Ellen Besso Coaching

Last week my favourite 5 pm news show in Vancouver addressed the issue of women’s body image on Your Health. The reporter, Dr. Rhonda Low, who is a medical doctor, told us that although many women may say they like their bodies their brainwaves show otherwise when they are measured.

This did not come as a big surprise to me, more in the nature of an ongoing disappointment that women still struggle with body image. For myself, I am pleased with my body in many ways at this point in my life, for example now that I’m past peri-menopause and I put an effort into my fitness, I have considerably less fat and more muscle mass. But there’s always the qualifiers…my buts…I wish my thighs were thinner, my legs longer, my belly a bit flatter in the stomach and abdominal area, that I didn’t have that fleshy sag above my pubic bone produced by  two enormous pregnancies (my skin is light, British skin and not as stretchy as darker, oilier skin), and so on. You get the picture, and likely you have your own list of qualifiers.

Linda Lowen, in her article, Do Women Love Their Bodies, says:

“Type the phrase what women hate about their bodies into any search engine. Don’t put it in quotes — just type the words, click “Search” and see what comes up. When I did a Google search, nearly every one of the top 10 results featured “women hate their bodies” verbatim.”

When I tried this I did indeed get a page of negative ‘women hate their bodies‘ articles.

Linda says:

“Now search the phrase what women love about their bodies. (Again, don’t use quotes.) In my Google search, none of the top ten results displayed “women love their bodies” verbatim. In fact, the majority contained negative words like dissatisfaction, afraid, ashamed and other examples of poor self-image.”

Then I decided to search ‘what women love…’ myself, and the result wasn’t very impressive except for Body Image, Loving Yourself Inside and Out

You can read Linda’s whole article if you’re interested.

What are we to make of all this? It’s true that most of us take issue with at least part of our bodies. On the other hand, I don’t believe that we hate them. The positive stuff is out there, we just have to look harder to find it as it’s outweighed by the other, more negative thoughts and ideas.

I leave you with some more interesting and upbeat articles and sites; I found them when I googled Positive articles about women’s bodies.

1. bronny says:

   June 25, 2010 at 3:32 pm

   i think there’s a lot of societal pressure not only to conform to some imaginary and impossible ideal body type, but also to dislike your body as a woman. it’s some sort of twisted bonding experience it seems like. it is extremely unusual for a woman to admit that she likes her body/appearance in any way or context, in my experience. i feel like a big exception to women in general in that i like my body overall.
   you can have a lot of self awareness and critical thought and you will still internalize the negative messages we receive about body image, to some extent.
   but there is hope! just sharing the things you do like about your body and experience are very powerful for you to say, and for other women to witness. we break the mold!
2. Ellen Besso says:

   June 28, 2010 at 11:55 am

   Thanks for your thoughtful comment bronny. You are the exception. I really like what you said about sharing about what we do like about our bodies – I think there’s another blog in that!