The Wellness Scoop - How to Create Positive Body Image

Episode Date: July 28, 2020

Body image concerns are prevalent, so the question is how do we proactively fight against that pressure and foster a body sense of self and in doing so create a positive body image. Should we just stop talking about body image altogether, how far reaching are the consequences of a negative view on ourselves, what role does social media play and how do we change it for our children? We explore all this and much more with body image researcher Nadia Craddock. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/play-episode/id1428704212?i=1000427670685   A starter list of recommendations: Social Media Accounts @car_uwe @nadia.craddock @phillippa.diedrichs @emily.l.matheson @honeykinny @beauty_redined @maxineali @yrfatfriend @munroebergdorf @scarrednotscared @antidietriotclub @bodyposipanda @bodyimage_therapist @chr1styharrison Books Shrill by Lindy West Body Positive Power by Meagan Crabbe Fearing the Black Body by Sabrina Strings Hunger by Roxane Gay The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf Body Respect by Lindo Bacon (published as Linda Bacon) and Lucy Aphramor Podcasts Appearance Matters – the official podcast of the Centre for Appearance Research – with Nadia Craddock and Jade Parnell The Body Protest with Nadia Craddock and Honey Ross Food Psych with Christy Harrison RD See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit BetterHelp.com today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com. Hi, and welcome to the Deliciously Ella podcast with me, Ella Mills. So I am very happy to say that I'm currently on holiday for a week we have escaped for a week to recharge we're in Italy and we are celebrating Sky our daughter's first birthday she turned one yesterday on the 27th and it has been quite an unbelievable year didn't really think we'd be celebrating her first birthday in a pandemic but things happen um or that she'd be expecting a little sister so soon. But we are, yeah, we're so happy and enjoying a bit of time away.

The other piece of news is that my co-host Matt has officially left the podcast. I promise we are all good still as a couple before anyone asks. He's just been so busy juggling, running a business basically in a pandemic, which as so many of you know is a nightmare really um everything changes every day and finding time for us both to record became semi-impossible so we are dividing and conquering and i am solo as our host now one other piece of good news though is that our ultimate vegan chocolate chip cookies which you might have seen on our social media on our app are officially now in the freezers of tesco and online on waitrose.com as well as planet organic and whole foods in the uk so hopefully you can try them let us know what you think and our web

shop has got so many cool new natural brands up so we've got our favorite supplements company so to plan up with the supplements that i take which is b12 vitamin d and a vegan omega-3 um we touched a lot on like creating a balanced vegan diet in another podcast episode so i'll link that the show notes below if you're interested as to why i take those ones particularly and then also some gorgeous new face masks from one of my favorite companies evolved beauty and a couple of other really really gorgeous small brilliant natural beauty brands pie and 12 12 also has the best lip balm you'll ever use so if you're looking for a natural lifestyle natural beauty then do head to www.deliciousyellow.com and otherwise we're going to get straight into today's episode which feels very apt for this time of year

for summer a time when the media can seem to pile a kind of really crazy undue pressure, especially on women, and really enhance any concerns or worries around body image in the way that we look. So today we're looking at fostering a positive sense of body image and actually really understanding what body image actually means and why it's so hard to create that positive sense with a brilliant guest, Nadia Craddock. Nadia is a body image researcher at the Centre for Appearance Research and has been looking at both how to improve body image at an individual level and at reducing harmful societal appearance pressures at a macro level. She's got a master's in education from Harvard and is just a voice of unbelievable wisdom

on what is such a complicated topic. So welcome, Nadiaia and thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really pleased to be here. So I'd actually love, I guess, just to set the scene to start with this poem, which you had on your Instagram page and I hadn't come across it before, but I think it's so poignant. It really resonated with me and I felt that it was just such a relevant starting point for this conversation. And it's a really brilliant poem called Pretty is Alive by Nikita Gill and it reads, what if I told you the word pretty is a skin deep six letter prison they put you in. They say if you lost some weight you'd be so pretty. They say if your skin was clearer you'd be so pretty but what they really mean is

if only you looked like our mass-produced ideal you'd be so pretty. But what they really mean is, if only you looked like our mass-produced ideal, you'd be so pretty. Let me tell you a secret they do not want you to know. Nothing about you is pretty, nor will it ever be so. You see, pretty is too small and simple a word to capture the exquisitely complex human phenomenon that you are. Every atom of you was plucked in the quiet cosmic moments between supernovas and stars, a carefully chosen palette of your skin, your eyes, your muscles and bones from sunsets and skies. So when they tell you about how pretty you could be, if only, cut them off and say pretty is nor your worth or value, nor something that you've ever aspired to be and I just absolutely

