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Showing posts from May 12, 2024

Race weight, body image and performance (podcast)

In today’s culture, we are bombarded with artificially-produced, highly edited imagines of flawlessly sculpted bodies. As a result, achieving the “perfect” body has become the dominant measure of self-worth. Thinness has become a symbol of power, moral superiority, and even a measure of fitness/wellness. We have been taught that we can assume someone’s health status based on how they look or their weight. Weight stigma and anti-fat biases continue to strengthen these harmful beliefs. For example, how many times have you praised a friend or family member for losing weight? Are you more likely to follow health, diet and fitness advice from a fitness influencer who is lean or defined than one who may not have an “ideal” body? Has a doctor ever told you that losing weight will improve your health? Society has very strong views on how we should look, which impacts our thoughts about ourselves, which can then influence our food and exercise behaviors. Poor body image is often linked to dieti

Body Acceptance

  Photo credit: Brittany Bevis What do you think about your body when.... Standing on the podium in first place, yet you feel "too fat." Achieving a personal best time, yet your legs/butt feels "too big." Doubting your abilities because your stomach feels "too heavy." Blaming your subpar performance on your weight.  Lacking self confidence because you don't look like other athletes. In each of these scenarios is an athlete who believes one of two things: That looking differently will improve athletic success or a current look is the reason for lack of athletic success. Despite putting in the training and being physically prepared for an event, actual acceptance of one-self can be a major athletic limiter. Inside, you have internalized feelings of being inadequate because of a look, a comparison or an assumption. Poor body image can wreak havoc on performance, physical health and mental well-being. There are great consequences to trying to conform to r