Body Image Articles Directory
Body Image Articles
By Cassandra George Sturges, MA, MA, Psy.D
Body Image Affects Dating and Relationships
If a man cannot love you for who you are at the size that you are now, today at this very moment—he will never truly love you. You will never be good enough for him if you are not good enough for him now. You cannot force a person to love you based on how much you weigh, the length of your hair, or the size of your breasts. If the richness of your character and the integrity of your being is not enough reason for him to love you, he doesn’t deserve your love.
Many women would do anything to look like the most celebrated actresses, models and entertainers in the media. However what most women don’t realize is that their true beauty is what makes them unique and different from other women A woman who is an exotic beauty is physically magnetic to both men and women because of the illusion of naked beauty that she exudes with her clothes on. An exotic beauty is a woman who is not beautiful because of what she is wearing; she is beautiful despite what she is wearing. Her beauty celebrates what society ignores.
What does it mean to look pretty? Looking pretty means wearing clothes, shoes, makeup, and hairstyles that honor, glorify and respect the body that you have at this precious moment in time. Some women dress for the body that they wish they had after gaining or losing weight or after having cosmetic surgery done. In this article I will give you a few simple tips on how to feel better about your appearance and look pretty now at your current age, size, and weight.
How to Feel Good About Yourself
The only way to truly feel good about yourself is to find a way to connect or believe in something bigger than yourself. It’s very difficult to feel good about yourself if the primary concerns that you have about life on earth are all related to you. If you wake up in the morning and the biggest problem that you have is worrying about how much weight to lose or gain; how to have a flatter stomach; how to have a bigger butt or larger breasts; how to get rid of your stretch marks; or whether or not you should have cosmetic surgery to alter the appearance of your genetic heritage—you will never truly feel good about yourself. Feeling good about yourself is directly related to how you make others feel about themselves.
How to Improve Low Self Esteem
Do you know what the secret is to removing low-self esteem? Is it a magic potion found in cosmetics, hair dye, or diet pills? Do you remove low-self-esteem in a yoga pose, a gym or the latest weight loss plan? Whether or not you have high or low-esteem is determined by how you—not your husband, not your friends, not society—but how “you”--feel about you. When do we ever learn to love and accept ourselves? How many people do we need to say that we are beautiful for us to believe it? How many opinions does it take to validate our own self-worth for us to believe that we are valuable human beings?
Taking a good picture of yourself has more to do with you understanding how your own body image is captured by light rather than selecting the perfect photographer. Professional photographers are capable of taking great photos in their area of interest, but this does not mean that their skill set includes every scenario or type of person. How your photograph looks in a picture is not always reflective of your level of attractiveness in person; but has everything to do with your self-knowledge of how to position your body and create the perfect atmosphere to take the best picture possible.
How to use Body Image and Beauty Quotations
Body image and beauty quotations can be used in a variety of ways to inspire, motivate, and encourage women to think more positively about their body image in a subtle and none confrontational manner. Body Image quotes can be used as daily reminders of how magnificent we are as human beings and best of all we can’t argue back with negative derogatory remarks about ourselves or disputing comments. Beauty quotations are soul-food that nourishes our spirit from people from various centuries, cultures, and worlds that we would have never met otherwise. But through a single quote, your thoughts become connected in a timeless universe.
Improve Your Body Image 16 Ways
In this article you will find 16 ways to move from having a negative body image to having a positive body image. Many of these ideas are simple and inexpensive. Enjoy!
Positive Body Image Movies for Women
I have my own private collection of positive body image movies that I keep in my office drawer that I watch frequently because they make me laugh --but ultimately these movies help me to feel good about myself because I can identify with inner struggles of the characters. If you are looking for a few movies that address body image issues in the media consider viewing some of the following movies:
Self-Confidence is Real Beauty
The first guy says to his friend, “She lacks confidence in herself. Everywhere we go, every head turns when she walks into the room, but she wants me to continuously reassure her of how beautiful she is. I have never met a girl with such low-self esteem. I want a girl who knows what she is bringing to the table besides her body.
As long as parents and teachers look to the media to eradicate airbrushed, digitally altered, photo-shopped pictures and images of women that promote unrealistic beauty expectations for young girls and women to look up; this problem will only exacerbate because the media is driven by corporate dollars that are fueled by creating insatiable desires for humans to believe that a deeper level of happiness can only be found by being something other than who they really are. Listed below are some practical self-esteem activities that parents and teachers can immediately incorporate to promote positive body images and high self esteem in girls.
Close your eyes and create a picture of your physical body in your imagination. Make this picture as accurate as possible. You may create the image of your body with clothes on or off depending on your comfort level. Look at this body from your inner eye and answer these questions. Do you love this image of your body? Do you wish that this body was smaller, taller, or a different shape or size? Do you love this image of your body in your mind’s eye?
You were born into this world with the perfect body and real beauty to obtain the desires of your heart. You are the ideal physical personification to marry the man of your dreams, create the career that you want and attract everything that you need. You have been given what you need, maybe not what you think you want; but surely what you need to fulfill your purpose in this life time.
Women compete with each other at a societal level, the criteria for winning is usually set by others and the results are subjective and intangible. Women are usually judged by characteristics that they have little control over; something that they did not create, and that exist outside of themselves such as their physical appearance. Her success is based on subjective, biased, external validation by others. She can’t see how to beat her rival because her rival is in no more control of the outcome than she is. How can a woman really be more beautiful than another woman, when the decision is nothing more than someone else’s opinion of beauty?
Women Body Image Shaped by Mothers
Mothers teach their daughters how to feel about their own bodies by the indirect comments that the make about their own bodies. For example when a mother complains in the presence of her daughter about how much she dislikes her thighs, nose, buttocks, or breasts – the daughter develops a psychological schema of how she is supposed to feel about her own body as being shaped by her mother.
Women Body Image Shaped by Technology
We see more scantily clad, perfect, digital images of models and celebrities than we see of the natural bodies of our own family and friends. Each time we drive to work we see illusions of beauty on the billboards; we see perfection on the television and on the pop-up ads on the Internet. People who look like us are not referred to as gorgeous or beautiful. Because we see celebrities and models all the time they become “real” to us.