loved that so I really appreciate you sharing and so excited to get into this topic today and I wondered if we could kick off with just a very very broad topic of what is body image how you know when you're researching it how do you define it yeah I think that's a really good question and a good good starting point so we're all on the same page so definitely from the research perspective we define body image as how we think and feel about the way our body looks and functions and in turn how we behave towards our bodies so how we treat our bodies so it's an internal thing it's a psychological construct and it's about self-perception it's about how we evaluate our appearance but it's an internal thing. It's a psychological construct. And it's about

self perception. It's about how we evaluate our appearance. But it's also about how we relate to our bodies more broadly. And I really like the word relationship when thinking about body image, because I think it helps us move away from thinking about what we actually look like, because changing your body doesn't necessarily change your body image so it's it's really that how we think and connect to our bodies and and our appearance I think it's really interesting how you just said that changing your body image like as in changing a say the weight and the number on a scale doesn't actually necessarily change your body image and how you feel about it and I guess you know it's obviously it's a kind of incredibly complex

psychological topic to explore and I guess going on from that before we get into kind of more detail how do you define a positive and a negative body image? Yeah I think this is a good question too and I think just going back the idea of changing your body doesn't change your body image? Yeah, I think this is a good question too. And I think just going back, the idea of changing your body doesn't change your body image really helps us pick apart what these different terms mean. So positive body image, I think is really interesting to get into because I think there's a difference between how we talk and write about positive body image in academic spaces and how it's discussed more broadly. And that's not to say there's a right or wrong, but there certainly is a disconnect, I feel.

So I think the common understanding of positive body image is this idea of loving your body, seeing yourself as beautiful or attractive and generally celebrating your appearance. But that's not really how I think about positive body image, and nor is it how we talk about positive body image in the academic literature and I think how we talk about it how we think about it how we define it is a lot broader more nuanced more holistic than that so it's more than just liking your body it's about feelings of gratitude towards your body. It's about acceptance of your appearance, regardless of how it meets up to any societal beauty standard. It's about respect and trust of your body and feeling connected to your body. So we know that people with positive body image are better able to navigate societal appearance pressures and have a broader conceptualization of beauty.

So you can see the beauty in lots of different types of appearance. And then you have that greater sense of connection with their body. So feeling really attuned to your body, so really able to listen to your body more. So which I think is a really important point that we don't talk about as much. So then on the flip side side negative body image is also more than more than one thing it's commonly thought about in terms of just not liking the way you look and I think that's that's really valid I think that's a really good way of thinking about negative body image you don't like the way you look and then that's often accompanied by wanting

to change your body in some way um but it's also about being obsessive about your appearance, being very preoccupied about your appearance, really worrying about how you look and how you're perceived. I've got so many points I want to pick up from there. But one thing that I've found very interesting in the kind of conversations that exist around this space is the idea that actually it's quite hard to celebrate body image in some ways like and I wonder you know is there anyone out there who absolutely loves and celebrates every single millimeter of their body and sometimes I feel like there's so much conversation now around loving every part of your body you know I'm pregnant at the moment for the second time and I know like lots of pregnancy things I read talk about celebrating every stretch mark and I love the concept but it's still for me brings so much focus back to the physical and I guess so much kind of headspace and attention

to the physical and of working really hard on celebrating the physical instead of just the physical being the physical and it being there and being accepting of it but then trying to focus on our other attributes and other attributes in each other and in society and be less hung up on image as a whole and I'd love to hear what you think about that because sometimes I feel like there's so much attention and so much conversation about body image, positive and negative. But somehow it can seem somehow vaguely unrealistic to love absolutely every part of yourself. You know, you might prefer your hair if it's curly or if it's straight, you know. And does that really matter if you don't love every part?

But also, should we not just try and shift the conversation to some extent away from the physical? I think it's a really interesting concept and thoughts to get really stuck into. The idea of really celebrating and loving every inch of your body and your appearance, it kind of refers back to what I was talking about with that disconnect in terms of how positive body image is popularly thought about and then how we understand it from the academic standpoint because that's not how I understand positive body image and I think there's a conflation between the body positivity movement which is a social justice movement and this idea of positive body image which is a psychological construct it's how we internalize and relate to our own bodies in a positive way. So I think that's maybe something to start

