My Thoughts and Tips on How to UN-Learn Toxic Body Image Messages

Jun 12

If there is one thing we are constantly bombarded with in advertising, it’s body image messaging telling us we aren’t beautiful enough, thin enough, young enough, or athletic enough.

Men and women are challenged every single day by the constant messages we receive through social media, television, movies, shows, and even the news.

As a society, we’ve become extremely conditioned to these messages. Every day, the average American can see anywhere from 4000-10,000 ads a day. Sometimes we don’t even see them despite them being right in front of our face.

But the messages are there, living in our self conscious and influencing the choices we make every single day.

Here are some gentle reminders letting you know, despite what society tells you...

You don’t HAVE TO lose weight, diet, put on makeup, to be deemed beautiful.
Self-worth does NOT come from a dress size or weight.
It’s ok to not feel positive about your body all the time. We ALL have good days and bad.
Learn to honor signals telling you when to eat, rest, move, etc.
Bodies are NOT WRONG or unattractive for having natural things such as stretch marks, spider veins & cellulite.
Where your body wants to be might be different from where you think it should be.

Take away: WE ALL have amazing things to offer this world & to each other that have absolutely NOTHING to do with our bodies or appearance. The diet culture and beauty industry profits off of our insecurities. It’s a BUSINESS just like any other and needs to drive revenue in order to be successful.

The reality is we are so much more than our bodies, dress size, weight, etc.