Maintaining A Positive Body Image

You are looking at yourself in the mirror. What do you see? You take a look and then turn to the side and get another view. You inspect every inch of your body and always find one thing that you don’t appreciate.

Negative body image has affected people for years. It is something that can start small and grow until it overcomes a person.

How do we maintain a positive body image? To learn to look in the mirror and love what we see in ourselves? What if you are an athlete? Is it harder to maintain a positive body image when you are getting into competitive shape? Becoming an athlete is a huge commitment. You have practice every day, sometimes even twice a day. Often times you have a restricted diet or a goal weight that you need or want to be at. Athletes are more common to fall under pressure of being the best. But when being an athlete, you also have a responsibility to maintain a positive image about yourself.

When entering college, everyone is afraid of gaining the “Freshmen 15” and always promise themselves that it will not happen. But when school actually gets rolling it becomes harder and harder to maintain a perfect diet and make sure that you are keep a positive body image about yourself.

According to Children Come First, a website dedicated to maintaining a positive body image especially for younger children, 80% of children around the age of ten are already considering that they are too fat and wanting to be smaller. The media portrays women and have models that are typically 5’11” and weigh around 117 pounds while the average woman is around 5’4” and weighs around 140 pounds. As for college athletes, this ranges because even with being in great shape, the amount of muscle weighs more than fat, so more often than not that number is going to be higher. Coach Figueroa, in charge of the Women’s water polo team here at California State University Monterey Bay (CSUMB) has always said that being safe is important when getting into shape. It is not about the number but it is what YOUR playing weight is. Everyone’s is different and it depends on how you use it to your advantage.

In an article on The Daily News Online, an athlete name Alyssa Kitasoe that attended UCLA describes how the feeling of wearing the UCLA Gymnastics logo made her feel proud and on top. As it is known gymnastics is a sport that is all about being small and light enough to hurl yourself through the air a couple of times and still be able to land on your feet. Kitasoe described how her feelings changed once she quit the sport. Her body image of herself changed and soon she developed bulimia nervosa. “It was like seeing a ghost of yourself, or a monster,” Kitasoe describes. According to experts Craig Johnson and Katherine Beals, at least one-third of female college athletes have some type of eating disorder.

So exactly what do we maintain a positive image? A website called Tri Sports has described different experiences that lead to negative body images towards ourselves. First, explore those feelings that you have. Media has always played a huge part. From a young age, we are shown what we should look like. We are never shown that everyone is different. “Life is more enjoyable when you can love your body and appreciate it for all it does and stop hating it for what it is not,” Nancy Clark author of The Athletes Kitchen that was featured on Tri Sports describes, “When the drive for thinness comes with a high price, that price may not be worth it.”

A program known as Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative (BAWSI) was founded in 2005 by world known soccer players Brandi Chastain and Julie Foudy along with the former manager for San Jose CyberRays. This programs mission is “create programs and partnerships through which women athletes bring health, hope and wholeness to our community.” These programs show young girls how much fun playing sports can be along with getting them outside and exercising. Anyone can volunteer to help these young girls experience the joy of playing sports.