"If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. They can have a powerful influence for good when they're on the positive side, and they can and do make you physically ill when they're on the negative side." - Peace Pilgrim
Did you know that the average North American woman is five-foot-four, weighs 140 pounds and wears a size 14 dress. Yet the "ideal" woman portrayed by models and movie stars is five-foot-seven, weights 100 pounds and wears a size 8. What is wrong with this picture? Body dissatisfaction is at an all-time high among both men and women. Check out the following startling facts:
| 75 percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearance; 89 percent say they want to lose weight; 22 percent of men say they want to gain weight. In general, men are more satisfied with their appearance than women, although the number of men who are tormented about their weight and shape is climbing. |
| 15 percent of women and 11 percent of men, respectively, say they would sacrifice more than five years of their life to be the ideal weight, while 24 percent of women and 17 percent of men say they would give up more than three years |
| 50 percent of women are on a diet at any given time |
| The weight loss industry (diet foods, programs and drugs) takes in more than $40 billion each year and continues to grow |
| Young girls are more afraid of becoming fat than they are of nuclear war, cancer or losing their parents |
| 50 percent of nine-year-old girls and 80 percent of ten-year-olds girls have dieted |
| Anorexia has the highest mortality rate (up to 20 percent) of any psychiatric illness |
| Girls are more prone to developing eating and self-image problems than developing drug or alcohol problems. Yet there are drug and alcohol programs in almost every school but very few eating disorder programs |
| 1-2 percent of women between the ages of 14 and 25 have anorexia; 3-5 percent experience bulimia; and another 10-20 percent of women in this age group engage in many of the behaviours associated with both eating problems. |
By working out (training your heart and lungs through cardio training and your muscles and bones through strength training) and eating healthily, you are doing something very positive for yourself and your loved ones.
However, some of us have very unrealistic expectations of the type of body they would like to achieve. We might refer to popular magazines for an image of what an ideal body should look like . What we may not know is that many of the models are 23 percent underweight and have been made-up for hours. Camera tricks are used and once the photos have been developed, the pictures can be cropped, airbrushed and manipulated by computer to produce an unrealistic, unhealthy, and so-called "perfect" image.
To gain a more realistic view we need to look at our genetics and to understand that fat loss is dependent on genetic breakdown - approximately 40 percent of "fatness" is genetically determined. No exercise program can change this!
Here are some statistics to help understand this relationship.
If one of their parents is obese, children are twice as likely to be overfat. If both of their parents are obese, they are four times as likely to be overlyfat. One study also makes this relationship very clear. Overfat identical twins were fed 1000 extra calories per day for 7 weeks. You would expect that each pair of twins should gain exactly the same amount of weight, but in fact, the weight gain ranged from 9.5 to 29.3 pounds. It is also interesting to note that although the actual range of weight gain between twins was very high, the twins in each pair gained exactly the same amount of weight! So take a look at your parents and their family to determine the types of expectations you can place upon yourself.
Then there are those of us who say…."Geez, if I could just lose this extra 10 pounds, then I'd be happy" syndrome, yet when we do lose the weight, we are still not satisfied. It is a vicious cycle and it never ends unless we learn to love the body we have as it is right now, not tomorrow or next month or next year. It is okay to want to make health improvements but not to hate and despise the state we are in now.
Making these lifestyle changes is about believing that you deserve to be healthier……………….It is not about making the changes so that you can look like someone else. Making changes with this as your ultimate goal, means you’ll not succeed and will be miserable for life! Body hatred and dissatisfaction are hardly reserved for only the morbidly obese. In fact, many women who clearly have very little body fat to lose are not happy with their body proportions. So take control of your body happiness today (and help those around you – especially sons and daughters to do the same).
Things to think about:
| Step one: Decide what's realistic for you. |
| Step two: Realize that your past does not equal your future. Events that happened to you in your past significantly influence your present perception of yourself. It is imperative that you recreate your body image by recognizing and releasing these feelings from the past. |
| Step 3: Get a little help from your friends. |
One aspect of gaining control of a negative body image is understanding the role of negative and irrational thinking. We can be our own worst critics and can be very hard on ourselves. Our thoughts can directly affect our actions and therefore our progress. There are things that you can do immediately to overcome or control negative or irrational thinking. Here are some tips:
Methods for overcoming negative or irrational thinking: