How Easy or Hard is it for you to love your body?

[Sam W]

We're big fans of body positivity here at Scarleteen, but something that can get missed in conversations about that topic is the fact that, for many people, learning to love (or even just be okay with) their bodies is difficult. I know for me, for a long time I assumed that because I wasn't starving myself or wanting cosmetic surgery, I must love my body. It turned out that wasn't really the case, and it's taken me years to make peace with how my body is, and to appreciate it for itself.

So how about you? Do you find it easy to love your body? Would you even use the word love to describe how you feel? Are there things that make it harder for you to love or like your body?

[Sunshine]

This is an interesting question, and not at all easy to answer.

When it's just me alone with myself and not thinking about my body in reference to any other person, group of people or society at large, I don't really have a problem with it. I really like being in my body, it feels comfortable and homey, I'm pretty well in touch with it and know what it can and can't do for me.

It's just when I look in the mirror, especially if I'm putting on my clothes to go out where anybody can see me and / or I'm going to meet someone that the problems begin. For a long time, I thought I hated myself, but I've realized over the years that's not actually true. I'm pretty okay with myself - don't think I'm pretty or anything, but that's not such a huge problem for me by myself. I don't hate my body, I'm just scared stiff of being judged, ridiculed or despised because of the way I look. I wish I was made so that nobody could use my body to attack me. My physical flaws are like cracks in my armor, and that is the real reason why I get so upset about them. Took me for ever and a day to figure this out!

What really helped me get in touch with my body and appreciate it more was learning about all the stuff it can do, in theory by becoming quite knowledgeable about human anatomy and physiology and in practice by finding forms of exercise that suit me and settings where I can practice them in a non-competitive way (I hate competing with people, it is one of the least enjoyable things on the planet for me). If you think about all the amazing stuff our bodies do and the intricate, complex ways in which they function, their aesthetic value seems a lot less important. Also, becoming physically stronger made me feel more confident.

I often come across advice along the lines of telling yourself you are beautiful, flawless, special, things like that. If this works for people, great, but I can't really do that for myself. I am not beautiful, certainly not flawless and definitely perfectly average. That's just the way things are. Instead of wasting energy trying to pretend something I know isn't true, I'd rather spend it on learning to accept what is. That doesn't mean I don't believe in self-improvement, far from it. I just think it wiser to have more realistic and also more individual goals.

When I was a young teen, I was seriously afraid that nobody would ever love me (in a sexual / romantic way at least) because of my body. I should have known this was nonsense, because whether I love people or not doesn't really have much to do with their physical appearance and if I do love someone, I always think they are pleasant to look at. Why should this be so different for everybody else?

So, loving my body isn't really that hard. Dealing with all the body-related expectations and criticism my I have faced and to a degree still face is a much harder task. Right now, my mantra isn't "I'm beautiful" but "My body belongs to me."

[Ashleah]

I really like your mantra Sunshine! What you said about appreciating your body for how it functions vs. physical appearance really sticks out to me! If I'm being honest, the way I view my body is typically more attached to physical appearance but more about function lately having just had a baby.

As an adult, I love my body but that did take some work. Once I stopped comparing myself to others I started to appreciate my body. Part of that was focusing on my "flaws", but not viewing them as things that shouldn't be there, but as an important part of my body and self. Appreciating the things about myself that are typically considered unattractive in mainstream society makes me love my body more! Like my stretch marks for example,(which I think look pretty bad ass lol) I feel comfortable showing them and when I do I feel more confident because it doesn't bother me.

[Atonement]

To be quite honest, moderately difficult.

Over the past 5 years since I've last been sexual with someone, I've gained about 40 pounds.

In my day to day life, I feel pretty much the same as I always did. And I know that I value cooking, eating and enjoying food WAY more than I value conventional attractiveness, so I've accepted the fact that I am pretty unlikely to ever be 'thin'.

But I do sometimes worry about how people see me, and sometimes the idea of someone seeing me uncovered is pretty unfathomable.

For example, there's a guy in my extended group of friends that I've always been sort of attracted to, but I don't know if I would ever actually be able to pursue because he's not much taller than me and very slim, and it's definitely crossed my mind how big I'd look next to him.

But then, there are some things that aren't typically attractive about my body that I do sort of like. For example, I have developed some faint, light stretch marks across the side of my bottom that look sort of like lightning. I actually think they look pretty cool.

