When I practiced in Atlanta a local charity group focused on raising eating disorder awareness sponsored Love Your Body Month every February. I got used to thinking of February as a time to not just honor relationships that we value but to also work on valuing our relationship with our own bodies. As busy professional women, wives, mothers, daughters, and friends and in some cases all of or a combination of those our own self-care can get lost in the shuffle.
Time alone, time to exercise, time to prepare delicious food, and time to relax all take a back seat to work projects, house projects, kids projects, and friend projects. All of those identities scramble for attention and we forget to take care of the vessel that carries us from place to place and interacts in a physical way with the world.
In Baroque art the female body was beautiful. And the more curves you could see the more beautiful the body. We have hit extremes in these areas β Twiggy in the 60s and Kate Moss in the 90s β but it seems that at least some areas of society are finally starting to recognize the damage we have done to women and girls by placing unrealistic expectations on their bodies.
We are starting to see that deadly eating disorders are wreaking havoc on the lives of girls as young as 8 and 9 years old. We are starting to notice the woman who has been punishing herself on the elliptical for over an hour.
Women who see themselves only as a number on the scale or on the tag in the back of some clothes. Women who measure their worth by the width of their waist. My wish for every girl is that she is able to say with confidence that she loves her body.
