TW: Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphia
Love Your Body Day was celebrated at Coastal Carolina University on the 19th of October, providing free, healthy snacks for all students and staff on campus. Loving your body isn’t only about loving what’s on the outside, but also about taking care of what’s on the inside too.
Health problems can make daily tasks more challenging, and may even jeopardize one’s ability to earn a living, which leads to more problems like an unhealthy mind. Loving your body and taking care of it by eating healthy, staying up to date with your immunizations, exercising often, sleeping well, reading a book, keeping awareness over your emotions and moods, and taking care of your mind, are all small ways you can stay on the track to keeping your body healthy.
A healthy diet is essential to balanced health and good nutrition, which protects one against chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and in some aggressive cases, cancer. Starting on the journey to a healthier diet does not mean you cannot enjoy your sweet, salty temptations. Drowning your tears in half a tub of your favorite ice cream (half baked from Ben and Jerry’s is a MUST for me) after watching The Fault in Our Stars is TOTALLY acceptable, a couple glasses of wine at girls night is encouraged (just drink responsibly), and the occasional large fry with a “spicy sprite” after a rough day is guaranteed to boost your mood. It’s all about balance and trying to find those healthier options that will boost your health, but fill you up. No one is asking you to cut out sodium, sugar, fats, or (my personal favorite), carbs, but it is important to mix in your fruits and vegetables, ordering in/out less, and limiting how much fast food you have.
Learning how to cook is not only a great way of tracking what you’re putting into your body, but once you get the hang of it, finding recipes and making them on your own is much more enjoyable and in many ways, rewarding. I personally got into cooking a couple years ago and it has definitely helped me transition to a much fresher, healthier diet. You can cook anything and there are millions of recipes for any different food mood; whether you’re feeling Italian, Mexican, Indian, Thai, or Chinese, there is a healthy recipe for any craving. Not only that, but you can create your own recipes, by experimenting with different ingredients, spices, and cultures of food. Preparing food for yourself and going shopping to buy the ingredients unconsciously teaches you to look for the freshness in food and focus on what’s best to put in your body.
Exercising is proven to not only assist in managing weight, strengthening bones and muscles, but it also improves brain health and increases serotonin and dopamine, which elevate motivation, satisfaction, attention, and behavior. Not only that, but exercising helps to bring comfort in your own skin because you are working your way towards a certain, personal goal. Whether it be a nice walk downtown or a full body powerlifting session, 30 minutes a day is all you need. That’s only a max of 10 minutes longer than an average Friends episode! (And I know most of you have already binged each and every season once, if not twice!)
Unfortunately, in this era of technology and social media, there is a serious problem with over-exposing the “idealized” body types, which, nowadays, is an incredibly unhealthy image to follow. Celebrities, models, movie stars, and singers, are all viewed as leaders to children, teens, and young adults of today. If a single individual with that much power and that much of a following is portraying this unhealthy lifestyle of a lack of nutrition and overworking their body with exercise, dropping weight aggressively fast, people are going to follow their example. For example, TikTok has become a huge supporter in showing off these “idealized” body types for males and females, by exhibiting girls dancing in bikinis and boys posting “thirst traps” for views and likes. Instagram is swarmed with selfies, which in many ways, may help body image, because people are showing their faces instead of their bodies, but those who edit out perceived “flaws” are extremely harmful. Body dysmorphia and eating disorders are quickly spreading everywhere due to these “idealized” body types, for people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds. Believe me, coming from experience, feeling uncomfortable in your own skin is common, too common, but doing what you can to improve your body’s health and wellness is guaranteed to help ease your mind as well as grow secure in your skin.
There are so many ways, big and small, to start yourself on the track to a better, healthier lifestyle. There will be ups and downs, highs and lows, but no one is asking you to completely flip your life around and become a bodybuilder or a health fanatic. There is no right or wrong when it comes to how you choose to improve your health and wellness because when it comes to your body, small improvements lead to big outcomes. So, do me, and yourself, a favor, get active for 30 minutes a day, read a book instead of scrolling endlessly on TikTok, eat an apple (maybe treat yourself to a little peanut butter or Nutella dip) instead of a bag of chips, go to the doctor for your annual checkups, and finally, look in the mirror and tell yourself “I love my body” because guess what….you’re beautiful inside and out!