Your body is an amazing thing.

Oh, yes.

When you think about it, not only is it an amazing piece of serious technical kit, carrying you through the day, performing all kinds of complex tasks such as breathing and digestion without you even needing to realise with your conscious mind that anything is happening, but it is also pretty damn gorgeous.

Given half the chance -  nutritious food, exercise and rest – our bodies are amazing things.

And yet, so many of the people I work with on a daily basis are more used to thinking of their bodies as a source of embarrassment or shame. They have learned to dislike, even hate, their bodies.

A few weeks ago I was reading the Saturday paper and I came across a very interesting article. In the article, Guardian journalist Emine Saner talks about ‘the most talked about picture’ in a recent edition of US Glamour magazine, featuring “plus size” model, Lizzie Miller.

Lizzie is a size 12 (which, obviously, makes her extremely “plus size,”  doesn’t it?) and she appears in the magazine, naked and looking stunning beautiful with… wait for it… a tummy!

You can see a version of the picture, complete with Lizzie’s now very famous tummy, here on the Glamour web site. I think you will agree that she looks fabulous.

After publishing the picture, Glamour was inundated with messages from women applauding them for publishing something so ‘real.’

Lizzie herself says that she felt incredibly moved by this response. In The Guardian article she says:

“People don’t ever see images like this in magazines. It shows how hungry the world is to see all different body types. On any fashion shoot, there is a whole lot of smoke and mirrors – hair, makeup, lighting, retouching. But this photograph wasn’t airbrushed, it was real. That was what people were reacting to.”

The article goes on to report that Lizzie ‘found it “a revelation” when she first went on a shoot with
other models, “skinny girls, and they had stretch marks. But by the time you saw the pictures those had been airbrushed out. But just seeing that thin models had stretch marks too made me feel better.
Models aren’t perfect, nobody is perfect.” ‘

The article I read in my newspaper showed the original photo of Lizzie alongside an airbrushed photo, demonstrating the way that the image would normally have been retouched. (It’s a shame that you can’t see this in the online version of the article.) Because I was shocked! Not only had her tummy disappeared but there had been all kinds of other changes too – her thighs had been ‘shaped,’ her skin tone ‘brightened,’ and even the ‘laughter lines’ around her eyes had been smoothed away.

I knew that images in magazines were altered and airbrushed. In fact, I made a personal choice a while ago to stop buying these magazines because I find them extremely unhelpful in terms of my own self-image. However, knowing about the editing of images and then seeing an example of this was very different. It really made me realise again just how much we are all comparing ourselves to unreal bodies.

Have you ever bemoaned the fact that when you sit down in your bikini you have a tummy bulge that you don’t see in the models in the magazines? Well, now you know why! It is not that they do not have them. It is simply that their tummies get airburshed out. I suspect that might be a revelation for many women out there.

An article on Glamour’s blog, where you can also see an interview with Lizzie, the model, reads:

‘The emails [we received] were filled with such joy–joy at seeing a woman’s body with all the curves and quirks and rolls found in nature. (Raising a question: With all the six-packs out there, do you even know what a normal belly looks like anymore–other than the one you see in the mirror?)’

In fact, I posted a link to Lizzie’s photo on my FaceBook page last week and I was delighted to see that someone has now started a Facebook group for men and women who appreciate all that is real and attainable about photos of unedited bodies. And, by the way, do remember that, even without airbrushing, none of us would look as good as Lizzie without a great photographer, the right lighting, make-up, etc. It’s probably not helpful to go comparing your holiday snaps with this picture.

Photos like Lizzie’s can help us to become more aware of the way that images around us are manipulated in order to encourage us to compare ourselves to an always unattainable ideal. There is a very unhelpful hypnosis going on along the lines of: ‘You don’t look like this yet? Well, buy these clothes/this face cream/ this skin product – and you can!’

So maybe it’s time to be your own hypnotist and relearn how to love your body. And if it isn’t quite how you’d like it to be, maybe it’s time to ask yourself if the image inside your head of your ideal weight and shape is helpful and encouraging to you, enabling you to be the very best you can be – healthy and happy – or whether it is someone else’s image, a way of being more than a little mean to yourself?

Next time you look in the mirror, why not be kind to yourself? Ask yourself what you need to do to feel really good about your body right now. Enjoy your body from the inside out – what it can do, what makes you feel good. And surround yourself with people who support you and help you to feel good about yourself.

When you are being kind to yourself and nurturing your body, you may be surprised to notice how easy it is to make any changes that you’d like to make to eating habits or exercise and to enjoy a healthy, happy, confident body-image.