Body image is defined as a combination of the thoughts and feelings that you have about your body. The experience is likely a combination of positive and negative, a combination of both, and will vary at times, and from day to day.
A child’s concept of body image develops from as young as 3! Body image affects everyone, and there are many factors, some of these include: having a different body shape or weight from your peers, comparing yourself with others, feeling pressure from family, peers or the media to fit into narrow ideas of beauty and feeling the need to be ‘perfect’.
Young teens in the 21st century are exposed to more media than any other generation. Social influences are playing a huge role in the development and perception of ideal beauty standards and fashion trends. You have to feel for the young, impressionable teens who so often are the target marking for these trends. They find them desirable, which can potentially impact their perception of their body image, causing them to feel dissatisfied and feel like they don’t fit into society’s standards.
In this day and age, it’s impossible to shelter teens from unrealistic social influences.
As someone who plays a key role in teenagers’ lives, it’s extremely important to be a positive influence. It’s a huge and important hat to wear! Part of being a positive influence is appropriately addressing teens’ concerns to help them feel supported and incidentally educate them, providing them with the skills to develop a healthy relationship with body image. Unfortunately, diet culture and negative talk about body image have become ingrained in our society, which can be challenging and confronting when a young teen starts to express concerns.
Some areas that we can all help to make a difference and highlight healthy ways of taking care of our bodies:
Exercise: if the topic of increasing the amount of exercise teens do to achieve a particular aesthetic look. A few things you can do to promote building a positive relationship with exercise and movement is to explain that moving your body is good for your mental health and exercise shouldn’t feel like a chore. It’s an excellent way to challenge yourself to achieve goals, such as being able to run a specific distance or being able to master new skills at gymnastics!
Eating: teens start being more aware of what they’re eating and may mention they no longer want a sweet treat in their lunch box or start to avoid foods they have previously enjoyed. It’s important we promote a balanced diet. You can make suggestions such as let’s pick out a vegetable or fruit to pair with your cookies so you have more energy to focus in class. It’s essential we encourage teens to maintain a well-balanced diet to support their bodies to develop and grow and help them stay fueled for their busy days.
Comparisons: much of what we see on social media has been fabricated, altered or posed. When teens start comparing themselves to those they follow and look up to online, they can start to get a skewed view of what a healthy body really looks like, not to mention there is no ‘perfect’ body shape. Conversations about a healthy body go a long way!
In the world of gymnastics, there is a lot of talk about body positivity. Our governing body, Gymnastics Australia is working hard to create educational materials for our coaches and staff that talk about positive bodies, and our role in helping our gymnasts keep a healthy frame of mine. They’ve developed body positivity guidelines which you can read more about, here. All of our coaches will also be completing their Every Body is Unique course to help us become the most informed, positive, empathetic role models we can be!
