Studies on body image that are mind-blowing
Good morning everybody. So if you are listening to this early in the morning is probably pitch black. So that does bring with it some, negatives because now the daylight is less, we feel the days are shorter, they're not actually but it does have an impact in it. But remember the study I mentioned a few weeks ago about, how to improve your sleep and I said if you can have one or two hours of Sun exposure, so daylight exposure around peak of the day, your body kind of adjusts like this is the middle of the day and actually you have a better sleep in the night. So definitely try and get out and go for walks and stuff and be out in the light when you can because we are basically you know going to work and then coming home in the dark.
Speaker 1:So it's actually way more important than ever that the lunchtime break you do go into the light. So that's just a tip, a point for you to make sure your sleep isn't too disrupted. But today I want to talk about studies on body image. This is a very important topic because I think a lot of people think body image can be improved just by losing weight and think that's the case. So before I go into the studies there's a book from the 60s called Psycho Cybernetics by a plastic surgeon.
Speaker 1:And what he discovered was that even though he had patients come in and be like, look, I'm not happy with my nose, not happy with my face. I want surgery. You do surgery, fix it. Even after they had the surgery, they still weren't happy with what he looked like. And he came to the conclusion really that it's not about the actual surgery that happened and made him feel better, it's there, it's about how they feel about themselves.
Speaker 1:So no matter if they did the change they still think they're not good enough, they still think they aren't beautiful, they still think something's wrong. So unless that's changed, no matter the physical changes it makes no difference whatsoever to that you know what their self image essentially. You've to remember as well beauty, all his appearances, it's only skin deep guys. We're all more than that, we're not just two millimeters of us, the small layer of skin. That's not everything we are right.
Speaker 1:So when you think of it that way we're judging our entire life and worth on something as skin deep. And he wanted to get to the bottom of this. He was trying to change people's minds so instead of just going into surgery straight away and you know giving them surgery he worked with them on you know mental exercises to get try and improve their body image. But these starts, if he he already starts today he would be concerned. Let's have a look what the studies are showing.
Speaker 1:So what we're saying defining as body images, the way someone perceives their body in the same as others perceive them as well. So this image is often affected by family, friends, social pressure and the media. People who are unhappy with their bodies and don't seek healthy nutrition information may develop eating disorders, and eating disorders are unhealthy relationships with food including fasting, constant dieting or bingeing and purging. So approximately ninety one percent of women are unhappy with their bodies and resort to dieting to achieve the ideal body shape. Unfortunately only five percent of women you know naturally possess the body type often portrayed by Americans in the media.
Speaker 1:Fifty eight percent of college age girls feel pressured to be a certain weight. Studies show that the most that the more reality television a young girl watches the more likely she is to find appearance important of course. More than one third of the people who admit to normal dieting will merge into pathological dieting. Roughly one fourth of these will suffer from a partial or full on eating disorder. In a survey more than forty percent of women, about twenty percent of men agreed they would consider cosmetic surgery in the future.
Speaker 1:The statistics remain relatively constant across gender age. If you're a single and race as well. Students especially women who consume more mainstream media place a greater importance on sexiness and overall appearance than those who do not consume as much. And ninety five percent of people with eating disorders are between the ages of 12 and 15. Okay So started ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Like, and if we look at some of the key things here. Okay. Let's look at the one just now. Students especially women who can sing on mainstream media plays a greater importance. So the first thing we need do we need to disconnect from the mainstream media as a as a immediate course of action.
Speaker 1:So any one of you who is digesting The Daily Mail, The Sun or whatever stop it immediately. It's just proven to be detrimental to self image So stop it. Okay, that's that's rule number one. There's another one here. The more reality TV a younger watches the more likely she's to find appearance important.
Speaker 1:This is based on a study. Again, cut reality TV, unfollow people on Instagram that make you feel bad. Ideally, you know, you want to get off it but the, you know, you've got to take the initiative and it's now on be like, there's some people in Instagram you might think oh you know they're nice, know for example it's Molly Mae Girl yeah, off Love Island that people love. Is she really doing more positive than negative with her unrealistic images putting in social media, always this perfect life yeah, all these girls are looking up to her. Like every time they see a positive perfect image actually is not helping them at all, it's making them feel worse about themselves and you have to look at these people, you you can look at really like you know quote unquote successful people and every time you see their post you feel bad about yourself.
