Every woman and girl have been impacted by the media. It might be advertisements on television, magazines, a search engine, Facebook, Instagram and the toys that children play with. It might be a Disney movie that portrays women in an unrealistic way or the super models that we see on television and Facebook.
With the advent of social media there has been even a wider reach. You will get posts in your Facebook feeds of friends on the beach, out with friends, or a selfie. I am sure that most of you do to some degree compare yourself to these posts whether it is related to how they look or what they are doing. I certainly do … to some degree!
There are also posts with stories of women with before and after photos, the new miracle diet, or the gym workout that will give you rock hard abs. None of these are realistic for most women. They are scams to encourage women to buy their products and feed into the negative aspects of women’s and girl’s sense of self.
I have made a video on “Media and Body Image” that depicts this devastating phenomenon through words and images which is at the end of this article.
It is important for women and girls to feel good in their bodies, to feel strong, to feel beautiful. You want to feel comfortable to dress in a way that conveys who you are.
Ways to Maintain a Body Positive Attitude
- Turn off the television when you the ads that are denigrating to women come on.
- Choose friends on Facebook or Instagram that do not post selfies of their bodies.
- Be sure to unsubscribe or unlike any of those posts from organizations or businesses that promote products or services that feed into those needs to make yourself different than you are.
- Find an activity that makes you feel good in your body such as a yoga studio or class that encourages you to just be you. It is important to remember that there isn’t a particular “yoga body”.
- Surround yourself with other women that want to develop a body positive attitude.
- Daily affirmations that over time create positive self talk such as “I am beautiful the way I am”.
- For some women meditation or guided visualizations instill that feeling of being strong and confident.
- Sign up for the Body Image quiz and MP3 meditation on my website. The Body Image quiz gives you results that are very specific to your score and the MP3 is a guided mediation specifically for Body Image.
There are many other ways to dispute and challenge the messages that women are bombarded with from a very young age to 50+. When you are older the messages are often not positive at all, in fact they are quite negative. What role models do we have?
People of all genders, sexual orientation, people with disabilities and race are affected by the media in a negative way. This affects one’s sense of self, confidence and behavior.
Comment below as to how you are impacted by media and what you have done to challenge these images so that we can start a conversation.