Learning to Feel Good About the Way You Look

by Felicia Hodges

"How's my baby Beluga doing today?"  was how Missy Taylor's husband, Frank, greeted her every morning when she was in the last trimester of her pregnancy with their daughter, Judith.  He would often pat her belly and jokingly ask her if she needed him to help roll her out of bed.

"It was awful," Missy recalls. When I told him how much his words stung, he would just shrug it off and say I was being overly sensitive because of the [pregnancy]  hormones."

For 33-year-old R.N. Lisa Crowley , the time of year that produces the most anxiety is when  her favorite clothing stores box up the turtlenecks and corduroys and put out summer shorts, spaghetti-string tops and bathing suits. "It always seems like it's too soon to be preparing myself for trying  on what seems like 100 swim suits," she says.  "I feel like I shouldn't even look at anything short-sleeved until I've lost the ten pounds I put on since the last time I had my bathing suit on, but they never give me the choice."

Two days after my son was born, I was returning to the hospital to nurse him (he had to remain a few days extra due to some lung difficulties) when a woman stepped onto the elevator. Trying to make small talk on our way up to the maternity floor, she turned to me, patted my stomach and said "So when are you due?" I couldn't get home to start the worksheet of exercises the hospital gave me to help lose my middle fast enough. 

Because of this country's  obsession with thinness, many women have experienced feelings like Missy, Lisa and I have whenever we are perceived (or we perceive ourselves) as being different than the American standard of beauty. That a good number of American women diet in any given year (and the weight-loss industry rakes in hundreds of billions of dollars annually as a result) says  that those feelings are probably more the rule rather than the exception.

"We women are unfortunately identified by our physical attributes," says Debbie DeJong, assistant division director of community programs at the Orange County (New York) Mental Health Association. "[We're] either too big, not skinny enough or [our] breasts are too small. As a result, we're always trying to change how we are," she adds.

Of course, advertisers don't seem to help matters at all, bombarding us almost non-stop with images of super-thin super-models, hawking everything from toothpaste to floor cleaners.

"Usually the modeling industry chooses women without hips, which means they are very young. They also pose women in ways that make them look like they don't have hips when they really do," says psychotherapist Elizabeth Leach. "The norms they set up for us are just not realistic."

What about how those norms effect our daughters who see the same magazine covers and TV ads that we do? Is there a way to keep them from getting sucked into accepting the "You-need-to-look-like-Kendall-Jenner-Priyanka-Chopra-or-Kate Moss-to-have-a-meaningful-life (via ultra-white teeth and super shinny floors)-and-be-truly-happy-with-yourself" message as truth?

The trick, experts say, is not to re-enforce such ideas at home. 

"As mothers, we need to be really clear with the messages we send our daughters. If they see us surviving off of one cracker at dinner, that's what they'll want to do as well," says Lynne Newman, a counselor and Reike practitioner who specializes in women's issues. "We need to say clearly [to them] that you need to be who you are, not who I or they want you to be." 

Newman says this is also what we should also be telling the same thing, especially before, during and after pregnancy. "A lot of how you feel [about the changes your body experiences during pregnancy] has to do with how you felt about your body before you got pregnant. Body changes during pregnancy are normal, unfortunately most people equate pregnancy with being fatter," she says. "If you are comfortable with your body before and during pregnancy, you'll feel comfortable after."

So, where does a non-size four woman with hips, thighs, a belly and a newborn daughter begin?

"Accepting what your particular body looks like, whatever it looks like, is important," says Helen Bunt, a YWCA fitness instructor, who adds that exercise is one way to make that acceptance possible. "Exercise is my personal mainstay. People who I've introduced [to it] seem, to have a better view of life. They feel good about themselves." Recent research has attributed this feeling to an increase in brain levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin during physical activity.

Leach encourages women in her practice to not become too preoccupied with their ideal weight, represented by the number on a scale. She recommends the following for women who find themselves stuck in the body image/self-esteem trap:

• Be an informed consumer - Keep in mind that the photos of women you see in ads are unrealistic ideals designed solely to sell a product. "They are geared to make women feel inadequate so we will purchase their products," Leach says.
•  Focus on the positive - Pick out your strongest physical attributes instead of your weakest when looking in the mirror. 
•  Make a list - Write down all the things that make you feel good, like walking around your block with a neighbor, watching a favorite sit-com on TV or listening to soothing (or funky) music. Put a few of your list items in a box to pull out when you're feeling down. Add to your box regularly.
•  Draw a picture of what you think your body looks like - Get feedback from friends and relatives to see if what you see and what you think the world sees are in sync.
• Keep a "food journal" - Since, Leach says, many of us eat for reasons other than hunger (i.e. comfort, etc.), using a journal to note stressful events, your emotional state and how food factored into the before and after may help.
• Remember that weight is determined by many factors - Bone structure, amount of muscle tissue, etc. all factor into your "ideal" body weight. Get a physician's opinion, if necessary, but, again, don't become obsessed with the figure. "People come in many shapes and sizes for a reason," Leach says. "Think of yourself as a whole person, not just a number."

Sidebar:
Did you know?

The average American woman weighs 144 lbs. and wears between a

size 12 and 14?

Marilyn Monroe wore a size 12?

If shop mannequins were real women, they wouldn't have enough body fat to menstuate? 

Models, who 20 years ago weighed 8% less than the average woman, today weigh 23% less?

If Barbie were a real woman, she'd have to walk on all fours because of her unnatural proportions?

One out of every four college-aged women has an eating disorder?

A psychological study in 1995 found that three minutes spent looking at models in a fashion magazine caused 70% of women to feel depressed, guilty and ashamed?

There are 3B women who don't look like supermodels and only a few dozen who do?


Felicia Hodges is a writer/editor from upstate, New York.