Every Monday features a tip, exercise, inspiring quote or other tid-bit to help boost your body image. For many of us, Mondays are tough. We may feel anxious and stressed out, anticipating an arduous week, especially if we didn’t get much rest and relaxation during the weekend. These kinds of feelings don’t create the best environment for improving one’s body image. In fact, you might be harder on yourself and easily frustrated. You might even feel like you’re walking on egg shells – with yourself! With these posts, I hope you’ll have a healthier and happier body image day, that’ll last throughout the week.

Got a tip for improving body image? Email me at mtartakovsky@gmail.com, and I’ll be happy to feature it. It can be anything you do that’s healthy and helps boost your body image. I’d love to hear from you!

I love that I’m a combination of my mom and dad in the looks department. I have my dad’s nose (well, fortunately, a smaller version), his ears (maybe smaller) and his mega-watt smile. I have my mom’s eyes, and, according to many people, we look like sisters, especially when I’m wearing makeup. Others have said that my mom has a quiet grace and sophistication about her. I hope I have that, too. I think my body shape takes after my paternal grandma, also short and a bit curvy with strong legs. I take pride in that.

I also take pride in how strong the women in my family were and are. They’ve taught me so much about perseverance, patience, kindness and generosity, about overcoming adversity with honesty and dignity (things that I’m still learning today).

You may be wondering what familial physical and character traits have to do with body image.

According to Margo Maine, Ph.D, and Joe Kelly, in their excellent book The Body Myth: Adult Women and the Pressure to Be Perfect, thinking about our families and the past can help us to live healthfully and improve our body image.

They suggest “scanning the past” by seeing what the bodies in our families are supposed to look like and “what our genetic heritage means for our sense of self.”

To do so, peruse family photos, videos or portraits. And while you’re time-traveling through your heritage, they suggest asking yourself the following questions:

• What are the women’s body types like?
• What relative do I most resemble in body type or appearance?
• What relative do I most resemble in personal character and accomplishment?
• What stories of female accomplishment can I see or remember when I look at the images?
• What do the women’s bodies say to me?
• What do I feel about my own body as I look at theirs?

Give this a try and if you’d like, return here and report back:  How was this experience for you? Did it help you view your body differently, perhaps in a more positive light?

The authors conclude the chapter with:

“We have a lineage of accomplishment, body shape and true beauty. Seeing photos of relatives we love or admire can help us love and admire the parts of us they passed down to us. Images in the family photo album can offer a far better reflection of reality than magazines or TV shows. Appreciate the bodies, beauty and accomplishments of our female ancestors. That can do a lot to help us appreciate ourselves.”

I couldn’t agree more. Thinking about your family, your ancestors helps you realize the bigger picture. That you are more than some ornament. You are a legacy. The shapes and silhouettes in your family may be as diverse as their opinions, personalities, professions and life paths. Or they may have many similarities running through them. They may share a common thread, physical feature or accomplishment. Try to take pride in that.

Now that my dad is gone, I am especially proud of my resemblance to him (though when I was a toddler with little hair who looked more like his son, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses). So I encourage you to take just a bit of time to look closer at your lineage and discover the beautiful shape of your past – however imperfect, jagged-edged it might be.

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (January 18, 2010)

    Last reviewed: 18 Jan 2010