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TEN STEPS THAT CAN HELP YOU LOVE YOURSELF
1. STOP WEIGHING YOURSELF
Scales are for fish, not people. Stop measuring how good you feel about yourself by what the scales tell you. Scales don’t know you as a person and they cannot tell you how to think or feel. Take the power away from the scales and try to take control of how you feel about your body and about yourself.
2. STOP TALKING CRITICALLY ABOUT YOUR BODY
Be a positive influence to other women/men and especially young people, by not talking about your weight and about how you dislike your body. You may sometimes feel uncomfortable about feeling ok about your body, when everyone else around you wants to change theirs. But every discussion we have about weight and body size leaves an impression on people around us. We are in danger of encouraging an unattainable quest for perfection if we continue to follow the rules laid out by the diet industry and media.
3. QUESTION THE MOTIVES OF THE DIET, COSMETIC AND FASHION INDUSTRIES
These industries make money by trying to determine ‘the look’ which women (and increasingly men) feel under pressure to conform to. Fashion and cosmetics can be an enjoyable aspect of life, but is it worth trying to buy into the unrealistic ideals? Experiment with what suits you and your body, rather than being told what should do so.
4. VALUE YOUR MONEY If you didn’t buy into unrealistic and destructive eating regimes and you spent your earnings more on what reflected the person you are, would you still spend your money on the same things and in the same way?
5. APPRECIATE YOUR BODY FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE Rather than being preoccupied with body size and shape, learn to enjoy the marvel that is your body through movement, exercise, nourishment, health, comfort and pleasure, for a more sustaining sense of self-acceptance.
6. TRY TO EAT ACCORDING TO HUNGER Instead of eating according to a set plan, respect and listen to the signals of your body which knows how much and what food it needs. When you are eating according to hunger most of the time, your body will adjust to the size you are meant to be.
7. THINK ABOUT THE QUALITIES YOU REALLY ADMIRE IN OTHER WOMEN
Think about the people you really like and admire. With these values you have, does it really matter whether these people conform to a mainstream depiction of size and shape?
8. CONSIDER HOW YOU DEAL WITH DIFFICULT EMOTIONS
If you stop translating difficult emotions into a preoccupation with body and size, there’ll be more room and energy to focus on the real issues that make us happy or down at a particular time.
9. FOCUS ON THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF
Rather than obsess on what you don’t think is acceptable and are driven to change, ditch the idea of a ‘perfect body’. Aim for the serenity to accept the things you cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
10. BE A ROLE MODEL
It’s never easy to go against the grain. But there have always been females/males who took risks to grow and who have set new standards. Blaze a trail to liking and being who you really are, body and beyond.
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![pluseyes:
Wandering through the dangerous forests of the internet I came upon the unshopped photos of Madonna again and wanted to post to say, again, how fucking hot is Madonna? How fucking wonderful is Madonna? And how fucking great would it be if she was allowed to star in her videos looking exactly like this? I mean ooh yes how adventurous Lady Gaga in a head-dress and a bubble suit but MADONNA, without whom Gaga could never have existed: if she can walk onto a red carpet with wrinkles and all then she is more brave and fabulous than Gaga will ever be. No offence to the latter.
I read a great article in G2 the other day: When women are too old to appear on TV.
Ageism isn’t only an issue on the BBC. In 2008, Selina Scott won a reported £250,000 and an apology from Five after apparently being replaced for an upcoming job by a younger presenter. And across the channels the formulaic older man-younger woman pairing persists: Bruce Forsyth (81) and Tess Daly (38) on Strictly Come Dancing; Adrian Chiles (42) and Christine Bleakley (31) on The One Show; Phillip Schofield (47) and Holly Willoughby (28) on This Morning and Dancing on Ice; Jeff Stelling (54) and Rachel Riley (24) on Countdown.
In fact, glancing at our visual culture – television, films, billboards – it can seem that, with a few notable exceptions such as Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren, older women have ceased to exist. In an Australian study, the psychologist Dr Lauren Rosewarne found that fewer than 4% of women on advertising billboards were portrayed as being over 30. “By rendering these women invisible,” she says, “the inference is not only are they not attractive enough for billboards, but that they are not attractive at all, which becomes synonymous with failing to contribute to society.” And while this ageism can be a personal disaster for individual women in the public eye, it is interesting to consider how it affects ordinary women too.
The feminist and psychologist Susie Orbach feels that the cultural invisibility of older women is “crazy”. “There is all this research which shows that women are more capable, more energetic and confident as they get older, and there is this contradiction between that and this culture we have now, [which assumes] we should be spared the sight of women over a certain age.”
What counts as a “certain age” isn’t fixed: the writer Suzanne Moore suggests that the age at which women are considered old – and therefore apparently redundant – seems to have fallen. “When we say ‘older’, what do we even mean any more?” she says. “It probably used to be anyone over 60, but now it seems to be applied to women over 40. I was reading something Fiona Bruce [the BBC newsreader, who is in her early 40s] was saying about her worries about getting older, and I was thinking, you’re not that old. It used to be that women were considered redundant after the menopause, but now the message seems to be that you’re redundant in your 40s. I think we need to get a distinction in our heads between those who are paid to look good – models or actors – and those who are paid for what they do.”
Suzanne Doyle-Morris, who runs a company coaching professional women, believes that the emphasis on youth and beauty affects women’s careers. “Women are taught from a young age that a huge amount of their worth is based on their looks,” she says. “And when you are constantly told that older women are not considered attractive, women lose their ‘value’ as they get older. When we are not used to seeing older women in roles of responsibility, it sends a message to younger women that you won’t succeed beyond a certain age.”
Moore agrees. “It comes down to that old thing about role models,” she says. “If you don’t have older women authority figures in view – whether they are reading the news or in politics or running companies – then what do young women aspire to?” She thinks a backlash is growing. “Audiences want to watch people with authority, and not just the pretty faces you see on every other channel. The BBC is supposed to have authority, and it is ridiculous to try to ape commercial channels. I don’t understand why these decisions are made. I don’t think it comes from the audience. Have you ever heard anyone say ‘I wish Moira Stuart wasn’t presenting the news because she looks too old’? I haven’t.”
Sound familiar, fat chicks? The idea that we are “failing to contribute” by not being universally attractive. The gender skew. The fact that where fat should represent our refusal to starve, our contentment, our resilience and our sexuality, it instead apparently represents lack of self-control, sloth and disease; the fact that where the physical signs of age should represent wisdom, survival, having laughed and frowned and lived, it represents, what… “letting oneself go”? Ineptitude? Being slovenly for not spending thousands of dollars on snakeoils?
Society’s invented so many fucking ways of keeping smart, useful beaten down and hidden away, they’ve practically got a Patriarchal Army Knife. When I see someone groaning “put them away” about Madonna’s legs sticking out of a bodysuit I want to slap them. I don’t care about your strange issues with the passage of time; you respect Madonna, hater.](http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kxhvb6ixcJ1qav4qeo1_400.jpg)
