I read a few blogs about healthy body image. About wellness and health. And now especially I have a fair few weight loss blogs. And there is often a discussion about healthy body image. I’m not even sure that most of us, me included, know what or how we would define healthy body image. So go on, watch me try.
I read a biography about Marylin Munroe. About the clear and cut throat manner that she managed photographs and tape of herself in the latter days of her short career. This image found online is, according to the person using it who didn’t reference it’s original source, an image of the proof sheet after Marylin got done with it. She would send photographs pages and pages that looked like this. The biography talks of her critical eye for perfection. For THE shot that would perpetuate the image. The superstar brand. But I’m not sure that it was always clear where she ended and the idea started.
And I think for all women we have a degree of this. Where does the idea of who we see ourselves to be begin and where to we leave off… Are we aiming for size, shape and allure rather than health and well being? Some days I would most certainly vote yes! To pull on a pair of sexy jeans and not feel like the top button was going to push its way through to my spine when I sat down would be a victory. I then, would be womanly and sexy and happy.
Superficial but true.
But then on the other end of the scale there is the curves thing. I love the look of a good set of curves. Full boobs and rounded bum. But I think that the push to demonstrate all body types that has gone a little haywire. Would I want my body held up as an example for girls or women. Short answer… NO. I am overweight. Morbidly so. Do I think that the display of overweight women in advertising would assist with healthy body image. God no. Acceptance? Maybe, but really, do we want to encourage acceptance of bad health. And isn’t that a great big can of worms in its self.
You know who I love. Athletes. About a month after their big event. They are fit, healthy and somehow in tune with their bodies without the restrictions placed by their rigorous training schedules. That is a body to aspire to. Something to work towards and attain. A goal of health and well being. But how does that relate to healthy body image?
How does any of this relate to feeling good about your body. Right now. Well I think the secret may just be that until you accept and stop resisting what you have, there can be no openings for action to have the body you want. And with the acceptance comes the thing that I, for one, crave most when it comes to my weight and health and fitness. I want to feel good. Comfortable. I want to love myself. To have acceptance. To feel grateful for what I have.
Maybe that is what is truly distorted. That we don’t have that. And someone, somewhere tells us it is ok. And that if we buy this, we will. If we were thinner, smart, richer, we would. Maybe that is the true downfall of body image. This internal critic. Would you be as critical of a friends body as you are of your own?
Now… discuss!
Suger 
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