Resources

BODY IMAGE

Negative body image - why?

Some of the factors that contribute to a woman's negative body image include:

• Being teased about appearance in childhood.

• Growing up with dieting parents, or one who was unhappy with their body shape.

• A cultural tendency to judge people by their appearance.

• Peer pressure among teenage girls to be slim, go on diets and compare themselves with others.

• Media and advertising images promoting thinness as the ideal.

• A tendency in women's media to push fad diets and weight loss programs.

• Well-meaning public health campaigns that urge people to lose weight.

• Reflect on your experiences and try to unravel the development of your body image from childhood.

• Talk about feelings and experiences with other women who have similar concerns.

• Make a pact with yourself to treat your body with respect, which includes giving it enough food and rest.

• Give yourself a break from women's magazines and the mass media for a while.

• Try some form of physical activity purely for the fun of it, not as a means of weight loss.

• Stop weighing yourself.

• Change your goal from weight loss to improving your health.

• Get informed by reading up on body image issues.