Let's Talk About Body Image

If you follow us on Instagram you already know that we have a very exciting SOMADINA meets… with Marieke Eyskoot coming up on the blog next week! One of the things that we spoke about during the interview is our relationship as women with our bodies. It’s probably one of the most important relationships in our life and so it’s important that we discuss it.

So, for this blog post we decided to speak to some of the women in our lives to find out about how their relationship with their body image has changed over the years.

Cece, 24

Being a model has made me a lot more confident in my myself regarding how I look. Growing up, I was a late bloomer so a lot the time I felt conscious of my body especially because a lot of girls my age were a lot more developed than I was. It sounds silly now, you know in high school every girl wants to be that girl that is fancied by the boys and popular and I just never felt like I was part of that group, which when you’re that young it can definitely get to you. I remember that there was a phase in my life where I would always wear tracksuits to hide my figure because I was so conscious of the fact that I felt I needed to fill out more. It was when I was about 18 that things started to change. I started going out with friends a lot more and slowly becoming a bit more comfortable with how I looked. I’m a lot better now but I’m I can’t say that I am at a point where I 100% love my body but that’s ok because it is something that I am continuously working on. I still have off days where I can’t decide what to wear or feel like covering up but it’s changing over time and that is something that I am happy about.

Ola, 36

For me, everything changed when I had my baby. Things were no longer where they used to be and things just didn’t bounce back like I thought they would so I had to put in work! I think that this was a crossroads for me in how I perceived my body. I had looked a certain way, a size 10, for so long that it became the norm to me but now having given birth it was a huge shock to the system. I think that this is what gets a lot of women down post birth because although you are so thankful for this new life that you have just brought into the world and the fact that you’ve changed your life for the better forever, you are still you and a niggling part of you after the glow and awe of a newborn has worn off you can’t help but look in the mirror and be surprised and the reflection gleaming back at you. It took me about 18 months of working out regularly to get back to a point where I was happy with what I saw staring back at me. This isn’t to say that I was aiming for an extreme or anything, I just wanted to get back to a weight and degree of fitness that was healthy and most importantly something that I felt confortable with.

Helen, 48

Body image is never something that I really thought about when I was younger. It may be because I was active and healthy so I never felt the pressure to look certain way. But as I have gotten older I have noticed changes, especially because I’m not as active as I used to be. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. To me, I’ve always been of the opinion that I know what to do to overcome any changes that I don’t feel comfortable with whether in relation to exercise or diet. I think that it’s because I understand that body image is something that is completely and utterly in our control I have never had a negative perception of my body.

If I don’t like something know what I need to do fix. no one like stretch marks but its something that’s there and you have to deal with.

Ella, 81

I feel bad for young people now. When I was younger things like body image were never something that was discussed or made a big deal of the way it is today. You just looked how you looked and that was that. I was a young adult in the 50’s and then there was a lot of emphasis on glamour or how your presented yourself, every girl wanted to be a Marilyn, Elizabeth or Jackie and so I guess you could say that was our aspiration. But we never cast at ourselves in negative light as women do today, at least to me it seems that we didn’t, rather it was just putting our best foot forward. I think that this is a mentality that I have carried with me my whole life, even with getting older and things no longer sitting high as they used to or my skin not being as taut as it once was, I still feel confident within myself. I believe that you should always present you best self and that’s how people will perceive you. We all have our lumps and bumps, there is no denying it but you have to wear them with confidence and be happy with who you are!