How to love your body during quarantine
Updated: May 23, 2020
Feeling rubbish about your body? Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Lockdown has us stuck at home with most of our social interactions existing online, where we’re bombarded with #fitnessfreak influencers urging us to intensely exercise and follow the latest diet craze, so we don’t dare gain another pound. Whilst it's important that we do our best to keep fit during this time where we're not actively moving around, it's equally important to do so for the sake of ensuring our health and making ourselves happy, not to lose an extreme amount of weight or to keep up with others.
In an age where women having ‘thick’ hourglass figures and men having bulging muscles is a powerful trend that can harmfully influence those who don’t fit into the sharp edges of this unfairly specific box, it’s easy to feel bad about our bodies. During this lockdown period, however, its important that we work extra hard to remind ourselves how beautiful we are. Especially you, reading this now. You’re looking extra cute today.
Why its important that we love our bodies
It’s all well and good seeing pictures that tell you to ‘love your body’ but if you struggle with a negative self-image, it might not be clear how to do this or even why this is important, so here’s a neat little list:
The problem of poor self-image is way more common than you think
I know that that girl on Instagram wearing a bikini on the beach is smiling in all her pictures and it looks like she doesn’t go a single day in her life being shy about her body, but trust me she does. In fact, it’s likely that she’s one of the 34% of adults in the UK that admittedly felt shame or low about their appearance in the last year or one of the 35% of adults in the UK that have felt depressed because of concerns about their body image (following a 2019 study by the Mental Health Foundation). If she’s under the age of 25, she may even be one of the 57% of 18-24-year-olds found to have felt anxious because of their body image according to a 2019 YouGov poll.
No one is constantly in love with the way they look and even extremely attractive celebrities like Rihanna have commented on having days where they’re not feeling like they look their best. And are any of us better than Rihanna? No.
Your body is your home
Like a clingy stalker, your body is always with you and it cares deeply about you. It enables you to breathe, fight infection, move freely and express emotion in the most beautiful ways.
It doesn’t change either – on the days where you may have loved your body and on those where you may have felt like rubbish, it was the same body you were looking at and it works incredibly hard each day to keep you alive and well.
You deserve to be loved
When you deny yourself the privilege of self-love, you become your own worst enemy and can get trapped in a negative relationship with yourself that feels inescapable. When you become your own personal bully, it can drastically lower your self-esteem and self-confidence, opening the doors for various psychological and social issues to enter your life and make you feel even worse.
What would you do if your friend were speaking negatively about their appearance? Most likely, you would tell them that its absolute nonsense because your friend is beautiful, worth more than their physical appearance and their value as a human being does not depend on the opinions of others. Here, you are that friend, and to you, I say the same.
When you let other people’s public opinions and projections of what their life is like determine your self-image you give them power over your mind and self-worth, and no one deserves to be given that authority.
You never know who you inspire
Think about the amount of people you’ve met or passed in the street that you’ve been attracted to based on how they look. Think about how many of them you’ve ever spoken to or admitted your feelings to. What makes you think other people aren’t thinking the same thing about you?
Why women struggle with body image
‘Instagram and other social media platforms have created false expectations of the perfect Female body and how we should be’, says influencer Sheyla Oramas ‘most of us tend to believe this and feel bad when we don’t fall between the “parameters”’.
Western media sets the standard for feminine beauty pretty high. Unlike men who can generally ‘let themselves go’ and look unkempt without judgement, if as a woman you are not tanned or mixed race with blonde hair, light coloured eyes, big lips, large breasts, a small waist, big hips, a large ass and a fully abled body, you just don’t cut it.
According to this standard, as a plus size black woman with 4c texture hair, I'm ugly - completely false. But we look at what the media presents as ‘ideal’ beauty standards and compare ourselves to it, insulting ourselves if we cannot look identical to people on the internet that achieve their figures through either photo editing, years of hard work and exercise or through hiring a beauty surgeon, personal trainer and chef to help them achieve their look.
It’s nonsensical and it’s an infectious mentality that causes us to see ourselves as unattractive and therefore unworthy if we aren’t a carbon copy of the artificial images we see online.
The problem with the body positivity movement
Body positivity is a fantastic political movement welcoming people to love their bodies regardless of their shape or size, but one of its major flaws its severe lack of empathy for how men can be affected by poor self-image.
‘Men have one standard of beauty to live up to: chiselled jaw and a six pack’, says plus male model and body positivity activist TJ Ngoma, ‘and that is not an attainable goal for all men. I don’t have a six pack and I can tell you I feel just as sexy and beautiful they do.’
