What does it mean to be body positive?
“Body positivity refers to the assertion that all people deserve to have a positive body image, regardless of how society and popular culture view ideal shape, size, and appearance.” (Very Well Mind).
Building a healthy relationship with your body is extremely important in your own journey of self-love. Creating a positive image for yourself is great for your own mental health and wellness.
Ways to Cut Out Negative Body Idealizations
Remove people that make you feel bad about yourself from your feed. It is totally normal to unfollow people who make you feel less than, or unworthy
Buy clothes that fit your body now, not the body you wished you had. By buying clothes that fit, you are assuring yourself you are comfortable with where you are, and not setting expectations that your body needs changing.
Surround yourself with people who are positive, and will make you feel good in return. Surrounding yourself in negativity can further reinforce a negative body image.
Practice self-affirmations, like telling yourself you are more than enough, and you are beautiful and worthy.
Ways to Help Others on Their Self Love Journey
Don’t comment on anything that they can’t change in 15 seconds. If it's a hair out of place or something on their face that they can change immediately then that is fine, but refrain from commenting about their appearances that they can’t change.
Don’t use phrases like “ I feel so fat” or “ I look so ugly” because not only are you reinforcing your own negative body image, it may affect them as well
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Always be a positive light in their lives, and always be trying to lift them up and encourage them to feel better about themselves
Don’t use compliments like “you look so skinny” or “you look so healthy” because you never know what they are going through body image-wise
Perfectly Imperfect
Learn to embrace your “imperfections”! Things like stretch marks, scars, cellulite, birthmarks, discoloration, acne, etc are all COMPLETELY normal parts of the body that we can all learn to love! Growing up looking in the media, we are taught that these are viewed as negative, but they all make us unique from one another and there is nothing to be ashamed of. A lot of what we see in the media is filtered, posed, and edited and our real and authentic selves are always going to be more than enough.
Gen Z’s Impact
Gen Z has been a generation very adamant about change and working on acceptance and self-love. Being a part of Gen Z means that we will never give up on the hard issues, and issues such as body image and self-love are better worked on together. As a generation, we can learn to empower each other and work on empowering ourselves in the process. As we are changing society, and societal expectations are shifting, I hope we can all see positive changes in how society collectively views body image and self-love.
Research Coordinator - Kelsey
Editor - Priyam Kusundal
Illustrations and Graphics - Lily tan and Angeline Saleh
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