unpicking a little bit. So I think on an individual level, I think it can be really helpful for many people to take away that focus away from our appearance, as you were saying, and focus on our personal qualities, attributes, values. I mean, it sounds very freeing, even just saying it out loud. And I do know there's a lot of people that struggle with this now, like it feels, and people talk about this like jaw tension of this pressure to have this ideal perfect body and meet societal beauty standards or appearance standards. And then at the same time to be really happy with how you look regardless of how you meet up to those standards and and that can be difficult to navigate for some people it can feel a lot of pressure and it's a lot like I completely

get that but in terms of whether we should talk about it at all I think we need to think about what our starting point is and I think we live in a society where many, many bodies are not accepted and moreover are victimized because of their appearance and I think that's why we need to keep talking about body image especially when we are coming from and living in more privileged bodies to fight against that that so I think many people in their body positivity movement especially from those with the with the core intention of that movement is they're speaking about bodies and really fighting for acceptance of their bodies when society doesn't accept them. So that's people maybe in higher weight bodies, disabled bodies, people of colour, people in trans bodies, that kind of thing. And I think that's why it's, there still needs to be a conversation, because I know this is where it comes up in terms of like, do we need to keep talking about this?

But for some bodies in particular, like we absolutely do. And I think it can be an oversight to think that we should just not talk about it at all. I don't think I need to be talking about my body all the time, because it's easy for me to operate in the world in my body, particularly when we're talking about size, right? I can go into a store and pick up something that I know will fit me. I can move about the world and know that I'm not going to have unsolicited advice about my weight it's that kind of thing um do I have an ideal body no like I think you know but that's not it so that's where there's there's difference and where we need to kind of think a bit more critically about how how we have these conversations and and kind of pass all of these different things out.

Yeah, absolutely. It's almost like we need to bring a hell of a lot more perspective on what, as you said, actually really matters in terms of creating equality and acceptance rather than getting hung up on the silly little things. And actually one of the things that really kind of sparked my questioning on that was, as you said, it's actually incredibly important. And actually one of the things that really kind of sparked my questioning on that was, as you said, it's actually incredibly important. And I really appreciate how you said that. I think it's incredibly important. And I think that that perspective of kind of equality in our bodies is so, so, so important. But one question I have for you, and I don't know how often this has come up in your research, but I think it's very interesting is that, you know, this conversation seems to exist more often than not between women and often has a

female voice. And what I find so fascinating is that, as you said, you know, you said, do I have an ideal body? And it kind of really struck me and I was like, but what even is that? Because even if we take what wrongly is possibly an ideal body which is a kind of you know hollywood a-list celeb we still in all our women's magazines take pictures of them on the beach and put circles around their cellulite even when they have a quote-unquote perfect body and it's just i find that quite fascinating how we can't, it's almost like we can't even accept anything anymore. And that we have this need to constantly, we say, you know, let's, let's create, you know, positive conversation around it. But then at the same time,

it feels like there's just this kind of ongoing conversation of tearing everyone down even when you know they are performing to what you know is wrongly society's standards too often of the time but that it's so often women consuming that content and I would say that we're socialized to do so right like that content is everywhere it's difficult to escape I think from a very young age, people, young children know what that perfect ideal body is. I think we can all shut our eyes and have that idea in our heads because it's imprinted again from a very young age to look a certain way. And I think that's where when we're talking about what causes negative body image or body image concerns why media advertising corporate enterprise has such a big role to play and has so much responsibility there because what we're

showing is that there really is just like these very narrow often unrealistic for most people ideals and there are gendered ideals and so women, there is this very specific ideal of, like, thinness, but also femininity, so to be thin, but also to have big breasts and to have smooth skin. And, like, there's ideals around skin colour as well. And I think there's – and we have ideals for men too, so that, like, very muscular but lean aesthetic like men need to be tall you know to fit and conform to those societal appearance standards so they are

like certainly out there and I think that's why viewing diverse appearance is so powerful because I think it starts disrupting those ideals because I think when those ideals are so narrow what happens how we get from that to negative body image is through a couple of processes so there's the idea of internalization so buying into these ideals so buying into the belief that looking and conforming to these ideals is what you should do and what will make you happy and popular and successful and then also this like process of comparison so looking at these images and then making those upward appearance comparisons so like are you as you know as pretty as thin as perfect looking in that kind

of way and I think what you're saying in terms of how then you get the the critique on women even if they do quote unquote conform to that perfect look, it's really something that feels very toxic and kind of sinister in that idea that it's like kind of pushing women more so, but pushing people to constantly be striving to achieve something. So it's almost not the end goal of having this perfect look, but it's like constantly working towards this perfect look all the time. And I think that's just something again, to be really mindful and critical of when we're consuming that kind of media and that kind of messaging. Absolutely. We had a very interesting conversation in the podcast last week with a psychologist on

perfectionism. And there's a lot that resonates in what you were just saying there of this hamster wheel effectively, where, you know, you just drive yourself insane trying to meet ridiculous standards, which we shouldn't even have in the first place. And that also, as we've seen, are actually technically impossible to me anyway. But how did these body image views and this way of society of trying to pigeonhole 7 billion people into kind of two idealized forms? Where did that come from? When did we become so narrow minded and so judgmental and so unaccepting? And how do we change that?

