Things I want my kids to know

When I was about 24, I bought a big tub of protein powder.

I had no idea what to do with it really, and I probably only used about ten percent of it in the end.

I was living in a shared house at the time and one of my housemates worked for an events company who were sponsored by a men’s health magazine, so he kept bringing spare copies home. I started reading them and initially found it quite interesting, but very quickly it started to affect the way that I saw myself. I started thinking about how I should be eating more protein, how I should be doing more exercises that focused upon my arms and shoulders. I started to feel like I was small and weak.

At the time, I had just got into running. This was quite a big deal for me because for the previous decade I had been convinced that I couldn’t run (I came last in the school cross country race when I was about 13) and it turned out that I could, in a new place where nobody knew me and when I took it at my own pace. I was pleased with that.

But now I felt that wasn’t enough.

I started looking at myself in the mirror in a different way. I was critical. I wasn’t particularly happy with what I saw. It wasn’t awful and it wasn’t hatred, but it was frustration and a sense that I should be bigger, more toned. Diet and exercise were on my mind a lot.

And then I bought the protein powder. Despite having no idea what to do with it.

Luckily, this cycle stopped pretty quickly, mainly because I was in the early stages of my therapy career. I hadn’t really learned much about body image or things like disordered eating, but I was working with people every day to help them pay attention to and understand the way that they were feeling. So, it wasn’t long before I noticed that actually I was feeling a bit stressed and unhappy and I sat down to think about what it was about.

This time in my life was on my mind more in the last couple of weeks because we went away on holiday and I noticed myself comparing myself to other blokes around the pool. I also really noticed that while that comparison was happening, it wasn’t causing me distress, and it wasn’t stopping me from enjoying my holiday, and I was pleased with that. This struck me, because recently I have also been thinking a lot about my children and what I want them to know about body image, particularly because I am conscious that my eldest is being exposed to more and more unhelpful messages about bodies and food, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do about that.

This example with the men’s health magazine was one of the clearest experiences I have had in my own life about something external having a direct, visible impact upon the way that I thought, felt and behaved, and it is only a small example. Women and girls have been dealing with much more intensive messaging for a great many years, and now social media is absolutely rammed with people giving diet and exercise advice and the messaging that dudes should be big and muscly is everywhere. It’s unavoidable.

So, this is my conclusion: I want my kids to know that it is normal to have some body hang-ups.

It would be great if we could all just be accepting of our bodies, treat people the same regardless of their looks and be safe in the knowledge that nobody would ever judge us, positively or negatively, either way. However, that just isn’t the society we exist within.

I want my kids to know that all bodies are beautiful. I want them to look at their bodies as incredible things. I want them to be appreciative of what they have. I want them to look in the mirror and love every part of it, including spots, hairs, stretch marks and fungal toenail infections. But is that realistic all the time if society does tell us that body hair is gross and (at the moment) big muscles make you a more worthy human being? I don’t think so. Those messages are wrong, but that doesn’t change the fact they exist.

So, I want my kids to know that I sometimes look at my body in a less-than-complimentary way. I want them to know that part of the reason I exercise is to do with vanity and not only health. I want them to know that sometimes I find myself debating whether or not to have a cookie. Not because that is how I think things should be, but because it’s normal to feel that way, given everything we are surrounded by. If you can notice it and you can name it without judging yourself too harshly, then you have a chance to make good choices for yourself.

I also want them to know that if you do get a bit sucked in to thinking about your body, diet or exercise to an intense degree, it is helpful to:

Be kind to yourself about what is happening

Fixating on your body sometimes isn’t failure. It’s not nice, but it happens to everyone.

Practice being accepting of your body as it is

Practice looking at your body the way you look at other people’s bodies. Particularly those of the people that you love. It is unlikely you look at the bodies of the people you love and pick fault with them in a harsh, judgemental way. It is more likely that you either look at their bodies in a neutral way or in a loving way – their body being a part of who they are. You wouldn’t throw a blanket over them to up the unsightly bits or tell them they look disgusting and need to get in the gym. Practice touching your body with care and appreciation rather than poking, squeezing, prodding or sucking your belly in. It can be really uncomfortable sometimes, but it is worth the practice.

Be happy for other people

If you think someone else looks good, practice being happy for them and hoping that they enjoy it. For me, it’s a useful way of redirecting that thought process of noticing someone’s body and comparing it to yours in a negative way.

Understand that you never see the full or real picture

In real life, you might see someone who looks incredibly “shredded” but you have no idea what they have done to get themselves to that point. You might think it looks good or wish you looked like that, but let’s not forget that most people don’t, and not even this person looks like that all the time. You don’t know the lengths this person goes to in order to look that way, and you don’t know if it makes them happy or if they are able to enjoy it.

In magazines, films, TV and social media, images are curated and distorted. Some of that happens in real life, because in preparing for these things, people can go to quite extreme lengths, training for hours every day and even dehydrating themselves quite severely in order to look as “cut” as possible. Some of it happens in the lighting that people use (downlighting in order to highlight abs, for example), some of it is makeup (genuinely using make-up to make muscles look more defined), some of it is filters or airbrushing. Some of it is just selecting the “best” image from hundreds.

It is never fair to compare yourself to someone else, because you just don’t have the full picture.

Pay attention to the health of your body, not only what it looks like

When you are getting a bit caught up in looking at your diet and exercise in terms of the most efficient way to look better, try directing your attention more towards health and movement.

Think about exercising in ways that allow you to feel strong, to look after your back and your joints. Enjoy your body and the fact that it can move. That might be rhythm and dancing, it might be strength, it might be sports, or just walking up a hill to enjoy the view.

Think about diet in terms of nutrition. Things that are good for you. Not just in terms of vitamins and minerals, but in terms of the things that bring you pleasure and make you feel good inside. Food isn’t only about sustenance. For example, I have been eating more cookies recently. I have been making them with my eldest daughter and it is something that she has really enjoyed, so it means something to me to have them there and for us to enjoy them together.

There’s more, I am sure, but these are the main things that I want them to know.

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Thanks for reading. Until next week,

Ted

P.S. This has been quite an important one for me, so I would love to know what you think, and if it has been helpful, please do share it in whatever way you see fit.