Then again, I recently did an Adult Care clinical, where I saw tons of people in various states of nudity. Number wise, probably the vast majority of these people were much bigger than me, and most of them had sexual/romantic relationships. Really, in the balance of things, I'm still relatively average sized, so this really should have put my insecurities into perspective, but I really do still have them. And sometimes I worry I won't ever fully get past them.

[MissT]

I feel like in my teens around 15-17 I had a lot of issues with loving my body I think at that time I just didn't know who I was. I was still learning and growing to be the person I am to day. I can say from 18 onwards (I'm 19 now nearly 20) I learned to stopped comparing myself to others as much and have learned to love my body. Theres only really one part of my body I haven't come to complete terms with yet but overall I am happy and more confident than I have ever been.

If theirs anything I can say to others whether it be boys or girls just don't compare yourself to others. Everyone is different and everyone is beautiful in their own unique and individual way.

Since not comparing myself to others that's when I really found my self confidence grew and generally I think it just happens as you get older as when your young you're easier influenced in the sense you become concerned that you should look a certain way to be seen as 'pretty' or 'handsome'. Especially due to all the media on how you should look and what's constantly plastered in the magazines.

[Berry124]

I found it very difficult. I'm nearly 18 and only now have i stopped worrying and judging myself to the point where I would cry about it. I'm 5"4 and used to wish to be like the tall, elegant models in magazines when I was growing up around ages of 10-13 when my body-because of my age and me personally- was just hitting puberty. I think the media was damaging,showing celebs dressed with busty tops and lots of makeup. My skin especially is an issue because I get troubled skin easily and would always think no guy (at the age of 13-16) would like me for who I am, (which was wrong as my partner asked me out who I am still with today currently and proved I was being a utter lemon ) . But for me personally the media affected me largely, making me wish I had big bust and wide hips and small waist, which is not my physical build at all and as a sociology students right now, I can understand how this would have affected me when my class looked at media and it's affect of young girls . I accept myself now and take compliments people give me even if I don't believe them, and I like my body alot more now , I'm in tune with it pretty well and just throw on clothes and don't care how they make me look because I feel alot better about myself now. Sometimes I may think oh am I gaining weight but I know anxiety over my body is improving for me personally as I get older, because the ages from 13-16 and 17( for a but of being 17 now I think of it) was really when I struggled.

[Virginia]

It's so hard for me to even like my own body. Gaining weight is among my worst fears. I'm 5' 8" and 125 pounds. I spent a long time in high school eating only 500 calories a day and burning all those off with exercise. I was heartbroken when I'd never reach below 117. It's been years since then but I still have a very stressful relationship with food. I feel anxiety if I eat before 1:00 in the afternoon and if I feel full or have more than one meal a day. Sometimes I can't look at myself in the mirror because all I see is the extra fat on my thighs. I like my face, hair, and pretty much everything else about myself but my body. The only time I like my body is when I can see my ribs and hip bones without having to suck anything in. I know this isn't healthy but I don't know how to fix this.

[Onionpie]

Virginia, that sounds really hard and stressful, and you're really strong for getting through those feelings and helping yourself start to get better. It's also really excellent that you recognise how unhealthy your relationship with food is -- that's always the first and most important step to helping yourself create a healthier state of mind I hear that you're still really struggling with that though, and feeling stuck, so I wanted to let you know that if you want to talk about this some more, please do feel free to create your own thread about it so we can have a more in-depth discussion if that's something you'd like. We would be more than happy to help you get to a place where you're more comfortable and happy in your body

[awesome1122]

I find it easy to love my body. Sometimes though i feel as if something is wrong about my body, but i always try to stay positive.

[awesome1122]

is there anyone else who feels that they like there body sometimes but not other times??

[Onionpie]

I know I certainly do! I think it is quite common for our body image and confidence to wax and wane on different days, depending on other factors. I know when I'm feeling sick, or I am beating myself up about having done something wrong, my body image also decreases.

[Sunshine]

It's so hard for me to even like my own body. Gaining weight is among my worst fears. I'm 5' 8" and 125 pounds. I spent a long time in high school eating only 500 calories a day and burning all those off with exercise. I was heartbroken when I'd never reach below 117. It's been years since then but I still have a very stressful relationship with food. I feel anxiety if I eat before 1:00 in the afternoon and if I feel full or have more than one meal a day. Sometimes I can't look at myself in the mirror because all I see is the extra fat on my thighs. I like my face, hair, and pretty much everything else about myself but my body. The only time I like my body is when I can see my ribs and hip bones without having to suck anything in. I know this isn't healthy but I don't know how to fix this.

