5 Ways to Boost Your Body Confidence

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• Test your body confidence
• 1. The Hollywood connection (and how to disconnect it)
• 2. Psst! What’s in your past?
• 3. Accept yourself as you are now
• 4. Look after your body
• 5. Think outside the body

Test your body confidence

Before we look at what causes low body confidence and what you can do to boost it, take a moment to assess where you're at:

• Do you constantly compare your body to other people's?
• Do you often criticise yourself or put yourself down?
• Do family members, friends, or your partner hassle you about your weight?
• Do you avoid certain situations because you feel uncomfortable in your own body?
• Do you avoid exercising because you are ashamed of your body?
• Do you hate having your photo taken?
• Do you avoid going to the beach or the swimming pool because of the way you look?
• Is your body image affecting your sex life?
• Do you hate shopping for clothes?
• Is getting dressed in the morning a daily trial as you try to find something that you feel comfortable in and that you think looks good?
• Are weight-loss pills and fad diets a part of your life?
• Are you within a healthy weight range, but still think you should lose weight?
• Do people say you look good, but you don't believe them?

If you've answered yes to any of these questions, your body confidence needs a boost in some way.

1. The Hollywood connection (and how to disconnect it)

According to a Body Shop campaign slogan, "There are three billion women who don't look like supermodels and only eight who do."

And yet many people still strive to look like the unattainable “norm” that is represented in the media. Of course, most models and celebrities are far from normal – they are at the extreme end of the spectrum, where air-brushing, cosmetic surgery, and personal trainers are standard tools of their trade.

Measuring your own physique against these impossibly high standards of the media is damaging to your body confidence. However, it can be very hard to escape the influences when they're all around you. You have to find ways to disconnect.

Disconnect it: To minimise the impact of media perfection, you need to learn to disconnect. Remind yourself daily (and whenever you feel jealous of a billboard babe), that media images of beauty are not real. You are. You’re alive, breathing, thinking and being, and that’s beautiful. You might never be an image on the cover of a magazine, but why would you want to be? Redefine “the body beautiful” in your own mind.

2. Psst! What’s in your past?

Most people were teased in some way as a child, but some carry the scars around for longer than others.

If you were teased for being fat, or even just “affectionately” referred to as “Chubs” or something similar by your friends and family when you were young, then you may never have shaken off that label. It could be making a significant difference to how you feel about your body now.

Let it go: Deal with the labels of the past by realising they came from outside, perhaps from people who were too critical or unaccepting, or just plain insensetive. To let go, you need to disown those fictional labels and negative images from the past. If you are trapped in a childhood or teenage image of yourself, it's time to develop your adult sense of who you are.

3. Accept yourself as you are now

You may have felt unaccepted as a child and been unable to change that, but as an adult, self-acceptance is within your control. Have you ticked your self-acceptance box lately?

When Jodie Cook, a 29-year old mother of two, decided to lose weight, she knew she needed to change more than her appearance:

"I also had to address the way I felt about myself - fat or thin I need to like who I am."

Accept yourself: To be body confident, you need to decide to accept who you are now, whether or not you need to lose weight. From this acceptance, your body confidence will grow. Jodie explains how she developed self-acceptance.

"I began to keep an eye on my self-talk and gradually began to replace negative thoughts with positive ones." Jodie explains. "I stopped calling myself a 'fat pig' if I enjoyed a piece of cake occasionally, and began to compliment myself on the things I was achieving instead."

Follow Jodie's lead and stop being overly critical of yourself. Start to compliment yourself instead of engaging in negative self-talk. Value your body for its good points instead of dwelling on the things you think are wrong with it.

4. Look after your body

Eating too much of the wrong types of food, drinking too much, smoking, not exercising and not taking care of your appearance are guaranteed ways to drop your body confidence.

Turn it around: To increase your body-confidence, you need to take good care of yourself every day. Nurture your body and mind with healthy food, moderate exercise, and adequate sleep.

Doing things that say "I care about myself" can be an incredible confidence booster. Try a new haircut, buy a nice item of clothing. Pamper yourself with bubble baths and body scrubs. Compliment yourself and learn to recognise your achievements with non-food rewards. Although these aren’t magic answers to your esteem problems, even the smallest of steps will lead to a more positive outlook.

5. Think outside the body

Who says the size of your thighs is a measure of your worth?

You are more than just a body, but if you focus only on your body, it's all too easy to forget about the rest of life. But if you think outside your body and involve your mind and emotions in concerns other than how you look, you'll find that the overall confidence that builds in those areas will trickle down and boost your body confidence too.

Have outer-body experiences! To boost your body-confidence, take an interest not just in how you look, but in how you act, think and feel. For example:

• Find ways other than how you look to evaluate yourself. Make a list of all the positive things about yourself. Do you help others? Can you be relied on? Are you a good friend? Are you a good parent? Co-worker? Spouse?
  
  
• If you can objectively say you could do a better job at what you do, work on doing it better. Doing better makes you feel better. Feeling better about what you do and who you are will build your confidence in all areas, including how you feel about your body.
  
  
• Do things that you enjoy. If you love to travel, but you haven’t taken the time to do it, plan a trip. If you love jazz, go to a concert, or enjoy listening to some at home. If you like flowers, grow a few!

If you can be confident in general, it's easier to be confident about your body. A confident person doesn't constantly seek the approval of others, has realistic expectations, is postive about who they are, and, most importantly, accepts themselves. Your challenge is to do the same!

Related articles :

• Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Body image and you
• Self-Esteem: Your Weight-Loss Maker or Breaker?

Last updated: February 15th, 2007