Despite its lack of attention in the body positivity movement, the projection of a false image for ideal masculine beauty can be just as harmful to men as it is to women. We’re all used to seeing images of shirtless actors gazing into the camera in our favourite films and perfume adverts with women throwing themselves at his feet, but did you know that in order to achieve this look, most male actors have to go on a strict dehydrating diet that can cause some of them to be hospitalised immediately after shooting?
For example, to gain his iconic muscular appearance for The Witcher, Henry Cavill had to go on an extreme diet and give up drinking water so his skin could be dehydrated and thin enough to cling to his muscles, making him look ripped whilst he was actually causing serious damage to his body. There is always more than meets the eye, and not all the images you see of beauty ‘standards’ in the media are genuine.
The lack of representation in the media for differently abled people is another issue that needs to be addressed as we all see ourselves through people in the media and it can feel comforting or even empowering to see ourselves in figures that look like us.
So now we’ve established the issue of body image and that most people have it, how can we go about challenging it?
I found out how 12 people like to show love to their bodies
Caprice-Kwai, Model and Blogger
'I can't do a lot physically to make myself feel more body confident, but wearing clothes that make me feel good or even doing my makeup makes me feel body confident.'
Leanda Lewis, fat positive activist
‘I look at my body, I dress it the way I like, I take up space both physically and emotionally and I'm unapologetic about it.’
TJ Ngoma, plus male model and body positive activist
'It has been a long journey getting to this point that I'm at right now. Self love has been the greatest thing I could've even done for myself. One of the biggest things I do to stay body confident is I follow people like myself, people who celebrate their bodies and are body positive themselves. Representation is something we really lack as plus size people and it's up to us to create and control what and who we take in.’
Josephine Dervish, poet
‘I post me, as I am, older, fatter and less conventionally pretty than is usually considered glamorous or beautiful on Instagram, daily, being unapologetically myself. I also follow other body confident people on Instagram, particularly women but I choose people of all ages, sizes and styles to purposefully reset my brain's perception of 'normal'.
Tarik Rever, Model, equal rights activist, and Spokesperson for Social Bleu.
'To stay positive and comfortable with my body I model. Being in a wheelchair and having myasthenia gravis makes me extremely tired but I can still look at my work and see my artistic side.'
Tessa Schiethart, MSc
"I have discovered Yoga and Ayurveda as a means to deal with unexpected negative results from hospital tests at the time. Among many lessons, I have learned that I am more than my body. We all carry an essence within us that is not defined by our exterior looks. This makes me confident, but more importantly it makes me grounded in myself. Confidence to me is a fluctuating concept - there are times when we feel it more than others - but being grounded is who you are, in your being, is a continuum".
Bianca Nardone, body positivity activist
‘I dance a lot, this makes me feel good to build a connection with the earth, improve my mental health and have fun. I also see myself in the mirror and tell myself "wow, you’re so pretty and powerful, you can do anything you want!" It’s like a mantra’
Megan Baines, body positive influencer
‘To make myself feel more body confident I stand in front of my mirror completely naked! I look at myself and say look at that beautiful body! It really does work for me.’
Ciara Alyse Harris, body positive influencer
‘I talk to my body. I compliment her first thing in the morning and I actually rub my tummy haha. I try to focus on the health aspect rather than the physical one. I am very strong and athletic and when I work out I am really proud of myself. I try to focus on that and how it makes me feel so good that it changes the course of my day’
EverydayKrystal, body positive influencer
'I pamper my body with massages, hot showers, and all-natural oils’
Sheyla Oramas, body positive influencer
'First thing I do every morning is Yoga, I really enjoy going for walk and take my little doggy out with me and enjoy the views. I also don’t compare myself with other people. I dress a way that I feel comfortable and pretty. I have my insta feed full of body positive posts'
Marisa Hamamoto, Founder of Infinite Flow - An Inclusive Dance Company
‘Dancing has always been my passion, but the road to finding my voice as a dancer has been nothing but smooth. During my childhood, I was told over and over again that my body wasn’t made for dancing. When I suffered a stroke while in college, I got trapped into the belief that my body was broken. And after 3 sexual assaults, I could only see my body as an object of abuse. This led to years of body shaming, turning to fad diets, and even rejecting coffee dates just because I didn’t like how I looked.
However, as a result of teaching and preaching everyday for 5 years that EVERY-BODY can dance and that you have a dancer inside yourself, regardless of size, shape, height, race, color, age, or disability, I have come to accept my body for what it is and be grateful for its ability to move and express. This has led to not only having peace with myself but also to healthier habits both in my personal and professional life.
