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Nataly

Body image & low self-esteem.. why??

By Nataly, in The Bonfire

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jellob    0

jellob
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I have no answers for you. Why do men and women have low self value? Why do I? Is it "the media"? Is it conditioning? Is it parental/friends/.....

reply]

i think it's all of these things, depending on the person. for me, it began as a parental thing. i can remember being less than 10 and being told to suck in my tummy. my mother, at a size 2, made it known that pretty things come in small packages. i can vividly remember being 13 and being a size 6 and trying on clothing with her. she would try on something and say she looked fat in it. if, at a size 2, she was fat, i was massive. i can remember when the eating disorder started at and when the negative feelings began at 14.

so here i am at 30, and still going through the same emotional bullshit associated with a low self-esteem and restricting what i eat out of fear of getting fat, despite not being under the influence of my mother anymore.

i teach my students not to fall prey to the power of the media, and yet i still do. i teach them to feel good about who they are and that healthy and beautiful come in different packages, and yet i am terrified to gain a pound.

so, like kbordson, i do not have answers, but merely have experience to share.

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warpedskydiver    0

warpedskydiver
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I blame Mademoiselle Jeanette Garrett, my ballet instructor from when I was a wee monkey until my teenage years, for my misguided vision of what my body should look like, even now, 20+ years later.



I bet your Ballet teacher never showed her tits for altitude!:|

Show what does she know?

Probably can't even kneel down now due to arthritis!!!;)

She what all the crap she dished out got her?


NOTHING EXCEPT BEING BENT OVER AGAINST THE WALL

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LuckyMcSwervy    0

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I blame Mademoiselle Jeanette Garrett, my ballet instructor from when I was a wee monkey until my teenage years, for my misguided vision of what my body should look like, even now, 20+ years later.



I bet your Ballet teacher never showed her tits for altitude!:|

Show what does she know?

Probably can't even kneel down now due to arthritis!!!;)

She what all the crap she dished out got her?


NOTHING EXCEPT BEING BENT OVER AGAINST THE WALL


I do excellent barre work. :D

And I think she died a few years ago... not sure, unfortunately. [:/]
Always be kinder than you feel.

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lawrocket    3

lawrocket
Hmm. I have a very low body image and self-esteem. Men are also encouraged to have a low opinion of themselves unless they have a physique carved from granite.

People bring up the "Barbie Doll" as the ideal that little girls are brought up to aspire to. Well, anyone actually laid eyes on a GI Joe? I think that men find it normal to feel bad about their bodies.

Advertisments about it, using sports figures to talk about the weight they lost. Six pack abs. Chiseled jaw. Men are having cosmetic surgery, too. Men have bariatric procedures. Men are encouraged to focus on their appearance. If not, they are portrayed as the bumbling slobs.

How are women supportive of someone who says that he or she doesn't like his or her bodies. I don't think I'm a great looking guy, and I know Rosa gets mad when I comment about my fat ass. But it IS what I see. Even when I was down to 165 pounds, I still saw that guy who weighed 245.

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nobody really likes it when an attractive girls boasts about how pretty she is or how she likes her legs or bum or whatever - it's like she's rubbing it in people's face somehow..



Nobody likes it when guys do it. In many ways, men doing it is worse than women. "Check out these pipes, man!"

I think there is something to be said in humility. A beautiful person doesn't need to tell anybody. It is already known to the observer. The beautiful person should accept a compliment.

It's not a matter of being proud of your body. It is a matter of societal decorum. I'm proud of what I have accomplished so far in life. That is tempered with the failures that I have had in life (plenty of them.)

I don't think it's a pressure not to like ourselves. It's more of a pressure to avoid narcissism. I feel pressure to like myself more.


My wife is hotter than your wife.

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shah269    0

shah269
I have a shaved head, I trim my soul patch, I own about a half dozen different fragrances that I utilize, I iron all my shirts and my pants, i look in the mirror when I walk out in the morning I hate it when I look frumpy.

I was bug freaking ugly as a young man. From ages 7-20 i was what one would call a train wreck. Remember the wonder years? Remember the best friend? Yeah....that as me! I couldn't get laid if my life depended on it! Add to it that we just didn't have cash for new clothes and being the only Persian kid in a poduck redneck full little upstate NY town and well....I kind of exploded when I got the chance.

I dress well, not as good as I want to but I dress well. And do my up most to keep looking good. Be it going to Yoga class twice a week (which is great for ones body as well as ones mind) to going to a dermatologist twice a year. I'm making up for what I missed out on.

