My body is good. I need to know what exactly I owe him. |

The image of our body is the way we perceive it. This concept includes not only its appearance, which we judge in the mirror, but also our beliefs and thoughts about the body, as well as emotions about it and the actions we take towards it. Unfortunately, modern media coverage and mass culture have shifted the focus from how we feel in our body to what it looks like.

We women are under more pressure to have an ideal image. From an early age, we are exposed to the public. Additionally, we are convinced that one of the main advantages of femininity is beauty. This message is mainly implemented by girls and women. Boys and men are mostly praised for their achievements and personality.

By getting compliments and praise primarily for beauty, we teach girls and young women that appearance counts more than other features. This correlation often leads to linking our self-esteem with what we look like and how other people judge our appearance. This is a dangerous phenomenon because when we cannot live up to the ideal of beauty, we often feel inferior, which results in lowered self-esteem.

The statistics are inexorable and say that about 90% of women do not accept their body

Dissatisfaction with one’s appearance is almost an epidemic these days. Unfortunately, it already affects children, it is especially strong among young people, but it does not spare adults and the elderly. In pursuit of the perfect body, we use various tactics so that the mirror and other people finally see our beauty.

Sometimes we fall into the trap of a vicious cycle of losing weight and gaining weight. We exercise sharply to get a modeled and slender body. We undergo aesthetic treatments to meet the ideal of beauty that we carry in our head. If we fail, disapproval and self-criticism are born.

All of this distracts us from building a more positive relationship with our own body. In order for us to do this, we must first consider how it happened to be negative.

“You gain weight” – according to anthropologists it is the greatest compliment to women in Fiji

In our part of the world, these words mean failure and are very undesirable. In the last century, the presence of fluffy bodies in the islands of Fiji was natural. “Eat and get fat” – this is how guests were welcomed at dinner and it was a tradition to eat well. So the silhouettes of the inhabitants of the South Pacific islands were massive and stout. This type of body was a sign of wealth, prosperity and health. Losing weight was considered a disturbing and undesirable condition.

Everything changed when television, which had not been there before, was introduced to the main island of Fiji – Viti Levu. Young girls could follow the fate of the heroines of American series: “Melrose Place” and “Beverly Hills 90210”. A worrying phenomenon was noted among teenagers a few years after this change. There has been an increase in the number of girls suffering from an eating disorder that has never been reported in Fiji before. Young girls no longer dreamed of looking like their mothers or aunts, but slender heroines of American series.

How were we programmed to be obsessed with beauty?

Isn’t the story of the exotic Fijian islands a bit like what happened and is still happening around the world? The obsession with a slim body is driven by culture and media that focus more on the appearance of women than their personalities. People who embarrass women because of the appearance of their bodies, but also those who praise girls and women only for their beauty, contribute to this.

The ideal of the female body is created in pop culture. In the press, television or popular social media, a slim figure is synonymous with beauty and a model that we should strive for. The world of fitness, the culture of diets, and the beauty business still convince us that we do not look good enough, earning money on our pursuit of the ideal.

Women function in a world where there is no escaping from the mirror. When they look at it, they are much less satisfied with what they see in it. Dissatisfaction with one’s appearance is seen as a permanent part of a woman’s identity. Scientists have coined a term to describe this problem: normative dissatisfaction.

Research has shown a difference in body perception between men and women. When asked about their body, men perceive it more holistically, not as a collection of individual elements. They pay much more attention to the capabilities of their body than to its appearance. Women think more piecemeal about their bodies, break it up into pieces, and then evaluate and criticize.

The pervasive cult of the slim figure, which is nurtured by the media, fuels women’s dissatisfaction with their own body. 85 – 90% of plastic surgery and eating disorders worldwide involve women, not men. The canons of beauty are an unattainable model for most women, yet some of us are ready to make many sacrifices and sacrifices to adapt to them. If you are constantly dreaming about the perfect body, you will not accept the one you have.

What is self-objectification, and why is it devastating?

Imagine you are looking at yourself in a mirror. In it, you check how your silhouette looks. Whether the hair is arranged the way you like. Are you well dressed. Self-objectification is that when you physically move away from the mirror, it stays in your thoughts. A part of your consciousness constantly monitors and supervises how you look from other people’s perspective.

If you are affected by this problem, you are not alone. Unfortunately, many women suffer from chronic self-objectification, which becomes a personality trait that appears in a variety of situations. Then every moment among people is a kind of beauty contest, in which mental powers are used to monitor the appearance of the body. The more people around you care too much about your appearance, the more pressure you are and the more likely you’ll be the same.

