Thinking about body image

Every now and then, I find myself having a conversation with my girlfriends about what we think of our bodies. Especially those of us who exercise a lot, eat sensibly most of the time and are well within healthy weight ranges. We can all describe in detail the parts of our bodies that we don’t like, what is wrong with them, and how we would prefer them to be. You’d be able to recognise a group of women having this conversation from a distance; we are apt to pat or even grab those offending parts of our bodies, as if to punish them for letting us down.

There is something especially interesting about these conversations. As each of us is describing what’s wrong with our bodies, every now and then it happens that we look at one of our friends and say, for example, ‘I want legs like yours.’ The friend will express surprise, and say ‘oh no, I hate my legs, I want legs like yours!’ This shows how irrational our self-judgments are. We think we are setting ourselves against some sort of objective ideal but we can’t actually be doing this if we just want to be like each other, can we?

My suspicion is that it’s not really about our bodies. It’s something deeper, something about not finding ourselves acceptable, judging ourselves. I don’t worry about those extra pounds, the size of my hips or thighs or what my measurements are because…well, because I don’t worry these days. But that’s not to say that I don’t have a nasty voice in my head that tells me certain parts of my body have failed me, thus branding me, to some extent, a failure. There’s something like ‘have a perfect body’ on my List, and because perfection is impossible, and bodies are living, organic things, I’ll never be able to put a tick next to that item while it’s on the List, or while the List remains.

I think the ideal would be if those conversations never had to happen. But I don’t think the solution is more dieting and exercise. I’m not sure that it’s even a question of learning to like our bodies (although I’m all for that) because I think it goes beyond just body image. I think it’s to do with accepting, liking, even loving ourselves as women and as human beings. And happily, I have two wise and beautiful ladies to turn to, who know so much more than I do about how to love and nurture ourselves. Lisa Lister, the author, book coach and publisher, is an expert on self-esteem and loving ourselves just as we are. Find out her secrets in her unique book, Sassy: The Go-for-it Girl’s Guide to Becoming Mistress of Your Destiny. And Ani Richardson helps women to overcome emotional eating by learning to love themselves and nurture their bodies with nutritional food. Her new book, Love or Diet, is out soon.

The photo today is one of me being powerful, doing my favourite ever exercise, the deadlift. With Vicky Cumberworth supervising and making sure I get it right! I know that ‘strong is the new skinny,’ I live my life that way, but every now and then my thinking goes walkabout and a bit crazy. That’s why I need women like Lisa and Ani in my life to remind me what’s really important and get me back on track.

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