Last in Body Image Series

Well here goes for the final saga but an important note first. I will be sending out separate newsletters from next week, the blog will still be updated too but different stuff! You will have received a newsletter confirmation email (check your junk mail if not) - just click on the link to continue to receive the newsletters and ignore if you would rather not - I promise I wont be offended! This will allow me to keep you updated with what is going on and focus on topics that are important to you. If you normally follow this blog or read it on face book or twitter and want to sign up simply go to www.cwfitness.co.uk and sign up for the newsletter. There - done!

Over the last three weeks we have discussed at length some of the issues of body image but this week I wanted to tackle how we solve this massive issue - no mean feat. We simply cannot just bury our heads in the sand and hope that this issue will go away. We have become a nation of extremes. We have those that are starving themselves to look like Posh Beckham and don't care about the chronic health risks associated with it and then at the other end of the scale we have those who are overweight, desperately need to look at their diet and get themselves moving yet they simply don't care. They wear ill fitting clothes and let it simply all hang out. Neither situation can be any good for their mental health never mine their physical health.

Those of you that know me know that I am a firm believer in loving yourself warts and all but if your body shape is compromising your health then surely you HAVE to do something about it. We all have areas of our bodies that we don't like, me included. This is not the issue. Because I don't like a certain part of my body I don't go to drastic lengths to change it. However, body image issues normally start from one small thought like that and it doesn't take long for it to spiral out of control take over your life. So, how do you stop it?

Quite simply, you can't, not yet and not at the moment. All around you are images on the telly, magazines, newspapers, TV adverts promoting perfect figures and washboard stomachs. These figures are for the very few and certainly not the norm and yet we allow the media to purport that this is what we should aspire to and somehow we are not good enough unless we meet that criteria. Doesn't it sound like nonsense when you see it written down like that? When I speak with young people at schools and health fairs it is soul destroying to hear children saying that they want anorexia, they want their ribs to show, having a 6 pack isn't good enough, it has to be an 8 pack. Teaching children to believe in themselves is only a part of it. If the media wont get on a board then I sadly believe we are flogging a dead horse. The media like to say that size 0 is perfect so that is what young girls aspire to. Who gave them the right to damage so many children from such a young age and make them believe they are failures?

What saddens me even more is that this does not only affect children but men and women of all ages. We are tackling the issues with children more positively. Nigel Townsend id the executive director of Y Touring which is Central YMCA's award winning professional touring theatre company and the recently did a project designed to explore the attitudes of young people towards body image. This tour was inspired by Bodies by Susie Orbach(you may recall I mentioned this book in the first part of the series). 'Speak Out on Bodies' was deemed a huge success and is due to be repeated and I applaud this kind of workshop but how much will it help long term if people are still continually bombarded with the message that they are not good enough?

If you are self confident and don't care what others think then great - but you are in the minority. Most of us feel a little down hearted when we take a negative comment on board and these can grow very quickly but remember this works for both the size 0 brigade and the obesity epidemic brigade.

There is an exciting play underfoot that will be based on Susie's book and a young playwright by the name of Rachel Wagstaff is currently under commission to write it. You may be sat there thinking why is the book so relevant so let me try to explain, then go and read it, then go and see the play when it launches; I will certainly be first in the queue!

'Bodies' is a beautifully written, articulate and inspiring book. It touches you both personally and professionally and is such a rallying call to arms, crying out against so much that is wrong with our society. She gives heartbreaking examples of real people and how these issues have affected them as well as delving into the possible reasons for why and how this has happened.

One last though - what is wrong with wanting to look good?
Nothings, nothing whatsoever, at all. The problem arises when it becomes an all consuming preoccupation and every day is laborious calorie counting or making sure that an intense workout is fitted in. There is this horrific growing pressure on needing to look good and we foolishly attach value to being fat or thin. People wanting the 'perfect' picture but not being able to afford to go under the knife and what about the joys of Photo Shop, taking photos of their children in to correct the gap in their teeth or make them look better - how is that healthy?