Empowering Me!

How can you empower yourself to make better decisions with regard to body image and living healthily? You must begin by DECIDING and then ACTING on that decision. The steps of an effective behavior change are as follows: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance. I hope that through reading some of this blog you have been able to move a step or two. Each step is important and the amount of time spent on each step varies with each individual. You need to move at your own pace but you need to KEEP MOVING!

This behavior change process can be applied to body image in the following way (as an example, this is not the only way it could work!): Precontemplation: You aren't even aware that how you see yourself so seriously affects your health and therefore you're not thinking about changing it. Contemplation: You have learned through this blog and other resources that body image has everything to do with how you're feeling and you've decided that making a lifestyle change could be beneficial to you. Preparation: You start noticing more how you see yourself, the kind of things you and others say about your body, and your reactions to these comments. You examine your priorities and decide what is important to you in a body and how to achieve that in a healthy, balanced way. You come up with a plan of action. Action: You begin to put your plan in motion. You may fall off course sometimes but you don't let this deter you. You are determined to make this new behavior (such as complimenting yourself daily) a habit. Therefore, you understand that small setbacks are not the end of the world and should be viewed as part of the process, not as total failure. Maintenance: Don't stop now! You've made this behavior a habit but you still have to work at it everyday. You realize that this change isn't just a temporary fix - it's a lifestyle change.

Try this out and see how it works for you! Let me know how it goes. :)

Media and Body Image

I recently read this book called Packaging Girlhood by Sharon Lamb. I think it brought up a lot of good points (although overall, I think the book was a little bit too intense for my taste). It's all about how girls are sold specific images of what they can be in life. There's the pretty girly girl, the tomboy, the sporty girl, the gothic girl, etc. While I think these are all pretty accurate, I think that there is so much more to girls (which is ultimately the point of the book). For example, I don't think that as a teenage girl I would have fit into any one of those categories. I loved playing pirate ship, playing kickball, and dressing up and having pretend tea parties. Where does that kind of girl fit?
My point is, girls need to see that they can be any type of girl they want to be. It's part of what having a healthy body image is all about. If you can see yourself as God sees you, you can understand that you can be so much more than the choices the media gives you.

What to do?

I think one of the problems with body image is that you often see someone struggling with it and you don't know how to help them. You cannot change their view of themself so what can you do? I don't really have an answer to this question - I just wanted to see what all your thoughts are. One of my roommates yesterday said that she said something negative about herself and her boyfriend said "I don't like it when you say things like that." Perhaps that's the best way to handle it.