Self-objectification can be destructive and bad for the brain. Numerous studies have shown that when a large part of our consciousness is absorbed in thinking about what we look like, it becomes harder for us to concentrate on logical tasks that require attention.

In the study “The swimsuit becomes you” – “you feel good in this bathing suit” – the very act of trying it on by women reduced the results on the math test. Another study, Body on my mind, found that trying on a swimsuit embarrass most women and continued to think about their body long after they put on clothes. During the research, no one but the participants saw their bodies. It was enough that they looked at each other in the mirror.

Social media and comparing your bodies with others

Research has shown that women who spend most of their time on social media, focusing on the appearance of other women, are more likely to think negatively about themselves. The more they think that, the more they feel ashamed of their body. People with the highest level of dissatisfaction with their own body made social comparisons most often.

Contact with ideal images of women in the media and pop culture often results in adopting this exemplary appearance as the only right canon of beauty. An effective way to deprive the ideal images of women in the media of their impact is to limit exposure to them. So instead of fighting the beauty virus that enters the body, it’s better not to expose yourself to it.

Symbolic annihilation – it is a dangerous phenomenon of ignoring and not mainstreaming overweight, elderly and disabled people in the media. In the women’s press, models and heroines of articles are always perfectly retouched. Remember what a woman announcing the weather forecast looks like on TV. It is usually a tall, slender, young and pretty girl, dressed in an outfit that emphasizes her impeccable figure.

There are more examples of the presence of ideal women in the media. Fortunately, this is slowly changing thanks to social movements such as body positivity. For commercials, women with different bodies that were previously ignored by pop culture are hired as models. A good example of this is the song by Ewa Farna “Body”, which talks about “accepting changes in the body that we have no influence on”. The video shows women with different shapes and “imperfections”.

From self-objectification to self-acceptance

Do you have to change your body to finally feel good in it? For some, the answer will be unequivocal: yes. However, you can build a positive body image by changing your beliefs about your body without necessarily improving your body’s appearance. It is possible to establish a friendly relationship with your body, despite the many disadvantages it has.

Having a positive body image is not believing that your body looks good, but thinking that your body is good no matter what it looks like.

If we are able to have a different perspective of looking at ourselves and other women, our over-fixation with what we look like will diminish or disappear altogether. We will begin to appreciate what kind of people we are, without looking at ourselves as items to evaluate.

What do you think about your body?

I asked you this question on the forum last week. I would like to thank everyone for their answers 😊 This question is not focused only on appearance. Despite this, a large group of Vitalijek mainly wrote about their body image. Some people showed strong dissatisfaction with how they presented themselves, others, on the contrary – considered themselves pretty and attractive – thanked their genes for the gift of a good body.

You’ve also written about your respect for your own body and being content with what it can do, despite seeing some visual flaws in you. Many of you have come to terms with your bodies as you age and have stopped tormenting yourself with the pursuit of the ideal. A large part of the women who spoke out wrote about kindness and forbearance towards their body. Most of the opinions were therefore extremely positive, which is comforting and shows that the attitude has changed to more accepting.

Unfortunately, unexpected diseases and old age are also associated with the body. Those of us facing these problems know that it is not an easy task. Pain, unpleasant reactions, lack of control over your own body, its unpredictability can cause a lot of worry. Sometimes the body becomes an enemy that is not so easy to cooperate with. Unfortunately, there is no ready-made prescription and no way to deal with the times when the body is sick and suffering. Everyone in such a situation learns a new approach to the ailing body, which requires special care, patience and strength.

A lesson of gratitude

The body serves us faithfully. It is the vehicle that carries us through life. Reducing his role only to what he looks like is unfair and unfair. Sometimes negative thoughts about your body arise against our will. Then it is worth pausing for a moment and thinking, and it is best to write down everything that we owe to our body.

Let us not support the mind in criticizing our own body. Let’s learn an attitude that appreciates the body for what it does for us, let’s not condemn it for what it looks like. Every evening, when we go to bed, let us thank our body for everything that we have been able to do thanks to it. We can make a gratitude list on a piece of paper and come back to it at times when we don’t think too well about our body.

Summation

Body – it is a combination of mind and body that creates each unique person. In addition to focusing and reflecting on your body and what it looks like or can do for us, let’s look at ourselves from an even broader perspective. Me – it’s not only my body and its abilities. Me – these are my different, individual character traits, behaviors, advantages, passions and preferences. It is worth paying attention to your interior more often and not focusing only on the appearance. In this way, we will appreciate our other qualities and build a healthy sense of worth based on who we are, not what we look like. It seems so obvious, but in a time focused on human physiognomy, self-acceptance and being in a positive relationship with each other is a lesson to do for each of us.