I can relate to a lot of what you say here... My relationship with food and my body has been very troubled in the past as well.
How do you fix it? Well, you've already taken an important step by acknowledging how your current situation isn't healthy. I think that's pretty big. I am not an expert, I can only speak from my own experience here, but I'd say, give yourself time. Like, a lot of time, years rather than months. Maybe try to focus less on how you look and what the scale says and more on how you feel inside your body, what does you good, what makes you healthy and happy. It's possible that you'll need professional help with this. Perhaps it could also help if you didn't pressure yourself to like how you look. I personally have trouble with the "I'm fabulous / gorgeous / beautiful!" approach, because that's just not how I see myself. Still, I have learned to be content with the body I live in and to love it as it is. I'd say it's okay if you don't think you are pretty (yet), there are more important things than looking good anyway.

If you want to talk more about this, let me know.

[Heather]

I think it's also helpful to realize that there are often going to be times someone -- like awesome1122 -- feels more positive, and other times when it's a bigger struggle.

I know when I look back on my own life and my relationship to my body, I had a very hard time in my early teens, but a very easy one in my late teens and early twenties, then a crappier relationship with my body in my late 20s and early 30s, and then probably the best relationship I ever had with it in my early to mid-thirties. Then I developed a bunch of chronic illness and pain, and that did a real number on me with how I felt about my body (including because all that pain and illness made it very hard for me to be as active as I like to be, and being strong and agile has always been part of my best feelings about my body), and THEN I started dealing with mid-life aging in my forties, and boy, has that been a whopper (and it's less about how I look and more about how I feel physically, which no one really tells you will be an issue, they're always just talking about looks).

But I can say, looking at the 45+ year view of all this for myself, that I feel like I have had an easier time even with things and phases I see really wrecking my peers relationships with their bodies, because of a level of acceptance I developed over time, which was a huge part -- if not THE biggest player -- of how I felt about my body when I felt best about it, in my 30s. I wish someone had told me how much easier things would have been had I developed it more even earlier, when it's truly so much easier to do. I wish that I hadn't wasted time earlier without that acceptance, because I know it did limit my life and my enjoyment of my body as a vehicle for my life. And missing out on that kind of time during earlier life phases when you have more energy and freedom to live is a serious bummer.

I feel like as I get older still (we all live in a world where youth is so tied to positive presentations of bodies, it's only ever going to get harder as you age), and find fewer and fewer positive representations of just aging bodies -- sans plastic surgery, botox, and all that business that's both outside my economic class, but also outside the way I personally want and choose to live my life, even if I could afford that stuff -- even ones where people don't have illness, that learned acceptance is going to be EVERYTHING.

So, that acceptance, more than what I look like at any given time, what others may or may not think about it, or even what I'm able to do with my body, is what I am being sure to keep a very tight hold to.

TL;DR: From this getting-older person to you, my best advice is to do what you can to work a lot of this out sooner, rather than later! Not accepting our bodies is just such a hideous and silly -- even though it's understandable to struggle with it in our body-negative world -- waste of everyone's time and energy.

[Lyssa]

I agree, I fall in the category of sometimes I really like my body and what my body has accomplished. But other times, I feel like I'm ambivalent to my body, that I ignore my body.

I like my body for all intents and purposes. Do I find it easy to love my body? No, I got in a habit of comparing my body to others, as if there wasn't a slew of other reasons why me and another person may look different. I still catch myself doing it sometimes when thoughts that come up like "I would look so much nicer if I was taller", etc.

I think because I am biracial and grew up in an all-white household, I got used to looking at someone else and wanting to be like them even in ways I couldn't possibly accomplish, like becoming lighter and blending in with my family more. I think from the constant wanting to be "like everyone else", wanting to look more like my family, it transferred over to other aspects of my body image as well.

[Alice O]

I really resonate with what some of you are saying about appreciating your body's functions, and the ongoing work to accept our bodies.

I recently read this interview with the writer Jennifer Egan and she shares a story about talking with a woman in her 40s who was in hospice care, dying from bone cancer. She said, "And she says I love this body, this body that, you know, went swimming and had sex and made my babies. She was like my body made other human beings. She's like and I have to leave it. And she said I'm just going to miss my body so much. And I never even appreciated it. I never appreciated it until now when I'm in like an excruciating pain and can't even stand the light. And I have to give it up. And, you know, as a young woman myself that kind of changed everything."

I found this really moving and personally, really helpful. It's easy for me to look at other young women's bodies on instagram or wherever and compare their bodies with mine--wishing my arms were thinner, butt bigger, belly flater...But when I zoom out and take a more existential view, I think about how many years I've been in my body, how well I know it, and how much it does for me. Not a strategy for everyone or all the time, but it can sometimes really help me settle in and feel love for my bod.

