Poor body image can have a huge impact on your quality of life. A few bad thoughts here and there can easily escalate. This results in social withdrawal, and you may also find that you have social anxiety too. If you want to combat this, then this guide will help you to rocket your body confidence.
Fake it
Lead researcher Kristen Harrison, University of Illinois found that “in the presence of same-gender peers, certain women eat less and certain men eat more following exposure to ideal-body images — ‘certain’ in this case referring to women and men who have discrepancies between their actual body and the kind of body they think their peers idealize,”
Body confidence is attractive. If you love the way you look, then everyone else will as well. After years of putting yourself down, you may find that ditching your mindset is hard to do. Instead of putting yourself down, you need to try and tell yourself that you are beautiful and stunning. Do your bit to carry yourself with confidence because if you can do this then everything will become second nature. You will also feel much better about yourself too. A bit of retail therapy, hair makeover, going to the gym to exercise or visiting orthodontists might be the jump start into a new mindset you need. Sometimes you need to make a big change in order to get on the right track, and even if the results aren’t immediate, it can give you the boost you need to really make a positive change to your mental confidence.
Be your Own Best Friend
“We analyzed reports from 116,356 men across five national studies. Between 20 and 40 percent of men reported feeling dissatisfied with their overall physical appearance, weight, and/or muscle tone and size,” said David Frederick, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Chapman University and lead author of the study. “The majority of men also felt that they were judged based on their appearance and reported that they compared their appearance to that of others at social events.” The study showed that gay men were much more likely than heterosexual men to report feeling pressure from the media to look attractive, to avoid having sex because of how they felt about their bodies, and to desire cosmetic surgery.
When your inner voice starts to bad-mouth the way that you look you need to stop and you need to ask yourself, would you actually talk to your best friend like that? How would you feel if you overheard someone else talking to another person like that? Either way, most of the time, you may find that you are just not giving yourself the respect that you deserve. This can also translate into how you socialise and the lifestyle behaviours you might engage in that could set you up for long term damage.
We found significant relationships between this misperception and reporting ever having had alcohol, as well as reporting episodic heavy drinking among high school girls. ” said Margie Skeer, Sc.D., M.P.H., M.S.W., assistant professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine, “Paying attention to this behavior in this population could help identify factors supporting the relationship between this misperception and drinking, as well as other risk behaviors, beyond high school.”
Looking at episodic heavy drinking, the researchers found that girls who had a body image behavioral misperceptio (BIBM )had a 1.22 times greater odds of having five or more alcoholic beverages in a short period of time compared with girls who did not have a BIBM. Additional factors that increased the likelihood of heavy alcohol use included being in 12th grade, reporting depressive symptoms and smoking cigarettes in the last 30 days. Girls who had a BIBM and identified as black or African American as compared to white or other races and ethnicities were associated with decreased odds of episodic heavy drinking.
“Eating in response to external cues rather than internal hunger signals is one of the first steps involved in the development of disordered eating, be it anorexia, bulimia or compulsive eating. Our commercial mass media are filled with such external cues.” adds Frederick.
Trade the Negative for Positive & Sign Out
If you know that certain friends or family only have bad things to say, then stay away from them. Surround yourself with people who want the best for you. Those who project negativity or nastiness tend to be insecure and they say mean things just to make themselves feel better. Don’t put yourself down, and instead, get out there and socialise. This can give you a huge confidence boost.
Scrolling through social media and even Facebook can be a severe distraction if you are suffering from low body confidence. Switch off and disconnect for a while. If you can do this, then you will soon find that you feel way better about yourself and that you don’t get wrapped up in what people think you should look like.
“We really wanted to examine how each college woman used Facebook when posting pictures online. Is she thinking, ‘I’m posting this picture to share a fun moment with my friends’ or is she thinking ‘I want to post this picture to compare how my body looks to my friends’ bodies,'” said Stephanie Zerwas, PhD, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and her study on body image and social media use.
She found when college women had a greater emotional connection to Facebook, they were more likely to compare their bodies to their friends’ bodies and engage in more risky dieting behaviors. However, what the research team found next surprised them most. As long as women weren’t using Facebook to compare their body size and shape to their Facebook friends, being more emotionally invested in Facebook was associated with less concern about body size and shape and fewer risky dieting behaviors.
“I think that Facebook could be an amazing tool to nurture social support and connections with friends and families. And if you’re getting that kind of social support from the site, you might be less likely to be worried about your body size. But if you’re using it as a measuring stick to measure how your body appears in pictures compared to your friend’s body, Facebook could also be used a tool to foster dangerous dieting behavior,” said Dr. Zerwas.
Focus on yourself because you’re the only one who matters. The sooner you can adopt this mentality, the sooner you will see a difference in your mental and your physical health, so make sure that you keep this in mind.