What Does Having a Healthy Body Image Actually Look Like?
Part 3 of a 3-part series: Building a Healthier Relationship with Food & Your Body
In this series:
- Part 1: Why Your Relationship With Food Is Often Really About Your Relationship With Your Body
- Part 2: Why Changing Your Body Doesn’t Always Change Your Body Image
- Part 3: What Does Having a Healthy Body Image Actually Look Like? (you’re here)
What is body image anyway?
Body image isn’t something we either have or don’t have. Like any relationship, it can become healthier over time.
Body image is more than just what you see in the mirror. It’s how you view and perceive your body’s size, shape and features. It’s the thoughts and feelings you have about your body and the actions you take based on those beliefs.
So if, as discussed in my previous article, Why Changing Your Body Doesn’t Always Change Your Body Image, we realize that we can’t or don’t want to change our bodies, what do we do?
One of the biggest misconceptions about body image is that the goal is to love how you look all the time.
While loving your body sounds appealing, it can become another impossible standard to live up to. Bodies change. Some days we feel better than others. If we believe healthy body image means always loving what we see in the mirror, then every bad body image day becomes another failure.
While it would be great to love the way you look, this is not usually an attainable goal. I think a healthier goal is something different.
Rather than asking, “How can I love my body?” we might ask, “How can I have a kinder relationship with my body?”
What Does a Kinder Relationship with Your Body Look Like?
Body Satisfaction
Body satisfaction is one part of body image, but it isn’t the whole picture. It includes how you feel about your body’s appearance, as well as how you feel about what your body can do.
While many people wish they liked how they looked more, body satisfaction can also come from appreciating what your body is able to do. That will look different for everyone. For one person, it might be hiking a mountain. For another, it might be getting through the day despite chronic pain, hugging a loved one, preparing a meal, laughing with friends, or simply taking a shower. Appreciating your body doesn’t mean ignoring its limitations or pretending it always functions the way you’d like. It means recognizing that your body does many things for you, even if it doesn’t do everything you wish it could.
Body satisfaction isn’t a permanent state. Most people have days when they feel better about their appearance than others. A healthy body image doesn’t require feeling satisfied every day—it means those fluctuations don’t determine how you treat yourself or whether you participate in your life.
Body Respect
Can I treat my body with kindness and care, even on days when I don’t like how it looks? Respect might look like nourishing yourself, moving in ways that feel good, resting when you need to, seeking medical care when something doesn’t feel right, and choosing clothes that fit your body comfortably instead of punishing it.
Body Trust
Can I listen to my body instead of constantly fighting it? Can I eat when I’m hungry, stop eating when I’m comfortably full, rest when I’m tired, and notice what my body is asking for? Diet culture and hustle culture often teach us to ignore these signals. Rebuilding body trust means learning that your body isn’t the enemy.
Body Freedom
How much space does your body take up in your mind? Body freedom means your body no longer dominates your thoughts or determines your decisions. It means spending less time worrying about your appearance and more time participating in your life—wearing the bathing suit, having your picture taken, going on the date, playing with your children, or saying yes to experiences without waiting for your body to change first.
Self-Worth
Can I believe that my worth as a person isn’t determined by the size or shape of my body? Can I still believe I deserve love, friendship, success, joy, and belonging, even on days when I don’t feel good about my appearance? Healthy body image doesn’t require believing your body is perfect. It means believing that your worth has never depended on your body in the first place.
If this doesn’t describe you, you’re not failing
If you read this list and think, I don’t trust my body. I don’t respect it. I certainly don’t feel worthy, you’re not alone.
These aren’t qualities that most of us are taught to develop. Many of us grow up learning to distrust our hunger, criticize our appearance, tie our worth to our weight, or believe we have to earn rest, food, or acceptance.
A healthier body image isn’t something you either have or don’t have. It’s something you can gradually build. You don’t have to work on all of these areas at once. Even one small shift can begin changing your relationship with your body.
Tiny Shifts Toward a Healthier Relationship with Your Body
You don’t have to transform the way you feel about your body overnight. Often, healing begins with small, everyday choices that communicate to yourself, “My body deserves care, even if I don’t love how it looks today.”
We often think change has to come from a dramatic overhaul—a new diet, a strict exercise plan, or a promise to “start over on Monday.” But lasting change is often much quieter than that.
I like the analogy of a plane changing course by just one degree. One degree sounds insignificant. At first, the difference is almost impossible to notice. But over the course of the journey, that tiny shift leads to a completely different destination. And, the longer the plane continues on its new course, the greater the difference becomes.
Building a healthier relationship with your body can be much the same. You don’t need to change everything overnight. Small, consistent shifts—speaking to yourself with a little more kindness, choosing movement you enjoy, allowing yourself to rest when you’re tired, or noticing your body’s signals with curiosity instead of criticism—may seem inconsequential in the moment. Over time, however, they can lead you to a very different place.
Some ideas to get started:
Practice Body Respect
- Find movement that you genuinely enjoy. Instead of exercising because you’re trying to change your body, experiment with movement that feels good. Go for a bike ride, try a new sport, dance in your kitchen, stretch before bed, or walk with a friend.
- Eat foods you enjoy as well as foods that nourish you. A healthy relationship with food doesn’t require eating perfectly. It means allowing yourself pleasure as well as nourishment, without every meal becoming a test of your willpower.
Build Body Trust
- Notice your body’s signals. Are you hungry? Tired? Stressed? Restless? Rather than immediately overriding those signals, practice getting curious about what your body might be asking for, even if you can’t respond to those needs right away.
- Allow yourself to rest. Rest isn’t something you have to earn. While it isn’t always possible to stop when you’re tired, simply acknowledging, “I’m exhausted right now, and it makes sense that I feel this way,” is a small act of self-compassion.
Support Body Freedom
- Wear clothes that fit the body you have today. You deserve to be comfortable now—not only after your body changes.
- Challenge the urge to postpone your life. Wear the bathing suit. Be in the photo. Go on the date. Dance at the wedding. Healthy body image often grows by participating in life, not by waiting until you feel “ready.”
Nurture Self-Worth
- Talk to yourself the way you would talk to someone you love. If you wouldn’t tell a friend they’re unworthy because of their body, notice when you say those things to yourself.
You don’t have to wake up tomorrow loving your body.
You don’t even have to like it.
But if you can begin treating your body with a little more respect, questioning the belief that your worth depends on your appearance, and allowing your body to take up a little less space in your mind, you’re already moving toward a healthier relationship with it.
Healthy body image isn’t about reaching a place where you never struggle.
It’s about reaching a place where how you feel about your body no longer determines the life you’re willing to live.
Further Support
I hope this series of articles has given you something to think about and some ideas about how to move forward.
If you could use more support around these issues, I offer therapy in person in Guelph and virtually across Ontario for adults struggling with emotional eating, binge eating, body image, and their relationship with food.
