Guest Blogger: Isabella Franklin | www.twitter.com/Cosmetic_Bella
If you are unhappy with the way you look, you aren’t alone. A parliamentary report has found that around half of the UK’s population has problems with negative body image, and that girls as young as five years old routinely worry about their weight and physical appearance. Everyone has something they don’t like about the way they look, but obsessing over physical appearance and letting these worries affect your self-esteem and confidence can be really damaging for your mental health and well-being.
If you regularly criticise yourself, compare yourself to other people or have considered liposuction or a tummy tuck, you need to change the way you think. To boost your body confidence, start by following these tips.
5 Top Tips for Boosting Body Confidence
- Make a list of all the things you like about your appearance. Rather than looking in the mirror and criticising yourself, pointing out flaws, you should try to focus on features you like about yourself. Focusing on lean legs, gorgeous eyes, shiny hair, hourglass shape, tiny waist or perky bum is much more of a positive approach than being horrible to yourself every time you look in the mirror.
- Make a list of all the things you like about yourself in general. Remember that you have value because of your personality, not just your appearance. Focus on things like your intelligence, sense of humour, kindness, empathy, loyalty and other positive qualities.
- Be aware of your ‘low body confidence’ triggers. There might be certain things in your life that trigger negative thoughts about yourself, such as getting changed in a communal area at the gym or seeing your boyfriend’s ex. If you can find ways to avoid these trigger situations, you should be able to avoid feeling bad about your looks or your body.
- Stop comparing yourself to other people. People come in all different shapes and sizes, and everyone is unique. Your body is no better or worse than anyone else’s – it’s just different. To give yourself more body confidence, stop comparing your legs to your supermodel friends’ or your cleavage to a colleague who has recently undergone breast augmentation.
- Replace a criticism with a compliment. Every time you start to criticise yourself in your head, force yourself to stop and take a second. Then, compliment yourself on a part of your body you really like instead. If you become aware of when you’re being down on yourself and make a conscious effort to stop, you might be able to change your thought patterns and have a better self-image overall.