I mean, that is probably the billion dollar question that you're spending your career looking at, but just as a starting point. Yeah, in terms of how we got there, I think it's a really complex topic. And I bet there are people out there who could write essays on this and be a lot more articulate than I can. But I think that there have always been ideals of beauty.

I think, you know, you can look through history and that there are always been ideals of beauty. I think, you know, you can look through history and that there are different ideals. I think now what makes it all feel a lot more pronounced is that we have the media, we have advertising, we have capitalism, like, you know, we have all of these things that then make it so much more in your face. So like the globalisation of media.

So if we think about these ideals, we export these ideals to all around the world. And Suzy Allback talks about this in a really great way in terms of how we export ideals from the UK, from the US, to Asia, to Africa, to the Middle East, to all of these countries. So that's why we have this huge market of skin lightening, for example, because we're saying whiteness is what it means to be beautiful so there's there's all of these different facets to where these appearance ideals come from but I also think then we you know we have advertising and you're selling this idea of aspiration and something that's slightly out of reach so then you're you have to keep striving so I think that's how we've kind of got there and you see the fluidity of of these ideals as well like the ideal for women today is slightly different to what it was 20 years ago like we talk about the

the 90s and noughties of like the heroin chic era and now we have that more instagram kim kardashian look so ideals are fluid but there's also I always think there's something behind that, you know, there's something behind why we're just looking at one particular ideal, as opposed to seeing the beauty in many different types of bodies. So then your follow up question was, what do we do to change that? And again, there are many answers to that and I don't feel like I have the full answer to it certainly but I think what is very encouraging now and in recent years is seeing greater diversity and I think that's really come from social media where there is you you can put yourself forward on social media whatever type of body you have democratization of bodies I think is a term that you've used and

I quite like sometimes from when you think about how social media has kind of pushed brands and the corporate world to think of including more types of bodies in their ad campaigns and movies, etc. TV. that's one way I think thinking and teaching media literacy is something else that's really powerful so part of the work that I do at the Centre for Appearance Research is really looking at designing and evaluating evidence-based body image curriculum and often a core component of that is critical media literacy so being able to when you're consuming media to identify like what's real and what's not and what's the purpose of this media are people trying to sell me something do I need to buy something to achieve this ideal and like then who's profiting from this idea is it me or is it the corporation and like with you know the kind of the idea of like diets don't work, but yet we still, as a society, just buy into it so much. But then, you know, we look at this like billion dollar industry that's really built off of a huge failure rate. Like if diets work, we wouldn't need them, you know,

like it's just thinking about that. So critical media literacy is a really important thing. Seeing diverse images is a really important thing. and then I think understanding some of these bigger systemic issues that lead to people feeling like they are not worthy in their body so things like fatphobia things like racism like colorism like ableism I think are really important to start bringing into these conversations because I think it helps us paint a picture of why people are treated in a certain way and then why in turn people respond in a certain way so I think we can see the promotion of these ideals but also seeing how different types of bodies are stereotyped often in a negative way and then thinking like how do we push back against that so

it's not an exclusive list but just some things to start thinking about like, how do we push back against that? So it's not an exclusive list, but just some things to start thinking about in terms of how we create change in terms of how we all start thinking and feeling about the way we look. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even just on a kind of completely almost ridiculous level, when you start to really think about it, and obviously that that's what your work does, the idea that we'd even expect, you know know seven billion people to look the same in the first place is just so ridiculous it's like expecting seven billion people to have the same personality or like the same foods or like want the same thing for dinner tonight you know of course they don't but one thing I thought was really interesting

there because it's a topic I'm very interested in but social media it, it often gets such a bad rap. And I don't get me wrong. I think there are some real negatives to it. But I thought it was interesting how you picked up on how actually, for example, in this conversation, it can actually play a really positive role. If you play a kind of active role in diversifying your feed, and, you know, looking for new things. And as you said, there's a democratization that can happen there because everyone can have a platform and everyone can share. And I'd love to hear more

