Have positive experiences with your body.Challenge misleading assumptions about body appearance.Confront thinking distortions related to your body.Explore your personal body image with its strengths and limitations.Extensive outside remodeling, however, also requires extensive inside changes in body image. Surgery can be a means for changing how we see ourselves. Learning to have a positive relationship with an imperfect body increases the ability to lose weight. Weight management and surgery are two ways to alter the body. It means changing how we think, feel, and react to our body. Maintaining a positive body image is a lifelong process.Ĭhanging negative body image means more than changing our body. Our body experiences change as we grow older, and each stage in our life is associated with body image markers. How can we enhance our body image?īody image is not fixed. Distortions in our thinking contribute to a negative body image. A positive body image contributes to enhanced psychological adjustment (less depression, positive self-worth, life satisfaction, less interpersonal anxiety, fewer eating disorders). It also refers to how we think, feel, and react to our own perception of our physical attributes.īody image development is affected by cultural images and the influence of family, peers, and others. Our body image includes more than what we look like or how others see us. Refrain from comparing yourself to others.īody image is part of self-image.Identify and explore the impact of childhood labels.Define personal goals and objectives that are reasonable and measurable.Ask significant others to describe your positive qualities.Make a list of your positive qualities.Specific steps to develop a positive self-image It also means being accepted and loved by others. A healthy self-image starts with learning to accept and love ourselves. Self-image change occurs over a lifetime. We can learn to develop a healthier and more accurate view of ourselves, thus challenging the distortions in the mirror. Part of our self-image is dynamic and changing. On the other hand, a negative self-image can decrease our satisfaction and ability to function in these areas. A positive self-image can boost our physical, mental, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being. Self-image is important because how we think about ourselves affects how we feel about ourselves and how we interact with others and the world around us. With a negative self-image, we focus on our faults and weaknesses, distorting failure and imperfections.
With a positive self-image, we recognize and own our assets and potentials while being realistic about our liabilities and limitations. We continually take in information and evaluate ourselves in several areas, such as physical appearance (How do I look?), performance (How am I doing?), and relationships (How important am I?).
The strengths and weaknesses we have adopted affect how we act today. Based on this view, we develop either a positive or a negative self-image. The image we see in the mirror may be a real or distorted view of who we really are. Relationships reinforce what we think and feel about ourselves. Our experiences with others such as teachers, friends, and family add to the image in the mirror. They are mirrors reflecting back to us an image of ourselves. Early childhood influences, such as parents and caregivers, have a major influence on our self-image. These characteristics form a collective representation of our assets (strengths) and liabilities (weaknesses) as we see them. Self-image is an “internal dictionary” that describes the characteristics of the self, including such things as intelligent, beautiful, ugly, talented, selfish, and kind. Self-image is the personal view, or mental picture, that we have of ourselves.
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