Turns Out Body Shape Has Nothing At All to do With Fruit

Your Body Shape

Getting dressed in the morning doesn’t seem like one of those things that should matter much. Throw on some jeans, a sweater, run a brush through my hair, and voila.

But the truth is that there’s more to it than that, on so many levels.

I took an online course, a few years ago when I’d just had weight loss surgery and felt particularly disconnected from my body. The woman who taught it introduced a concept called inside out congruence.

Basically, that means that how you feel on the inside is reflected in the way you present yourself to the world.

This is something I struggle with so much.

On the inside, I’m an artist. A highly creative person with confidence and an eye for a funky vintage aesthetic.

On the outside, at best I’m a soccer mom. Boring. At worst, I’ve been wearing the same leggings for three days and I definitely do not project creativity or confidence.

Incongruent.

I’ve been working for the last month with Rachel Nachmias, a stylist. And slowly, slowly, I’m starting to understand things that have escaped me for most of my life.

One of the biggest is my bones. Seriously. My bones. Rachel has a system she calls image archetypes that takes things like your bones into account. She didn’t make this stuff up, she’s just got this superpower for making it make sense.

One of the best things, ever, is letting go entirely of the fruit-based body type system.

Forget apples or pears. I’m a flamboyant natural.

That’s the most common terminology. You can Google it and you’ll find information. It took me a kind of shocking long time to come to terms with being a ‘flamboyant natural,’ if I’m being honest.

An embarrassingly long time.

For a long time, when I tried to do this on my own, I was like — maybe I’m a soft natural. Or just a natural. Or something else. Anything other than the largest body type?

I’m not proud of that. I’ve done a lot of work on learning body acceptance, and it turns out that I still have issues with this shit. For what it’s worth, this doesn’t have anything to do with weight. My bones are flamboyant natural.

Rachel calls my body type the muse. I’m tall (nearly 5'10") and relatively broad. My body shape is roughly a rectangle with my shoulders, waist, and hips all nearly exactly the same width.

To achieve congruency, I have to dress to accommodate my length. And accentuate it. Long lines, not curvy ones. Because I have long lines, not curvy ones.

Rachel is starting a new program soon and I’m so excited, because it will make this information affordable for most people. She’s hosting a free live chat on Thursday (3/12) at 7 p.m. EST where she’ll walk everyone through figuring out their image archetype.

I’m going to be her guinea pig! I sent her a fairly dorky picture my husband took so that she can talk through why I’m a muse (or flamboyant natural) and not some other archetype. And she’ll help the people who show up figure it out for themselves, too.

If this stuff is at all interesting to you, I can’t recommend attending that call highly enough. It should be a ton of fun.

I’m still figuring this stuff ut.

Including how much bringing my outside into alignment with my inside matters. How to do that, of course, but the why fascinates me.

I want to be seen. I want confidence, inside and outside. I want to project a creative, effortlessness spirit to the people I meet in the world every day. Learning how to do that has been a pretty incredible experience.

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Menopause Isn’t the Only Reason for Low Libido in Older Women

Menopause Isn’t the Only Reason for Low Libido in Older Women:

 A qualitative study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine found that women in their 60s report various reasons behind why they lack libido – including sexual dysfunction in their partners.

 The study, published today in Menopause, distilled interviews with dozens of women about their lack of desire for sex into several major themes — including sexual dysfunction in their partners.
“If a woman is having sexual problems, what’s going on with her partner may be contributing. Sex doesn’t occur in a vacuum,” said lead author Holly Thomas, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine at Pitt.

Up to 40% of women over age 60 have low libido, and about 10% of them report feeling bothered by it.

To understand what’s causing these women to have lower libido than they’d like, Thomas and her team conducted three 12-woman focus groups and interviewed 15 other women privately, depending on which setting the participant preferred.
Through these conversations, five major themes emerged:

• Postmenopausal vaginal symptoms.
• Erectile dysfunction in partner.
• Fatigue or bodily pain.
• Life stressors.
• Body image.