how you feel about the role of social media in this conversation, because the ability that we have now to compare ourselves to, you know, Victoria's Secret models on an hour by hour basis, I can only imagine could have a negative impact you know i know for me as i said i'm pregnant and i had a baby last year as well and i'm you know i know i've been on and see people who've had a baby and six weeks later they're like

in a tiny bikini and you know i was still wearing like adult nappies at that point and so you know it doesn't always make you feel the best about yourself and so I think we've all had those experiences of a negative comparison in there which isn't positive for our body image but as you said that there can be positives as well. Yeah so I mean I think you hit the nail on the head when you said about the comparison piece again it's part of the human condition to compare I think it's something that we can't you can't beat yourself up too much for for making those comparisons it's something that we it's kind of an almost innate to do. But I think social media, again, can be that point. And when we look at the research in terms of time spent on social media and then body

image outcomes, we typically see that correlational relationship, more time spent on social media, worse body image. And the mechanism in between there is typically that appearance comparison piece. So if you're consuming appearance-based media and you're comparing yourself to that media, that's where you start feeling not so great. And I think that is quite intuitive to rationalize. But again, it's one of those things that we all do so I think it really depends on what it is you're following but I would also say I think social media it's it's nuanced your relationship with social media depends on who you're following and why you're following certain people and how you interpret

what you're following and how you feel before you open the app right like I know if I'm not feeling great in myself like opening Instagram is probably not the best thing for me to be doing at that point. You kind of know that for yourself. But I also think even if you're following really positive content, I also would be hesitant to say that's the only thing you should do to improve your body image, right? I think there are so many other things. And I think there's still that disconnect when you're on an app, when you're on your phone. And actually, if you're thinking about really building a healthy relationship with your body, I think it's like, how do you feel in your body, how you connect to your body? So that's why movement can be really powerful.

It's why, you know, just working out ways to feel more connected with your body is powerful. And I think so social media can't always be the answer to everything. And I think we can fall into a trap sometimes because I think we all want shortcuts to things. So I think sometimes when it's like, oh, how do we feel better about our bodies? Let's just follow diverse social media accounts. And I think that's great. I don't, you know,'s a it's a great thing to do and I'd encourage everyone to do that but it's also not the only thing that I would recommend doing and I'd also be hesitant to say that you should be on your phone for long periods of time because I don't think that that's going to be conducive to feeling really good about your body or good in your body maybe even a better way of thinking about it I really like what you said as well about your mindset when you when you go on to these these platforms or you know anything you're kind of consuming online or just even just walking down the street and actually so much of it comes from an internal conversation and creating that self-esteem and that self-worth and that self-confidence to have the freedom to exist

in ourselves and as you said you know there's there's a lot of much more complicated issues that runs through this that doesn't make it easy for people we need to be really aware of that I'm really aware of privilege when we have it in that sense but I I really thought that was interesting but I guess easier said than done. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think that, again, comes back to this idea of the world in which we're living in, right? Like the pressure to look a certain way is everywhere. It's really hard to kind of switch off from that, which is, again, why when we're thinking about how do we resist all of those appearance pressures I think it's it's something that has to be proactive it's something that has to be a practice rather than

something that can be one and done I think it's something that you have to like continually work on because you're fighting against the zeitgeist right you're fighting against all of this like appearance pressure so you have to keep at it and think about different ways to reconnect with yourself and reconnect with your own body and establish that sense of acceptance with your body I think that's it's something that needs to be a continual practice because we at the moment are living in a society where that's not encouraged. You know when you're looking at the stats and I'm sure it's something that is you know not that easy to measure but but what is the prevalence of negative body image and again i'm sure it comes on a sliding scale but what kind of statistics do you see yeah i'm it's a

it's a good question and you kind of alluded to it by saying it's not very easy to measure and i think the problem with understanding prevalence rates of body image concerns or negative body image is that lots of people do try and measure that, but they use different tools to do so. So they ask different questions. So then you can't always make a direct comparison. The other thing I'd say to caveat any answer I will continue to give is that a lot of the research is predominantly focused on adolescents and young women. So we know less about body image in older populations, in men, for example, in people who do not conform to a binary gender, who are not white, who do not live in high income English speaking countries. We know less about the body image of people in all of these domains. But I think what we can be confident at, and I think what's important, is that body image concerns are not, that they are pervasive.

