Monday, March 11, 2013

Say NO to body-hate!


In late June of last year, I was asked to teach and lead the 12 - 13-year-old girls in my church congregation. I LOVE working in my church's program for teenage girls (which is usually referred to as "Young Women"). Today's youth are so smart, strong and powerful. I enjoy associating with these brilliant and talented young women on a regular basis and feel like they often empower and uplift me more than I do them. It's quite a privilege.

I actively participated in this inspired program when I was a teenager as well. I remember fondly the Sunday lessons, the mid-week social activities, our annual summer retreat to the woods and the general spirit of learning and optimism I felt while I was a part of the program.

Today, I realize my leaders and friends during that crucial period of my life truly helped define who I am -- some for the better and some, not so much. Now that I have been entrusted with teaching and nurturing the young women in my own ward, I feel a constant need for vigilance in how I portray myself, specifically with regard to my self-image. Yes, teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to these girls is the most important thing I can do for them, but I feel it is also critical to remember that the truths of the gospel will not take root in these girls' hearts and minds if they have low self-worth and don't believe they deserve to have it.

You know I've wrestled with body image issues throughout my life. My quest to quash these erroneous feelings in myself and to stop the spread of body-hate began last summer. It began as the recognition of dark, unhealthy feelings when I would look at certain pins on Pinterest, read certain blog posts and see certain magazine covers. I soon realized these feelings were my soul recognizing them as body loathing, which runs rampant through our culture, perpetuated by the media, the Internet and all of us as we believe and spread these lies.

I then began to notice even the most subtle instances of body-hate. Little comments like, "SHRED those flabby love-handles!" "HAMMER your thighs!" "Pooch today, RIPPED abs tomorrow!" Laced with innuendos of violence and disgust. One of the saddest I've seen is this little gem:


You would hope people didn't really feel this way, but guess what? They do. Example: high-intensity workout sessions referred to as "bikini body bootcamp."

I have decided not to tolerate negative body-talk anymore. It rattles me to the core when my beautiful, talented, funny and smart female friends and family members disparage their various body parts, parts of them that have been changed by time, injury and childbirth. I refuse to support such adjectives as "disfigured," "neglected," "deflated" or any number of other negative terms people use to refer to the natural aging process of the human body. These are simply normal biological changes.

In reference to the changes the human body goes through, I have also considered the term "evolution." I believe we come to earth to change and grow. We experience things that season us and make us better humans in the end. I don't think this concept is limited to our spiritual state, either. I see wrinkling, bagging and the general physical break-down we experience as we get older not as a fault of the body, but as a divinely-intended function. And by "divine," I do in fact mean God-given.We aren't meant to live forever, folks. We are meant to eventually crumble and die, giving way to our eternal progression into the next realm. God gave us physical bodies to act as vessels for our spirits through mortality. If we let them, they can teach us many great lessons. If we become obsessed with our physical "imperfections" and try to control the way our bodies look and change, we miss out on those lessons.

All the things we have become conditioned to hate about ourselves -- the wrinkles, the bags, the sagginess, the scars -- are signs of life. They were encoded into your DNA before you were born! They prove you did something. You went places. You laughed, you cried, you smiled. You gave a human being or two life. You nourished them in their infancy. You worked hard. You played hard, too. You served others. And sometimes, you got sick and others got the opportunity to serve you.

You lived. That shouldn't be depressing. It should be empowering.

In everything I do, I hope to show the young women I teach and most importantly, my beautiful daughter, that I believe my body is amazing and wonderful. It needs nourishment and exercise, but it needs no fixing, "hammering" or "shredding." It is capable of so much as it is. It is a heavenly gift which deserves respect and kindness, not just in terms of physical exercise and a healthy diet, but also in the form of positive self-talk and affirmations. Because really ... why does it matter if we work out and eat right if our minds are clouded with degrading thoughts which prevent us from fully enjoying mortal life?

I challenge you to join me in the fight against body-hate. Let's end this unfortunate long-standing trend so the young women of today don't have to suffer with these poisonous thoughts the way we have. I've come up with some ideas about how we can abolish these negative thoughts, but I want to hear YOURS. How do you deal with degrading body thoughts and a low sense of self-image? How have you overcome it? What are some simple things we can do to turn these thoughts into positive ones? And how can we kindly encourage those whom we love to do the same?

