Last week, I wrote about 30 habits that can help improve your body image every day.
Today, let’s chat about the beliefs and habits that can prevent us from building a more positive body image. Some of these may come from society, the media, or even your own home.
While you don’t need to tackle all these at once, I hope they help you in possibly creating some body-positive goals.
Margarita Tartakovsky is an associate editor at PsychCentral.com, an award-winning mental health website, and the voice behind Weightless, a blog that helps women deal with body image issues and disordered eating. She also writes a monthly feature for Beliefnet.com, covering topics such as patience and procrastination.
Editor: Muhammad Talha
1. Not listening to your body’s needs, such as skipping meals when you’re hungry or exercising hard when you’re tired.
2. Hyper focusing on supposed physical “flaws.”
3. Making numbers like weight and clothing size your body image barometers.
4. Letting women’s magazines determine your beauty rules.
5. Participating in physical activities that you can’t stand. (Remember movement is joyful! You just have to pick the activities you like.)
6. Confusing tension, unhappiness, anxiety, and anger with feeling “fat,” and thinking thinness is the answer.
7. Thinking thinness will garner the love and attention that you actually want.
8. Believing body weight reveals well-being and health.
9. Staying in because you don’t think you look “good enough.”
10. Comparing your inside to others’ outsides.
11. Ignoring your emotions, and letting stress stockpile.
12. Believing binge eating can be fixed with a diet or weight loss program.
13. Not reaching out to others when you’re upset or clearly need support.
14. Thinking a positive body image means loving your body all. the. time. Even body image bloggers get down on themselves. Avoid making your positive body image another trap for perfectionistic tendencies.
15. Not turning to healthy strategies to soothe your stress or manage your emotions.
16. Forgetting that beauty comes in all shapes, sizes, weights, and colors.
17. Skimping on sleep.
18. Bonding with girlfriends over how much bigger your butt is.
19. Always eating on the go.
20. Blaming your body or your wilting willpower for not looking a certain way.
21. Keeping clothes that don’t fit.
22. Wearing clothes that don’t fit or make you feel happy.
23. Viewing food restriction as a virtue.
24. Waiting to accomplish certain goals until you lose weight (and presumably become worthy).
25. Similarly, waiting to treat your body well until you lose weight.
26. Criticizing another person’s appearance, weight, or shape.
27. Eating what you don’t want because it has fewer calories.
28. Weighing yourself daily or weekly.
29. Dieting.
30. Thinking your voice doesn’t deserve to be heard.
What habits, beliefs, or practices hurt your body image? What goals will you set for a healthier body image?