Thankful Thursday: Body Love

I have a guest post from Carly, the founder of We {heart} Life today. 

I {heart} my body day last year had a profound effect on me, and I'm very proud to be sharing Carly's thoughts in the lead up to the day this year.

Battling Body Image Issues

Body image is something that I discuss a lot the blog I created, WeHeart Life. Being a woman who is constantly battling her own body image issues, those of the negative kind, it is an area that I feel that a lot of women have similar issues and so I have become very vocal in expressing the need to become more positive about our bodies.

While I do believe that we should be kinder to our bodies and ourselves about how our bodies look, I don't always practice what I preach and spend copious amounts of time in front of mirrors analysing the flaws.

In 2010 after appearing in a magazine and having an amazing photoshoot, I stopped and thought about what beautiful/sexy/pretty means. I felt extremely pretty being all made up and snapped several images of myself once I got home, but I wondered why I needed makeup to feel that way.

You see feeling beautiful/sexy/pretty doesn't happen for me. Or at least it never used to. Growing up I never felt this way because I was always the fat girl of the group. It probably never helped that I have been told all my life that I am just that, fat.

The media also plays a very significant role in shaping and distorting my ideals about what is beautiful/pretty/sexy. Advertising is done in such as way that as 'real' women we can never live up to these ideals unless we are photoshopped every day of our lives.

You only have to view some of the before and after photoshopped images to see how much the media contort and change a woman's body before allowing it to be published.

After that 2010 photoshoot, I decided that I needed to ensure that I am more positive towards my body, which is why I started the 'I Heart My Body' campaign on We Heart Life in October.

It appears that a lot of women feel the same way I do, however most were able to name three things that they loved about their bodies, and some appeared in their underwear. It was amazing to hear some of the words from these women, explaining their own lives dealing with their body image issues.

When I repeated that same campaign in 2011 over one hundred women linked up! The way that these women spoke about their bodies the following year made me feel in awe of something amazing that I had created. It was allowing women all over Australia to love their bodies, just as they are.

Being positive about our own bodies is not all that it is about. 

We need to stop basing our own body ideals on advertising material, and rather explore being healthy and fit.

We need to ensure that we don't compare our bodies to other women's bodies, each body is unique and different.

Finally, we need to focus on the positives, not the negatives that we see in the mirror.

Are you in for loving your body this year in October at WeHeart Life?