And I think this dates back, there's a really interesting paper from the 1980s, which described body image concerns among women as normative discontent, to really highlight the commonplace of these concerns. Again, it's hard to put a number on it. But we see anything, especially among adolescents between 40 to 60% of adolescents not liking the way they look in some way. And again, as you mentioned, like this can be on a

sliding scale, right? So then we look at who's most at risk of really struggling then with their body image concerns. So Nadiaia one of the things that I found incredibly confusing and as you said it's hard with the data because it's it's very very focused on one specific group of people but this this idea of age that like suddenly you'd stop being an adolescent and you'd have positive body image because all the so many of the studies are focused on adolescence I mean it's not like you get to 18 and everything changes is it? Yeah that's it's um it's a good thing to think about I think I can see how there's that perception because the focus is so heavily weighted on adolescence and the concern around negative body image or body image concerns is it's almost exclusively focused on adolescence but sure it's

not like we we graduate from body image concerns the minute we turn 18 and then move on with our lives and I think what's probably useful to think about in terms of body image through our like development trajectories is that points of change so the reason adolescence is a crucial area is because of puberty so puberty and like your your body changes and how you respond to your your body and then you're also very vulnerable to what other people think about you when you're you're a teenager so that's why it can be a catalyst for developing and experiencing body image concerns but we also see other kind of touch points throughout life so you mentioned that you're pregnant so again that can be a cause for anxiety for some people so it could be you

know because again your body is changing and might be different to how it was before and that can be unsettling some people though really start relating to to their body in a different way in a much more positive way through pregnancy so again it's nuanced it's not there's no really hard and fast to this but I think what's again interesting when we think about body image across across the lifespan is that yeah we do see negative body image that kind of can take away all the way through and then I guess we're thinking about you as you age as we age we move away from that ideal because the ideal is is has a huge facet around youthfulness and youth. So, you know, as you age, your skin becomes lined and your body changes in all of these different ways. But what we typically see is a pattern of

that body dissatisfaction piece might stay fairly stable, but we might see greater body appreciation. So maybe more gratitude for what your body can do and maybe thinking about your body in a slightly different way so you're not so centred on your appearance. So it's complicated. We don't know as much about body image across the lifespan, but I think when there's points of change, I think that's sort of a risk factor for feeling not so great about your body.

But then I think generally as people age I think their relationship with their body changes because you're thinking about your body in different ways so that's kind of what we what we see I think. Yeah it's almost like you're kind of let out of that prison of youth and everyone kind of obsessing about that young look and so you can be free it's interesting what you said about pregnancy it's it's a kind of completely fascinating one because I think nothing could ever give me a greater appreciation of the physical strength of the body and what it's able to do and like literally after I'd just given birth I just could not believe that my body had done that and I had grown a person and I had managed to push that person out. I mean, it was

just for me and I was lucky with my birth, but I found it an incredibly empowering experience because it showed me a strength that I didn't realize I necessarily even had. And that was a really amazing thing. But then equally, you know, it's strange when, you know, you can't fit into any of your clothes and the way you're used to kind of presenting yourself you can't because nothing fits and and it changes every day and I thought it was you know you talked earlier about kind of exercise and yoga and things as ways of connecting to your body and the importance of that and I've never found that to be more true than during pregnancy yoga particularly it's been a really important practice for kind of coming back and like checking in and appreciating and feeling grateful for the physical strength rather than anything else. But one of the questions I had for you, as well, because I've

heard you talking about it before, and I really found it very, very interesting was on the negative impacts of poor body image. Because I think, you know, off the top of your head, you'd think anxiety, mental health, but actually, you know, I've heard you talk really interestingly about, for example, like performance in schools, it's actually, you know, the heard you talk really interestingly about for example like performance in schools it's actually you know the issue is again it's much more nuanced but also much wider spectrum of consequences than I probably completely appreciated. Right it's more far-reaching for sure so and I think it's interesting in thinking about the consequences of body image especially through that gendered lens and it being like, oh, you know, it doesn't really matter. All women don't like the way they look like big deal. So what?

And I wonder if if we thought about really good evidence of this now is poor body image negative body image predicts all of those mental health things that you mentioned so we've got the eating disorders and the whole spectrum of eating disorders as well and disordered eating so again eating thinking about eating disorders on that spectrum then things like anxiety low self-esteem poor confidence confidence, depressive symptoms. So we have all of those. We also know, and I think this is something that gets overlooked a bit in terms of how we engage in healthy behaviours.

