Why Body Positivity Matters for Mental Health

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Body positivity means that you love and value yourself and your body for its potential, not its form. You can overcome depression, anxiety and body dissatisfaction with this mentality.

Scientists explored future links between body love and a range of mental health conditions. They concluded that greater body appreciation is a predictor of reduced depression symptoms and improved self-esteem, flourishing and wellbeing for three months.

Table of Contents

Boosts Self-Esteem

By adopting a body positive attitude you can prevent anxiety and depression caused by a negative body image, and you’ll help maintain your mental health by avoiding disordered eating or other unhealthy behaviors.

Body positivity also recognises that body image is only part of you and aims to let you cherish the distinctive aspects of you and to forget about trying to achieve perfectionism.

There is even research to show that body positivity exercises can positively impact self-esteem. This is because you can stop obsessing over the false ideals of beauty you see in media and start accepting yourself for who you are. Additionally, body positivity also promotes health because it motivates teenagers to look after themselves – to get enough sleep, exercise and focus on nutrition.

Boosts Mood

Self-esteem-boosted individuals do more exercise, eat well and give themselves adequate self-care, leading to healthier lifestyles and overall improved mental health.

Body positivity promotes respect for your own body. This movement honours diversity but eschews the simplistic, restrictive definitions of “good” bodies.

Body appreciation, over time, has been shown to predict wellbeing better than symptoms of depression and anxiety, self-esteem, flourishing and wellbeing. Furthermore, body appreciation predicts less melancholy and other levels of rumination (an important component of self-compassion). These results lend credence to the hypothesis that body positivity can also be used as a weapon against mental disorders such as depression and anxiety.

Increases Self-Confidence

Body positivity teaches you to know, love and accept yourself and your body for who you are. It’s about what their bodies can do, not what they look like; and this has been associated with better eating, self-compassion and less unhealthy behaviour.

Body positivity also means not negative talking to yourself and surrounding yourself with people who are supportive — deleting Instagram feeds with ridiculously skinny models and emptying closets of clothing that is too small for you, etc.

You need to find professional help from mental health providers if you are dealing with body image and eating disorders. They can help you learn what is causing low self-esteem, and how to recover it. They may also refer you to specialists in these disorders who are trained to treat them.

Improves Overall Well-Being

Body positivity encourages people to recognise and confront negative attitudes towards themselves and their bodies, move away from aesthetic concern, and discover media that highlights bodies of various shapes.

The next generation of research should examine a larger variety of mental health effects and assess the long-term predictive power of body appreciation for wellbeing. Finding temporal correlations between body positivity and depression or psychological distress might help build theoretical models and assist depression prevention programmes with targeting strategies to promote body positivity.

Those who struggle with negative body image can engage a therapist or counselor to gain a more positive outlook. This can include developing coping skills such as cognitive-behavioural therapy to find and counter false beliefs, and mindfulness for self-love.

Reduces Depression

Depression can be a huge risk to mental health and wellbeing. It arises from faulty coping styles and ongoing stressors; one of the reasons people suffer from depression is a dysfunctional connection with their own bodies.

A negative body image encourages self-rejection and comparison to societal norms, which creates a sense of despair and devaluation that can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.

We know now that body appreciation is related to reduced depression symptoms and psychological wellbeing, and its positive correlation with psychological wellbeing. While further research into this connection is necessary, body appreciation appears promising as a source of mental wellbeing.