 The most surprising thread here, Thomas said, was that so many women identified sexual dysfunction in their male partners as a major contributor to their own lack of desire for sex.
“Some women find workarounds, but others get stonewalled by their partner because he feels defensive,” Thomas said. “As women we’re encouraged to be accommodating, so we learn to tamp down our own needs and desires, and prioritize those of others.”

Another revelation was that for some women, despite having retired from their jobs and successfully ejected their adult children from their houses, they were still too stressed to view sex as a priority.
For instance, one woman bemoaned the emotional burden of caring for her ailing mother while simultaneously supporting her daughter through recovery from a substance use disorder.
There were several limitations of this study, most notably the small, racially homogeneous sample and the lack of quantitative data.

Still, since most of the research on low libido in older women has focused on hormones, Thomas said, hearing detailed accounts from the women themselves produces novel ideas that may not come out of a large survey.

3D scanners can help young women focus on body appreciation

Body Image

 With so many young girls and women comparing themselves to Models and Celebrities, this scheme could be of great benefit to them.

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Jun 21 2019

 

3D technology has transformed movies and medical imaging, and now it might be able to help young women better appreciate their bodies.

Virginia Ramseyer Winter, assistant professor in the School of Social Work and director of the MU Center for Body Image Research and Policy, is a nationally recognized body image expert. In a new study, she found that images from 3D scanners can be used to help young women focus on body appreciation, which might in turn improve mental health.

3D body image scanning is a relatively new tool in social science research, and the research on using 3D tools for improving body image is scant. We wanted to see if it could provide a way to help young women shift their focus away from appearance and toward function."

Virginia Ramseyer Winter, Director of the MU Center for Body Image Research and Policy

In her study, young adult women between the ages of 18 and 25 were scanned in a 3D scanner used by researchers and students in MU's Department of Textile and Apparel Management. The researchers used modeling software to convert the scans to 3D avatars. Participants then digitally "painted" body parts that they appreciated for various reasons such as their utility or role in their relationships.

"In digitally painting their avatars, women could think about how, for example, their thighs help them run or how their arms can help hold others in an embrace," Ramseyer Winter said. "It provided the participants a way to visual their bodies in a completely different way. It allowed the participants to recognize how our bodies are much more than a size or a number on a scale."

Immediately and then again three months after digitally painting their avatars, participants reported increased body appreciation over time. Moreover, participants reported lower depressive and anxiety symptoms.

"While more research still needs to be done on the relationship between the 3D image intervention we used and its impact on mental health, we did see a significant effect on body appreciation," Ramseyer Winter said. "Prior research has shown that body appreciation is related to depression and anxiety, which leads us to think that we are on the right track in creating an intervention that can improve not only body image, but mental health as well."


Future research will look at how painting the 3D avatars impacts young women with more severe depression.

Antoinette Landor, co-director of the Center for Body Image Research and Policy, co-authored the study. Other MU researchers who worked on the project were Michelle Teti, Kristen Morris, Erin Schliep, Danielle Pevehouse-Pfeiffer and Emily Pekarek.

The study is part of the newly created Center for Body Image Research and Policy, an interdisciplinary research center housed in the MU College of Human Environmental Sciences. The center was built around the goal to improve body image, health and wellness for individuals, families and communities.

Source:

University of Missouri-Columbia

Effective Strategies for Body Image

Whether is it our physical health, our body shape, our weight, our wrinkles, love handles, sagging skin… Many of us are looking for some quick fix that will help us get us rid of all those annoying and unwanted “imperfections” and make us feel emotionally better.

I really feel this article is important for people who are struggling with body image and issues surrounding that topic.


Body Image

Understanding Anorexia

Having just waved good bye to my niece whose daughter has Anorexia, this is article most appropriate to share.  It identifies the symptoms clearly and helps us understand this condition more.

Understanding Anorexia

Body Size

 The article below shows that few women are ever completely satisfied with their body.  Could this be due to the media, always showing us the perfect models?  This study should shed some light on this.

Twelve Percent of Midlife Women Say They Are Satisfied with Their Body Size

Adele Bantle
International Style Coach