Also: for further reading, check out one of my favorite blogs, Beauty Redefined. These girls know the truth and they're not afraid to show it. Preach it, sisters!

26 comments:

  1. Wow. Simply wow. This is how I feel on so many levels. I'm joining in your effort. I'm going to treat my body well in ALL respects. You, Miss Jenna, inspire me.

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  2. Wow. Simply wow. This is how I feel on so many levels. I'm joining in your effort. I'm going to treat my body well in ALL respects. You, Miss Jenna, inspire me.

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  3. This totally brought tears to my eyes! I can completely identify with the body-hating trend be ause I am also guilty of it...but I want to change that and focus on the amazing things that my body can do and has done, rather than the fact that I don't fit some arbitrary standard. It's nice to be reminded that we are all beautiful :) thank you for this blog post!

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  4. I totally agree with and love this post. I'm so tired of the beautiful ladies I know nit-picking every little thing about their bodies because they are not "thin" or "good" enough. It's everywhere. I made the decision to stop body hate for myself, and now it brings me down to hear others go on and on. I really wish people would just embrace and enjoy life without nagging self-hate thoughs. Pinned this!

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  5. I love this! I feel like I've heard (or been guilty of) all of those fruit statements. You know, there was a Doug Funny episode where they were all self conscious about their bodies before a swim party. haha

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    1. TOTALLY remember that episode, Katie! I heart Doug.

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  6. Several thoughts as I read your post. The first was, "YES!!!!". I was just talking about this with my girlfriend, and my husband. I was saying how we should conscientiously say "I love my body," in front of our children. I want to practice this BEFORE I have a girl, and I think it's good for the boy to hear it too--that way he doesn't have unreal expectations of females as well. When I look in the mirror I try to find the good. I tell myself how great my body is for having a kid. I tell myself that I love "x, y, or z". I smile at myself in the mirror. When I go to pick up my child I marvel that I am strong enough to do it. When I run after him I thank Heavenly Father for my strength and stamina. I can't stand it when I hear women focus on the negative, and I agree that it can stop with our generation if we turn it around. I think we also need to be careful that when we exercise we are sure to point out to our children that we're doing it so we can live long, healthy lives and feel good inside versus "I need to loose xx pounds/fit in these clothes/swimsuit/change myself mentalities". Anyways--sorry for the uber long comment, I just feel very passionate about this as well. Especially, since having my son be diagnosed with a disease where his body doesn't act the way it should, and we will probably always struggle having him gain weight and have enough to eat--so PLEASE people who have healthy bodies, don't disparage them.

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    1. Absolutely, Megan! I agree 100%. So often we do the right things for the wrong reasons, which often gives way to obsession. We need to treat ourselves well but we need to be vigilant about keeping those wrong reasons out of the picture.

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  8. Amen! Amen! You have always struck me as a confident and lovely woman. I'm sorry that you had to go through what you did. But! I'm glad you are so convicted on this. There are two women in my life who have struggled seriously with eating disorders. I am so glad to know them and feel like they've given me a glimpse into how awful our culture and satan are. I always try to hold fast to the belief that I was created in God's image and my body is not about sex or attractiveness, but service and purpose. I want to take good care of it and respect it.

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  9. Beautiful post! I love it! Our bodies are temples and we shouldn't be depressed about them. We should be grateful that we have our bodies and focus on what's great about them.

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  10. I love the no-body-hate thought. That being said, being "comfortable in your own skin" doesn't mean tolerating endless junk food and obesity. It means liking yourself for who you are, your character traits, your talents (big or small).

    I want to make sure I still teach my children to eat healthy and exercise. Not because their body isn't good enough, thin enough, or pretty enough... Quite the opposite! Because our bodies are temples and we need to take care of them. Eating healthy, avoiding over-eating or under-eating, avoiding too much sugar, fat, etc., getting plenty of fruits and veggies... Moderation in all things!

    By giving my body healthy food in healthy portions and keeping it strong through regular exercise I'm showing respect for my body and the wonderful gift that it is!