When you are exposed to the beauty of diversity and humanity, what you thought as unsightly becomes beautiful and what you thought were your flaws become your strengths. You become more confident in your own body and skin and naturally you become more productive.’
How I learned to love my body
Loving my body is a continuous journey I’ve been on for a long time. At first, I just ‘faked it until I made it’ and forced myself out of my comfort zone to wear clothes that made me feel self-conscious. As I walked outside, I was so scared I’d be stared at and people would call me fat, but the only person looking at my body was me.
As I continued to think about the reasons why I hated my body, I realised it was all a load of rubbish – I don’t have to believe the lies spewed by the media and I don’t have to shrink myself to make others more comfortable. Fuck those people. If I see a bralette or a pair of shorts I want to wear, why shouldn’t I wear it? I look good and I happily look myself up and down when I pass by shop windows, I don’t care! The only person that can determine my value and attractiveness is me, and I show myself love by giving myself daily praises and affirmations when I wake up and finding five things I like about my appearance when I look in the mirror.
Listening to inspiring artists such as India Arie (for anyone needing a playlist, click here) also enabled me to sing praises to myself that turned into a sort of mantra as the songs got stuck in my head. The more I sang uplifting lyrics, the more these external words became internal thoughts that I began to believe. Being naked is also a massive help - it forced me to look at every inch of my body and accept it as my home. It’s my responsibility to nurture it with kindness as well as food and exercise. It is with me always, and with all its rolls, stretchmarks, scars and blemishes I love it to pieces.
Advice
'I know society makes you believe you're suppose to look perfect but you're perfect just the God created you. Don't believe the hype - nobody's perfect and everyone is uniquely themselves. Why fit in when you can't stand out? Embrace your imperfections - they make you who you are!’ – Iomikoe VitiligoGoddess Johnson
‘Tune in to your inner critic/parent voice. Catch her when she talks to you in a negative way and remind her that no good parent would speak harshly to or put down their child. Make sure your inner voice is kind, gentle and loving to you, even when things go wrong. She should talk to you as you would to a child.’ – Josephine Dervish
‘Follow fat positive accounts and unfollow anyone who's Fatphobic. If you feel safe call them on it too! Looking at people with the same body type as you is fantastic.’ – Leanda Lewis
‘Always show your body gratitude, take some time away from social media as this can have a big impact on how it can make you feel and make sure you do whats best for you and your body - do what makes you feel good and happy!’ - Caprice-Kwai Ambersley
‘The first step toward body confidence and body love is...BODY ACCEPTANCE. You have to first accept that you may not have a flat tummy, or you may not have a big ol' bubble booty and that's ok! I accept that my arms are big, and I accept that I have stretch marks. Once you accept your "imperfections" you'll them grow to love and celebrate them because they are a part of you.’ - TJ Ngoma
‘Stop being so hard on yourself. Your body is not your worth. And just because you don’t look a certain way doesn’t mean you're not worthy of love. Things will get better and do your best not to be fixated on what you look like. Beauty is skin deep.’ – Megan Baines
‘Don’t compare yourself with others and don’t try to follow the Insta stereotype. For every person that you follow and makes you feel bad about yourself, remove them and only follow pages that make you feel good.' – Sheyla Oramas
‘I am the spokesperson for the app Social Bleu. It helps those that are differently abled, or anyone facing any form of mental, physical, and emotional challenge. The app helps us all lift each other up as sometimes just hearing similar experiences from others can make you feel more included… The most important symbol of beauty is the spirit’ - Tarik Rever
‘I would advise caregivers, mental health professionals, and schoolteachers and all other educators to invest more into the relationship of young adults with their body. I do this myself through Instagram among other means, and hope that I can give something to the younger ones around us.’ - Tessa Schiethart
‘The answers you are looking for are inside yourself and not outside. You think that in order to love your body, other people have to love it too, but that’s furthest from the truth. Your body helps YOU stay alive and not anybody else. So that simple fact is enough for you to start on your journey to loving her.’ – Ciara Harris
‘Learn to love a part of your body that you don’t like one part at a time. I broke my femur bone in 2016 and I had really ugly scar on my thigh. I had to relearn to love my thigh again in order to wear and be confident in shorts.’ - EverydayKrystal
‘To young girls suffering, I would say that appearance is not as important as society claims and you are not just your body, every person is like an entire universe and your body is only a small planet. Think of your body like your home’ - Bianca Nardone