodies and connect to their wisdom.

    When we’re really in tune with our body, we know what it needs. We’re able to empathize with our own needs and help ourselves in a positive way.

    One way you can practice embodiment is by slowing down, bringing more awareness to your plate and how certain foods make you feel. Another way is to move in ways that make you feel good – dancing, walking, swimming, hiking, going to a yoga class. When you’re in this state, listen to what your body is telling you – it has wisdom to share!

    Embodiment is a key step towards healing body image.

Remember: in a culture that plays on self-doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act. So be a rebel. Encourage others to be, too.

Have a comment, question? I would love to hear from you,

  • Tanya

What is Body Positive Fitness?

Posted on by tmAdmin

I love fitness. I loved it so much that I made it my career as a former Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist.

While I still love moving my body, my perspective on fitness has changed.

Fitness has gotten entangled with diet culture. We’re told to:

  • Get a beach body. 
  • Earn and burn your food.

These statements seem benign because we’re so used to hearing them yet they can be incredibly harmful for both men and women. They make us feel ashamed of our bodies unless we have “shredded abs” and X percent body fat.

Needless to say, there’s a lot wrong with this picture.

Shift How You View Fitness

I used to be part of the problem. I used to buy into this harmful messaging. At the beginning of my career as an exercise professional, I believed that if clients just worked harder and smarter, they could achieve the “perfect” body. If they did the “work” and weren’t getting results, then I assumed it must be due to poor nutrition.

But nutrition messaging can prey on our self-worth too, with the terms “good foods” and “bad foods.” It’s no wonder so many of us think healthy eating has to be stressful and restrictive. Many of us don’t know how to eat “normally.”

Every body deserves fitness

After working with hundreds of clients in both fitness and nutrition, I’ve find that both of these strategies are wonderful ways to nourish our bodies.

But they don’t guarantee an “ideal” body.

Did you know that less than 5% of women naturally possess the body type that media portrays as ideal?

Fitness and nutrition are two self-care choices we can choose to engage in to feel good.

Not because our bodies aren’t enough.

Not because we don’t have a flat belly or a thigh gap.

Many of us want to feel better but we’re tired of the seemingly never-ending struggle to maintain or attain this unrealistic ideal body type. We’re tired of having to avoid “forbidden” foods that bring us pleasure in order to change our bodies. We’re tired of trying to live up to culture’s standard of being fit, and what toxic diet and fitness culture has determined all of our bodies should look like.

One way we can create a cultural shift is to take the focus off exercise as a means to change our bodies appearance and instead exercise for the ways it makes our bodies feel.

Boyd positive fitness

 

Body Positive Fitness

Body positive fitness promotes fitness as one way to care for our bodies. It promotes health, not needing to change your body size or shape. It does not use shame tactics and language that preys on our insecurities.

As a culture, we can shift to a body positive fitness perspective by changing the language around fitness.

Instead of believing we should “shred our abs” or we have to “earn and burn our food,” we can value exercise as something that is adding to the quality of our lives.

If you want to change your body, I want it to be your choice instead of feeling like you must in order to be accepted, by yourself and others.

Interested in supporting a shift to body positive fitness?

3 Tips to Support Body Positive Fitness

  1. Start noticing how toxic fitness messages make you feel. It starts with awareness. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it!
  2. Show your support for fitness businesses that promote with positive health and body messaging – with your wallet and your voice.
  3. Focus on the many benefits of exercise: stress reduction, improved sleep, increased energy, improved mental health, reduced and improved self confidence, brain power, increased strength, flexibility, balance, coordination, agility, and heart health.

As a Wellness and Personal Growth Coach, I’ve witnessed too many tears and too much stress around how we perceive our own bodies. The messages that we hear and see every single day are producing an epidemic of body dissatisfaction. But, we have the power to change that!

  • Tanya