Fat 2 Fit: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Will You Help Me Become Friends with My Body?

How one woman figured out she'd been punishing and abusing her body all her life by listening to negative messages—and how she reconciled with it.

By: Carole Carson | Source: AARP.org | 2008-10-28

This letter came from a reader. I wanted to share it because many of you will relate to what she writes:

About 10 years ago, The Body Shop ran a campaign that showed a plus-size Barbie on a sofa and the words, "There are 3 billion women who don't look like supermodels and eight who do. Learn to love your body." That was a huge statement. I bought up the magnets and gave them to every woman I cared about.

I turned a corner when I became conscious of the critic in my head that said I couldn't be acceptable unless I looked a certain way. I think women in particular are raised to nurture that critic. For as long as I can remember, I’ve looked in mirrors and dissected the things that are wrong with me—the nose, the hair, the legs.

Lately though, I've started to appreciate that this body is what I'm going to live in for the rest of my life, and I might as well make friends with it. It takes me where I want to go and is the source of my physical and emotional responses to the world.

Today, I don't want to get fit to become more acceptable or meet some outside ideal. I just want to be healthy and active as long as I'm in this body.

On some level, I think I owe my body an apology. I'm sorry for starving you; overfeeding you; purging you; and maniacally exercising you, then completely neglecting you. I'm okay with the waxing and dyeing—you'll just have to deal with that. But seriously, want to go for a walk and catch up on how things really are? I think I'm ready to be friends.

Didn't she write a wonderful conclusion to her letter? Becoming friends with our bodies is a powerful idea whose time has come.