Typically, when people have poor body image, they are less likely to engage in things to look after their body. So we see people with poor body image, particularly adolescents, are more likely to engage in risky behaviours. So less likely to, for example, use sun cream when they're going out in the sun, less likely to go to the doctor to get smear tests, that kind of thing. I think that's kind of related to maybe different things going on for different contexts but the smear test it's what makes sense to me is that it's about body shame and feeling you know embarrassed and not not wanting to go but I think the health behaviors is really interesting because I think

there's this perception that it's like if you hate your body you can hate your body into a better body but we don't see the evidence of that and we see that actually it's the reverse so we see that people with a negative body image are less likely to eat five fruit and vegetables a day. They're less likely to have a healthy relationship to exercise and movement. So I think that's really important to start thinking about, less likely to engage in things like intuitive eating. And then to your point about thinking about beyond mental health physical health even is how negative body image compromises and impairs other aspects of your life so it influences how you show up in the world how you engage with others and I think it's how all of these interact as well so if you've

got negative body image and then low self-esteem that comes as a consequence to that how are you going to show up in the classroom how are you going to put your hand up in class how are you going to present at that job interview and I think we really want to start digging into that research more to see actually what are all the ways what's the cost on society even on having so many people affected by negative body image so yeah it really is you've got the health outcomes but also you have the life outcomes too which I think are really important and not spoken about as much. One thing you mentioned there was intuitive eating and it is something that we have touched on the podcast before and I wondered if you could share a bit more on your thoughts on that and whether you

feel like it's a helpful concept when it comes to our body image. Probably to caveat this answer I'm not an expert on intuitive eating but I think just if we think about it in terms of like a freer relationship to food I think we know very clearly that dieting and restricting our intake our food intake is a predictive factor for negative body image and equally negative body image impacts how we relate to food and that can be in terms of overeating undereating it's kind of the disordered spectrum of eating. So the two can go hand in hand. I know within the 10 principles of intuitive eating, having that better relationship with your body is an important piece within those 10 principles. And I think probably the practice of it maybe might help you think about your body in a different way, because I think it's centered on feeling very

connected and in tune to your body and what your body wants and needs and feels satisfied and I think because it's got that gentle focus I think it can help build things like body acceptance, body trust, the self-care element for your with your body and I think there's there's a correlation relationship between between the two I think people are trying to start working out, you know, how do these things work together? But we definitely see that pattern with people who have got a better body image, have that better relationship with food. I've got about 100 more questions. I could keep you here for years, but I promise I won't. I've got two final questions before wrap up question. The first is, is you know and I'm probably just becoming increasingly aware of this both obviously as you know my role in Delicious Yellow and talking to

a wide number of people you know especially our audience is almost all female but also as a mum now of a daughter and another daughter to be of you know the kind of childhood settings of this and that sense of self-worth. And I don't know if it's anything that, you know, you've come across or anything interesting that you've read or researched in this area of how we kind of start to facilitate that positive sense, you know, because I can only imagine if you start with that early in your life, it has very positive impacts going forward. And whether there's anything there in kind of changing childhood settings in some way to create that

belief in yourself, in your body, in your worth? Yeah, I think it's a really important question. I think that there are a couple of things that immediately spring to mind. And I think it's really about creating a culture of acceptance and referring back to the idea of what we were talking we were talking about earlier in terms of diversifying our social media feeds that kind of thing but we can do that with the content that we present to children right we can look at the books that we're giving the movies that we're showing the tv programs whatever whatever content we're giving our kids to consume and to put you know i don't have kids but you know just thinking about this conceptually it's like

actually if we show and promote acceptance on in that way and that lots of different types of people can be protagonists in their own story and be because i think we have we have these like very singular narratives we have these stereotypes that we see in children's books in in Disney for example let's look at how look at all the Disney princesses and so actually let's see if we can disrupt that from a very young age because you know children are like sponges so I think again it's like kind of like laying the foundations of acceptance of lots of different types of appearance and not feeding in those stereotypes that then become so difficult to unlearn as we get older. We were trying to like unpack and unlearn and switch at an older age. It's a lot more intuitive for a young person, a child to absorb.

