Beauty
Let Me Hear Your Body Talk: Loving My Body Exactly the Way It Is and Still Working to Change It
10:49 AMThe Huffington Post published an article yesterday "Why 'Love Your Body' Campaigns Aren't Working". Author, Isabel Foxen Duke, related our inability to love ourselves - through the eyes of these campaigns - with the messages and lifestyles that we associate with them. As women we are socialized to fear our bodies, that weight is a deterrant for others from loving us, that if we have cellulite we can't get our dream jobs, or touching thighs mean we'll never have the wrap-around porch we've always dreamed of.
I wanted to put my own '2 cents' in on why these campaigns don't work. Why Dove, or Victoria Secret or any other projection of "love yourself just the way you are" doesn't work.
To begin, a little background music to get us in the mood.... wink, wink
The reason that I believe these campaigns are so ineffective is because they lack fluidity. They send a message of self-acceptance frozen in time. These ads send a message of self-love but don't provide a commentary or jargon for change. They don't allow us to effectively and positively talk about changing our bodies without prosecuting them: "If you love your body, why would you change it?" or "If you are trying to change you clearly don't love yourself."
Uggg... can't I simultaneously think I'm awesome while still having physical ambitions that are varied from my current capabilities?
As women, I don't believe the seeking of perfection will ever dissipate - it will never go away. The "true-to-life" models that are appearing on billboards or in magazine spreads, or the intentional choice of companies not to airbrush their models - these are all as Duke says an:
"important first step, but not necessarily the 'answer' for women suffering from body hatred now."
We need a campaign that teaches us to love our bodies and appreciate their strengths, while also providing a language base for how to talk about our bodies, or how to effectively - and happily - change them into what we want them to be. We need a campaign that will change the way we think and see beauty - one that for us, female perfectionist, will give us a quantifiable means of recognizing change beyond the number on the tiny tag in back of our pants.
Our body talk needs to change.
We fear the word "fat" because we have no notion of what it is or isn't. Women who are suffering from body hatred completely lack the ability to see their bodies for what they are; the stress and pressure of the comparison game holds us back and makes us blind. We can't see the strength and shape of our own bodies because we are so busy looking at those of others.
Let Me Hear Your Body Talk How-To:
The idea is to make our body language goal-oriented - let's use some action verbs, people! We need to allow ourselves to want to grow and change, we need to reward our selves and our spirits when we accomplish and are successful.
I have been the same weight and size since high school. I've played sports, and not. I've gone to the gym, and not. I've eaten carbs, and not; sugar, and not. I've counted, and eliminated to no end. Yet, here I am, exactly the same number in every way.
But am I the same person? Am I happier? Healthier? Absolutely.
Instead of saying "I want to be a size 4" or "I'm going to run everyday to get skinny" - I've decided to celebrate the accomplishments of my body and it's capabilities. But also, to challenge myself.
I want to celebrate the body I have all along the way, while also working to gain something - even if what I gain is for my mental and emotional shape-up and not my physical reaction.
I want to run 5 miles. Am I the only one that isn't casually running marathons every weekend? Am I the only one left that has never participated in a triathlon? According to my Facebook newsfeed it often seems like it.
But I'm not running 5 miles for my Facebook friends. I'm sure there are tons of you who could do it in your sleep. I want to run 5 miles because it's something I can't do now.
How do I get there?
No more "I look fat," or games of mine verses hers.
Yesterday at the gym, I ran a mile, just one. But it was the fastest mile of my life. I felt wonderful. I felt happy with my body and appreciative of it. And yet, in the midst of my celebration, the gym mirror was there tempting me with negative body talk.
How much happier I was to bask in my tiny accomplishment, one that was all my own, than to judge myself by the standards of shame that have been imposed on me. How wonderful it felt to want to change the way my body moved, or the strength of my muscles, while still being excited about the here and now. What a life when the only number I was concerned with was the time on the clock or the weight of the barbell.
Imagine if new mom's aspired for bodies that could play with and keep up with their children rather than ones that loose the impeding "baby-weight." What would that look like? How much self-hatred and negative body talk could we save?
Imagine the body-goals of middle school girls being centered on climbing the rope in gym class, or getting ready for the high school field hockey team, rather than a numerical judgement of their changing bodies. How different would puberty have been for you had you seen yourself and your capabilities in this way?
Talk of fear and fat need to be replaced with ambitions and goals. We need to be told that we are awesome and beautiful all the time, but we also need to know that we can do so while changing the way we treat our bodies in order to accomplish new things. That way, even if like me, we stay the same number - we grow exponentially in our self-love and spirit.
This is a self-challenge, my own campaign, and I hope you'll join me.