[moonlight]

I'm short on time right now, so I'm going to come back later and read everyone else's posts, but I wanted to leave my two cents here while I have a moment.

It's hard for me to love my body right now and just in general.

I've always felt fat (and attached major negative connotations to that word), but recently a medication I'm taking has made me gain upwards of 30 lbs. That has had a really detrimental effect on my body image.

I feel like I hold myself to a double-standard. Fat positivity, and being fat in general, is okay for other people, but not for me. That's the thinking I'm trying to break out of. I feel like, because the weight that I am at is ultimately bad for my health, that I need to feel bad about it. But that's bunk! Even if I embarked upon a perfect regimen of lifestyle changes that would allow me to lose the weight that I need to get to a a weight that is healthier at this precise moment, I would still be this size right now. And I deserve to feel good in the body I'm in.

[Ari]

is there anyone else who feels that they like there body sometimes but not other times??

Yes! I think most people experience positive and negative changes in their self-image and body-image. I have gained 30 lbs, lost 60 lbs, gained 35 lbs, lost 15 lbs, and now have not idea because I no longer weigh myself. Looking back, I had positive and negative thoughts about my body at every size/weight. Even at my lowest weight, I was worried about "looking fat", "having too small boobs", "being a weird shape", etc.

For myself and some of my students, looking at how our thoughts influence our actions and feelings can help mitigate negative thought spirals regarding our bodies. Negative thought spirals are easily triggered. For me, my negative thought spiral is triggered when I put on clothes that just don't fit right. The clothes could have shrunk in the wash, or I bought them even though they were a bit snug. I immediately think negative thoughts about my body. I act with the belief that my body is gross. I feel depressed and shy.

Practicing positive thoughts can be hard. I had to prepare to think positively about my body. I made a plan. I wrote down in my journal 5 things that I could do when I thought negatively about my body (do yoga, put on fancy clothes, dance in my room to Beyonce, etc.) and 10 things to say to myself that are true compliments about my body (You have pretty eyes, You have always had very strong legs, etc.). I try to catch myself before I go down a negative thought spiral and use positive actions and thoughts to repel the negative thoughts, actions, and feelings.

Reading everyone's responses is very comforting to me. Thx everyone for being so honest!

[Maeve]

I'm late in this topic but I wanted to write my own thoughts after reading your comments.

I'm petite. I truly think no one will ever like me because I look like a 12 years old girl (I'm 23). Flat chested, short and skinny with a baby face that isn't either attractive. I fight with that feeling of "you should love the way you are because it's you and not because someone else could find you attractive". It's hard though. I feel sad seeing young kids having more breats than me. And I've tried searching articles of "good things about having small breats" to feel better. It works but not for so long. I'm not sure if my nipples are nice neither.

Also, I can see my ribs. They seems to look bigger than my boobs and even when I'm skinny I have a tummy. And my butt is nice except for the cellulitis and strech marks.

And for last, my labia is big. For a long time I thought I had a deformation because it was like out of the vagina place and didn't look like the typical one that is shown in books. At school no one said there are different types.

So there's a lot of factors to think my body isn't nice. And the face is another topic haha. But maybe having a loved one who is constantly saying how gorgeous you are could help you to see yourself with other eyes. I haven't had one yet so... It's a maybe jaja

[SeQuinn]

Hi Maeve, I can totally relate to how you're feeling - I struggle a lot with the things I consider "wrong" about my body, and it can be really overwhelming when I think about it for too long.

On your point about having someone who loves you complimenting your body, I think that's definitely nice to hear - and for a long time I thought that was going to fix a lot of the issues I had with my body. I thought if another person validates that my body is attractive, that must mean I'm objectively attractive. But while those compliments were a nice extra touch, it didn't fix some of the fundamental things I didn't like about my body. What really helped me was reframing the way I thought about my body (and bodies in general) - like some of the comments above, I'm not a big "look in the mirror and say 'I'm beautiful!'" kind of person. So instead I would find little moments where I was grateful for what my body can do. If I was able to hike 4 miles, I would say to myself "It's awesome that I have strong legs and am capable to walk this far." Or if I found a great lipstick, I would think "This color looks so good with my skin tone." It may seem small, but replacing the way you think/talk about your body in those little ways can add up and give you a better picture of how much your body can do.

Definitely still a work in progress for me, but that thought process has helped a lot.