Is your beautiful body leading you to a love affair, or are you ready to dump your ugly reflection?

‘Beautiful’ and ‘ugly’ are strong words that can conjure up a lot of emotion, but let’s face it, when we’re talking about the human body, those are exactly the kind of emotive words many of us will use.

Whether we love or loathe our bodies, this is inextricably linked to self-esteem and self-confidence. How can we possibly love ourselves as individuals if we can’t love the bodies that carry our very own beating hearts and protect our amazing brains? Yet as recent surveys have disturbingly shown, many young females are most certainly not having a love affair with their bodies.

78317575[1] — Love your body, or loathe it? Vote on Facebook! Photo from www.dosomething.org

Many of those surveyed viewed their bodies negatively, believing that they would be happier if they were more attractive, and a high percentage described themselves as looking ‘ordinary’. Most worrying of all, though, was the fact that less than 10% said they were happy with their bodies and it would seem that many of our young females will be growing up into adults with poor self images, leading to many not fulfilling their potential in life.

It was while leafing through a glossy magazine recently that I began to think about our body images as women, and how I can see exactly why some young girls might lack confidence in their female forms. Certainly the magazine I was ‘reading’ appeared to outwardly support celebrities not resembling supermodels, as indeed many of us do not, but it was also alarmingly quick to deride them should they happen to have gained weight, or be jubilant in their success should they have shed a kilo or two.

While nobody is arguing that being fit and healthy is something we all shouldn’t aspire to, why can’t we simply focus on that, rather than how others might think we look, as when our time on this planet is up, it will not be our bodies that we are remembered for, but the type of person that we were and the life that we led.

So do you love your body and are confident enough to say that it hasn’t held you back in life, or have you fallen completely out of love with your body and feel let down by your physical form and lack of self confidence?

Take a few seconds to vote in our body poll on Facebook!

Love it I wear my body with pride and let nothing get in my way!

Loathe it My body is definitely not my temple and I do not worship it every day!

On a good day my body’s my friend, on a bad day it’s my worst enemy!

Kate Blanchard

Kate is an English woman currently living in rural Morocco with her husband, Ben, and their mischievous mongrel, Douglas. They moved out there three years ago after Ben was offered employment as the manager of a large fruit farm, and although life can often be challenging for them both with cultural differences and language barriers, they see this as more of a reason to stay, than a reason to admit defeat and leave. Kate tries to find humour wherever possible in life, and finds herself blessed (or as her husband would say, ‘cursed’) with an irrepressible desire to see the beauty and the positivity in what others may see to be ugly and negative. Most of all though, she has a zest for travel and exploration and finds it incredibly satisfying to share her stories of adventure with others, even if it does nothing more than transport the reader to a distant land for a few minutes.