I spent some time yesterday evening with the lovely ladies who have been following a Mindful Eating course led by the incredible Lisa Beasley (please check out her website for forthcoming taster sessions and workshops)
We talked about the relationship we have with our bodies and I think it’s fair to say that every single woman in the room (me included) had some sensitivities about her physical form.
One of the reasons we can have a bit of a downer on our bodies is because we are bombarded with highly unrealistic images every single day. We naturally draw comparisons, and guess what…..we don’t look anything like the images we’re presented with.
And it starts young too. Think back to a time where you may have had a Barbie doll.
Did you know that if Barbie was a real woman she'd be forced to walk on all fours and would be physically incapable of lifting her head?
I knew she was super slim, but I hadn’t ever realised just how out of whack her proportions were.
For example, if we scaled the doll up into real life proportions, Barbie's head would be two inches larger than the average woman's while resting on a neck twice as long and six inches thinner!
Image courtesy of Mail Online
From these measurements, it is thought it would be impossible for her to lift up her own head.
Her 16-inch waist would also be four inches thinner than her oversized head, leaving room for only half a liver and a few inches of intestine.
Her fragile 3.5 inch wrists would mean she actually couldn’t lift anything heavy and her 6-inch ankles simply could not hold up her body.
Now I know it’s only a doll, but it sends a message to the child playing with it that this is what a real woman looks like. The reality is, it is NOWHERE near what a real woman looks like. Add in all the highly photoshopped images the glossy magazines present us with day in day out and our expectations of the female physical form are seriously skewed.
So before you beat yourself up, please remember that most of what you see in the media is completely fictional. It is NOT real life. YOU are real life and your body is beautiful just the way it is x