Do I have the right to promote body confidence and be a personal trainer?
Lets talk: body confidence, body acceptance, Social media influence and more...
Something that grinds my gears is the idea of what ‘BEAUTY’ is! Growing up I believed that beauty was a flat stomach, big boobs, a perky bum and an hour glass figure. Why? Because that’s what I was told by the TV, the internet, advertisements and now SOCIAL MEDIA. So is this a healthy mindset? Is it going to make me feel good about myself? NO. But now… this term ‘BODY CONFIDENCE’ has emerged so… maybe I should believe that the way I look is fine and that I am beautiful.
Lets start by delving into what it is to be ‘Body confident’ I found this on another article and adapted it to what I think it meant:
“Body confidence is how a person feels about the way they look. When we have body confidence we accept, and are happy with, how we look and what our bodies can do.”
So...POSITIVE body confidence would suggest you are happy about your own body image and ability and NEGATIVE body confidence would suggest that you are unhappy with the way you look and feel?
With the phrase positive body confidence being thrown around all over social media I wanted to get a better understanding as to what it REALLY means mainly because I have found that lots of people have a different understanding.
Lets start by looking at different scenarios:
These are based on a variety of social media influencers that I have come across, they all state that they represent ‘positive’ body confidence, but do they?:
1. Plus size lady ‘I love my body’ promotes unhealthy lifestyle (eat what you want when you want) love the way you look.
2. Plus size lady ‘I love the way I look now but I know that I need to lose fat for my own health’ so I eat well and exercise regularly.
3. Slim lady promoting exercise and healthy eating and body confidence
4. Slim lady promoting weight-loss shakes, love yourself and your image
What do you think? I believe that they all promote body confidence in their own way, but are they all healthy? Are scenario’s 1 & 4 good role models? Not in my opinion, if you are plus size and eat well, do regular exercise and promote life balance, then great! To me, that is a perfect example of body confidence.
I think everyone should be happy and confident in the skin you are in but I also believe that this is only possible when you live a healthy lifestyle.
When I ask my clients what they want to achieve from personal training they mostly respond ‘LOOK GOOD’ and FEEL GOOD’ but why don’t we already feel good? Should you not feel as if you look good the way you already are? Are you not beautiful the way you are? YES, you are beautiful, deep down everyone is beautiful inside and out you just have to make the right decisions.
As a personal trainer people come to me to CHANGE, the way they look and the way they feel. So do I have the right to promote body confidence and acceptance when even me, I have aesthetic goals, I aspire to look a certain way. Something one of my own clients said to me was there is no problem wanting to improve as long as you don't hate what you're starting with.
The way I see it- I find out WHY my client wants to change and more often than not the ultimate goal is happiness. So we work together to achieve that by changing diet, exercise regime and ATTITUDE towards themselves and their body.
There is a science behind feeling happy. When we exercise we release happy hormones and aside from that our immune system and over all health improves, which makes you feel more energetic and therefore start to become healthier which can lead to happiness… healthy heart, healthy skin, healthy mind, healthy body=Happiness, self acceptance, confidence.
Answering my title… YES! Absolutely, the best way to accept your body is to treat it with care and love, to do this you must feed it with all things good and personal trainers facilitate this process.
YOU DO NOT NEED SOCIAL MEDIA TO APPROVE YOUR BODY! YOU ARE A QUEEN!
If you want to work with me, get in touch!
info@vitalityhub.co.uk