But all that aside.....I have very very low self esteem.
I have a very hard time taking compliments from any one. Especially girls.
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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LuckyMcSwervy    0

LuckyMcSwervy
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I blame Mademoiselle Jeanette Garrett, my ballet instructor

Ballet dancer, huh? They're hot.B|

Sorry, that was a sexist, judgmental comment from a guy who should know way better.:$

Still, Ballet dancer?:)


I was a gymnast, too. Actually, more of a gymnast than a ballet dancer. I stuck with ballet to keep the muscles more lean than bulky. See? The things that a little kid would never think of... [:/]
Always be kinder than you feel.

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shah269    0

shah269
The love of my life was a ballet dancer.
Only thing that mader her happy was to dance.
In three months she stole my heart. I've been with out it for 13 years. No matter how many ballet dancers I dated it was never her it was never the same.....but that's for another thread.

Body image is also very cultural. I'm Persian. I have yet to meet a Persian girl who hasn't had work done. I have yet to meet a Persian guy who doesn't look in the mirror at least 5 times a day. Where it comes from? I'll neverk know, how it will end.....no clue.
But do I know the base of the issue? Yes, low self esteem.

I never had "it". Girls never threw them selves at me, in my 32 years only two girls ever hit on me. One was the ballet dancer and the other was a girl I dated over the summer. Would I like to get hit on more? SURE! It woul be great. And how can I get hit on....? Well dress nice? Smell nice? Smile?
Who knows?
Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

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kbordson    8

kbordson
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Wonderful post.

Excellent topic.

I have no answers for you. Why do men and women have low self value? Why do I? Is it "the media"? Is it conditioning? Is it parental/friends/.....



I have no idea why you would!!!:S

Now you need a spankin!;)


My post was kinda half joking and "perpetuating this whole self-deprecating cycle." as she stated in her original post.

But back to low self esteem, I can relate to lawrocket's post. I think that he did a WONDERFUL job expressing the point of not wanting to be narcissistic. There is ALWAYS room for improvement - even the most beautiful woman could make this improvement or that.... confidence is good, but arrogance is bad. Where is that line though? That is the hard part.

Body image issues
- add all the parental and peer influences, all the press representations and then the personal experiences (like I was told when I was younger that I could "NEVER" be a professional model because my eyes were too far apart, and I'm not all enough and blah blah blah..... and I was referred to as "healthy" - I mean SERIOUSLY .... "healthy"!? Cows are "healthy.") and in ANYBODY, you get a lower self-esteem.


And Bill (happythoughts), I LOVE that line. :D:D:D:D[:/] But... doesn't it depend on the doctor? :P

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cam    0

cam
I would much rather NOT CARE how I look than think I am pretty.
Not as in being slovenly, but as in thinking of myself for my other attributes and achievements.

Thinking about Nataly's first post, I agree there is something insidious about the 'feel good about how you look'' hype - it's the flip side of the coin of messages to feel unsatisfied with your looks (yes, advertising), and reinforces the idea that looks matter. I don't think anyone really wins from this - neither the 'pretty' nor the 'plain'. as someone who has been 'lucky' to have been judged relatively pretty by the standards of my culture (and in my own eyes too), I can say that there is a major downside: not only does it make growing older (and hence loosing relative value on society's the prettiness/sexiness scales) hard, it produces a nagging feeling that perhaps my looks have favoured me too much, that somehow my professional achievements have been bolstered by being 'pretty' (even tho I never consciously tried to trade on them), that the relatively easy supply of boyfriends I had when I was younger was because of how I looked, not who I was or what did...
ok, that's probably putting it too strongly - most of the time it is possible to push all those thoughts away. but it would be somewhat easier if we had much less of a focus on looks full stop. but somehow how i doubt that - i think our DNA (mating imperative) and capitalism (advertising) conspire to feed the looks obsession

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JohnMitchell    14

JohnMitchell
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(like I was told when I was younger that I could "NEVER" be a professional model because my eyes were too far apart, and I'm not all enough and blah blah blah..... and I was referred to as "healthy" - I mean SERIOUSLY .... "healthy"!? Cows are "healthy.") and in ANYBODY, you get a lower self-esteem.


Well I was told I'd never be anything bettter than a fire watcher. :P A lot of people tear others down, some by accident, some on purpose. I think we can all remember the slights and disappointments. I don't know if we should blame the media or just life. I think everyone has to find their own path to self esteem.

Healthy? Don't knock it. I know what you look like and you're very pretty. But healthy is not faint praise in my book. To me, it means the athletic girl next door kind of thing. Really, women don't get much better than that.

My daughter sent me this link. She tends to do her own thing, and not pay too much attention to other people's opinions. She thought this was quite funny, and so did I. It goes back to guys thinking they're hotter than they are, and women having so many self doubts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89zOtd6VAiU

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