Body Image

When we hear body image, we almost immediately think about women.  How women are treated because of their bodies and the negative views of the media.  But what about men?  Don't men have bodies too?

This year Love Your Body Day will be held on Oct. 19th. While love yourbody.nowfoundation.org is a great resource, and worth looking into, this educator has a problem with their sole focus on women.  An article titled, "Masculine gender roles and differentiation: Predictors of body image and self-objectification in men" talks about how media and other factors influence men, just as they influence women.  While both sexes feel pressure, they feel it in different ways.  Men often feel pressure to be muscular and strong whereas woman feel the need to be thin (Schwartz,Grammas, Sutherland, Sifferet,Bush-King, 2010).

Unfortunately, these concepts have some truth.  As an athlete I understand the desire to be thin, muscular and strong.  However, there is a fine line between being healthy and being self-destructive. The problem with this is, who's the judge? Who sets this standard, this unreachable goal? We often blame the media. It's the media's fault that they portray such skinny girls and bulky boys as ideal.  But it's not truly the media's fault, I feel its more of a cycle.  We criticize celebrities for having the "ideal" bodies, and complain how ridiculous it is to look like them, but when the public sees a normal body shape, they criticize that too.  

While there is no true solution to the problem (at least not a quick fix) of these "ideal" images floating around, we can change what we're going to do about it.  We can change our own view of body image and how we see ourselves.

Intercultural Life will be doing an event in honor of Love Your Body Day (tentatively) Tuesday, October 19th in Maytag from 11-1:00.  We will have a table set up where you can make your own button to show how you are changing your perspective about body image.  If we create a positive image of ourselves, we can hopefully creative a positive image for everyone. 

We hope to see you there.

Your Intercultural Educator,

Shannan O.