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    1. I realized my comment may have sounded like I was arguing your post... I wasn't ;) I'm absolutely agreeing with you, just adding my extra side-thoughts :)

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    2. Oh I didn't see it that way at all. I totally agree that we need to be careful about how we treat our bodies and what we feed them. I exercise regularly and enjoy eating real food, but I also regularly indulge in Cadbury mini-eggs and the like. Moderation in all things is absolutely right.

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  11. I loved this Jenna. A perfect balance between loving the bodies we have been given, while also sharing that we shouldn't take it for granted, but take care of it. I think my favorite part was the aging process. I can't deny that I am not excited about wrinkles, saggy arms, and thinning hair. Plus, with snow birds everywhere, I am terrified that I am mentally going to decline like so many I interact with (they're still sweet and all, just sayin'...). Anyway, a good perspective on the aging process. Thanks for that :)

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  12. I LOVE this post! Thank you for it! Last week on Monday I shared my eating disorder story on my blog, which was crazy, but one of the reasons I shared it was to stop things like this. (you can read it here: http://peach-lemonade.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-story-of-girl.html) I love seeing posts like this :) Also, Beauty Redefined is awesome! I really like reading their blog and seeing stuff they post on facebook!!

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  13. Amazing. I am going to share this on Facebook. This has been on my mind a lot lately. You addressed it perfectly! Thank you!

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  14. I love this post. I, too, have struggled with body issues for much of my life. When had my daughter just over a year ago, I wept at the thought of her ever thinking she was anything but a beautiful miracle, and perfect the exact way she was made. Feeling that for her made me realize that I needed to make changes in how I saw myself so that I could be a better example to her. Also, one time I made a comment to my husband about parts of my body I didn't like and his response was, ” Hey, that's my wife you're taking about.” It was simple but really changed my view. I am someone's wife, sister, daughter, mother and I would never want to say something negative about someone else's loved , nor would I want to hear it about one of my own. Those types of comments hurt loved ones as much add the person they are about, and making disparaging remarks about myself is no exception.

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    1. Lynette, I have no idea what you are talking about. I didn't censor your post, honestly. I have no moderation on my blog. If it didn't post, that was your doing. Nice that you went to such great lengths to attack me for something I didn't do, though!

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    2. I must say that Lynette, your comment is actually pretty rude. No actually really rude. Your need to attack Jenna as a blogger, as a person and claim that she is insecure because your comment didn't show up is something that you should know is inappropriate and rather immature.

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  16. My comment back to Jenna: Then I very much apologize. Seriously, I do. The page said "comment will be posted after moderator approves" or something to that effect so from my point of view it seemed that way. I've seen it before where bloggers don't want any opposition from their view on their comments and I simply assumed that. Again, I'm sorry. I'll rephrase my comment on your blog.

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    1. Thanks, Lynette. No hard feelings! I really do welcome almost every comment. I have only had to delete a few in over 4 years of blogging, and most of them are spammy "Loze weight here 2day!" things. Like I said, I don't moderate comments so they'll always be published right away. If you saw something about needing approval it must have been a Blogger glitch or something. I don't have much time to sift through comments so I just let them all through.

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  17. I simply see those quotes as an inspiring way to help us and encourage us to be confident in ourselves! Not to make us feel bad about our bodies.

    I totally understand what you mean in a way though. I gained 50 pounds with my first baby and 49 with the second. The prego recovery was one of the hardest things I've physically had to deal with and I had a hard time not comparing myself, being self conscious, or holding back my prejudice. I found myself saying "Ugh, they had to of been born with that great of a body". The more I hung out with those from the gym and joined races, the more I realized how HARD they work to get to that point. Some of them were working out 3 times a day!! For me personally, I started out just wanting to be healthy. I guess maybe those quotes are for those who want to get into extremely good shape. But again those quotes aren't meant to deter motivation or make other's feel bad about their body, but I can see how one could take it that way. Just my 2 cents. Again, sorry if I ruffled some feathers. I'm really not like that. That's just how it came off to me.

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  18. I've been meaning to comment on this. I'll just say <3. SO good. Glad you're back to blogging more.

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I like feedback almost as much as I like food.