And then you've got a good a good foundation and I think the other thing to think about is again thinking that children are sponges is how we are behaving and talking about our own bodies in front of in front of very young people because again even if you're not saying to your child that you think that they need to lose weight or that they're you know like saying something that sounds very obvious and detrimental by parents or adults or influential people around children saying negative things about their own bodies or talking about dieting or or trying to kind of always change their body in some way always having that kind of negative relationship children absorb that and and it becomes like a learned behavior in terms of oh this is how I need to be an adult by dieting or by being very

obsessive about my body size and this is something that is valuable so I think you know there are those kind of things in terms of modeling and what we say in front of young people and I think I know a lot of parents feel a lot of pressure to not pass on body image concerns so that they might have their own hang-ups and not want to pass those on and I think it's so hard to have a positive body image or a healthy body image in our society as we keep talking about so it's just thinking about how do you rein in what you're saying and doing in front of children and very young people. Yeah, absolutely. And since it's my final question, I promise, and again, it's something that you raised and something else I was listening to,

and I thought it was very interesting, which is about body image as a feminist issue. And I wanted if you could tell us a little bit more about that. Yeah, I think, and as we've been saying about the pressure from society seems to be so focused on women. I think it's not exclusively on women. So I think we need to be mindful of that. But even when we're thinking and conceptualizing body image and how people relate and feel about their bodies, feminist theory helps us understand that. So things like objectification theory are really useful and it's it's this idea of women being treated as objects and being seen through the male gaze and in response to that experience of objectification and that might be viewing very sexualized images of women it might be being

cackled on the street it might be like kind of those low-level comments in the office the kind of sexual harassment type comments those all of those experiences of sexual objectification then what happens as a consequence is that women start to objectify themselves and start seeing themselves from that external gaze from that male gaze as objects of desire rather than active agents and then that cascades to things like body shame and disordered eating depression depressive mood so that's kind of how the theory operates and I think it's it's a really useful way of of thinking about again how we're showing up in the world and kind of going back to this idea of advertising and corporations and capitalism influencing influencing how we think about our bodies, I think, you know, who

are or who historically, at least have been the directors, the CEOs, and how women are being presented. So just thinking about how then we, we show women in different ways, and just having a more varied way of representing women like women are not just sexual objects that we're not just there to be looked at so having you know just thinking about women in more dynamic ways and as active participants in society in the same way men are and I think again we need to kind of broaden out and thinking about people of all genders as well but I think that can be another kind of layer in terms of understanding how we think about body image and

and why women typically are disproportionately affected by body image concerns in comparison to men. Yeah it's it's so well put and I think you know to wrap up I love what you said about about being an active agent in you you know, making a change. And the importance, again, going back to what we were saying earlier, of building our own self-confidence and our own self-worth to make the job of having positive body image in a society that doesn't make it that easy, that bit easier. And I wondered, to finish, whether you could give us a final thought you know both as individuals and members of society as a whole you know what's the one thing you'd say you know be mindful of think about in order to make a change both in how we feel in ourselves but also how do we make it an easier place for absolutely everybody to exist oh wow big last question

so I think it's being very aware of the systemic body-based depression so I'm really understanding fat phobia really understanding things like racism colorism because I think these ableism transphobia etc because I think until we live in a society where people of all bodies are at least accepted in society, we're never going to get to a point where we all can feel at peace in our bodies. So I think, and, you know, I can speak from my own experience, for me, understanding weight stigma has really helped me understand how I think about my own weight, for example. So I think it's having that much broader picture of how society treats bodies and then pushing back against that in a much bigger way. And thinking about this as a much bigger issue than just you. This is a societal issue

that then has an impact on you. And I think being able to see it from that lens can then be helpful in terms of pushing back against it, because otherwise it just feels like this complete uphill battle and and actually that you're the problem and it's you're absolutely not the problem your body is not the problem it's the society in which we live that's the problem I think once you can kind of move from putting yourself as a problem to seeing society as a problem I think that becomes a lot easier easier. And then from seeing all of these different types of body based oppressions, again, helps you see what all of these problems are over and beyond just the societal beauty ideals that get perpetuated and promoted through industry. Yeah, so perspective is key. And are there any resources you'd recommend for furthering that learning for everyone?

Yeah, I mean mean i think there's there's again this is where social media can come in there's lots of people doing great education on social media there's an account when we're talking about weight stigma for example there's an account called your fat friend i think it's like yr instead of your spell out which is which is a really useful resource but yeah let me send you a list i'll stop my head there's so many it becomes overwhelming to think which is the best ones to pick out perfect well i'll put all those details and obviously nadia's details as well in the show notes below for everyone because i have a feeling that you will have in the best way possible opened a can of worms on how much learning there is here

both on perspective you know in our own privilege and looking at the issue as a kind of wider thing and everything in between. So Nadia, thank you so much for your time today. It's been absolutely fascinating. I, you know, don't like to do favouritism, but it definitely has been

one of my favourite episodes of the podcast so far. So really, really, really appreciate your time and have a lovely, lovely day, everyone. If you have enjoyed the episode please do share it review it makes all the difference and Nadia thank you so much again for your time thank you so much it's been an absolute pleasure

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