Prime Time

Body shape and weight

Cultural Stigma
People who have a certain body shape and weight are judged according to stereotypes. Excess weight has become a cultural stigma. Excess fat is an obsession, and many persons, especially women, hate their perfectly normal body, as they see it too fat and are ashamed of it. No doctor will tell you that to be overweight is more healthy than to be thin. But this is not the problem; we are not talking of being so overweight to jeopardize our health. Body fat becomes a problem when we look for perfection, when we want ideal proportions, the perfect body with no sags and dimples, the body of our teen years, a goal often unrealistic.

Which is, therefore, the best attitude to keep to appreciate our body and what do we have to do to achieve a good appearance?

Balance
The majority of experts agree that self-appreciation is not enough until the social barometer of television and movies don’t stop to emphasize ideal images, an idle thought. To feel well in a world obsessed by beauty ideals and body stereotypes we need to find a balance between the inner and the outer: work on the mind to accept ourselves, and work on the body to feel fit.

Nutrition and Fitness
To keep the right weight through balanced nutrition and exercise is different from dieting or exercising to lose weight, because the body is capable of finding by itself its setpoint. People who are active are thinner than those inactive, and fat people tend to be inactive.

Movement accelerates metabolism, and exercise makes our bodies produce hormones which help us not to be angry, depressed, and chronically hungry. Exercise paired with good nutrition can give us a body in which we can feel good. The kind of fitness I’m talking about, is not based on self-control or will, but it’s a way of exercising and eating that helps self-esteem.

When you follow a routine with this in mind you cannot expect anything – but you will see results. You simply have to be aware of what’s happening to the body and mind. In time you will start to appreciate your body and what it can do. The strength, resistance, social contact, fun, music – they all work to improve body image. As you go on and learn what you have to do to feel good in your own body, you’ll develop both instrumental and ornamental aspects of you image, which, inevitably, will enclose other areas of your life.

Let's analyse in detail each of the elements:

» Clothes
» Colors
» Posture
» Body shape and weight
» Energy, Liveliness, Excitement
» Makeup
» Hair
» Voice, speech
» Confidence
» Gestures
» [ Beauty Unraveled ]

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