Speaker 1:Like why are you putting yourself through this? Because all you're doing is hurting yourself and reducing your, self image. You're damaging or you feel less worthy because these people are putting on their social medias all the time how successful they are, how beautiful they are, how they're always looking in these amazing outfits and you feel then you got not enough money you go try and shop on their websites that he's got the outfits. You go, wish I could have all of that, but she just has so many trainers, so many dresses, so many jackets that I would love to have. Right?
Speaker 1:So it's not good. So, you know, take this today and as a way to start, you know whilst we are getting stronger, whilst we are a lot of you are trying to lose fat. None of this is gonna work unless your self image improves. But that starts right? Your body image, your self image starts with taking control of what you feed into your brain.
Speaker 1:Okay. I come to realization guys all my dreams are based on what I think the day that of on that day, right? I was thinking the other I woke up from a dream I was like, oh, the reason I've had that dream is because I had a dream about like fighting Germans in World War II or something. I was like I just watched Inglourious Masters that film and I was like that's why I've dreamt all that dream because I watched that film. And I'm just thinking like you know the amount of things that come in pop into our mind that we think, oh that's just popped into our mind.
Speaker 1:It kind of popped into your mind. What do you think it popped into your mind? You've you've consumed it somehow even if you're not conscious of it. So it's really, really important that we take the steps of today, you know, I want all your one big things is to go through your Instagram, unfollow loads of these sexy amazing people, why you want to follow them? You know, reduce the, you know, if someone makes you feel bad most of you post your feed and make you feel a bit worse for yourself okay just get rid of them Instagram okay.
Speaker 1:Stop watching mainstream media. Yeah that's important. And feed into your brain where you want to be thinking of you know Marcus Aurelius says about that he wants to dye his thoughts in philosophy and he's got a point about this because our thoughts are dyed by what we consume. So this is kind of a theory I got as well. If you like listen to like really sad music all the time, like how do you feel your perception of the world is gonna turn out even if you don't know what the words are saying all the time, you're feeding all the sadness into you every single day.
Speaker 1:So we want to start feeding our brains the right diet, correct information diet and that's why I think it's important every day you read five ten pages of book a day, an author, philosophy, stuff about life, deep stuff that makes you think. You know, the quote, beauty is only skin deep. Oh, that hit me hard. It hit me hard. Think about it.
Speaker 1:It is only skin deep. That's it. It's all it is. It's important that we all want to look better, feel better, stronger, that's all it is. And you come to these insights and then you feed your brain with different insights from different people from different cultures.
Speaker 1:It's important to get perspective and there's this thing where you kind of your brain gets a new experience or a new insight and it stretches. And it never goes back to the original thing because you've learned something new, a new insight, a breakthrough, an moment that stretches your brain out and never goes back. You get more 's, your brain stretches and you get more vision. But if you stick to just reality TV, mainstream media, those Instagram people that everyone follows, how do you think you're gonna think? You're gonna think just like everyone else who is feeling depressed, who is sad, who does think that their body's never gonna be good enough.
Speaker 1:Let me tell you they're all playing the fool's game. You can't win that game. It's impossible. It's impossible. If you're all gonna stand up to the stat, you know, these reality TV, all the same stuff all the time, all the same people, same bodies, all the men are always ripped, all the girls typically are blonde and small.
Speaker 1:You know, they bring some diversity in now but you know, you can tell us this tick tick box stuff, right? And it's just not good for you guys. It's not good for you. You know, learn about something new and different that's not about you know looking good or you know whatever Instagram is all about. And I went to a museum to see this expo on the Amazon ian, it's like hunter gatherer tribes.
Speaker 1:And it's amazing how like, you know, when you look at these people, you're like, that's me. Like they're literally been there for like sixty thousand years or more. They've lived in this like lived without kind of connection to the outside world and they got their own ways of dealing with stuff. And one of the ways they they dealt with stuff And the thing is they're walking naked basically. They're not thinking, you know, they're not letting someone else who's a bit leaner looking making them feel worse like all of these ones we saw were bulky, some really big muscle mass in one tribe, really big muscles but like they're not walking around feeling bad about themselves because he hasn't got a bigger arm in the other one.
Speaker 1:That doesn't even come into their thought process because they haven't put the importance on it, right. Their importance is on the family unit creating things, places like these big huts to sleep in, hunting, making sure everybody's taken after. And that one of the ways they deal with conflict, this is hilarious, one of the day you deal so basically they can have as many husbands and wives as they want. And then the way they deal with conflict is they tickle someone. So like you come home and you go, mate, you just slept that.
Speaker 1:I know you got three wives there but you just slept with the fourth woman. She's not your wife, is she? And you are Simon, it's like, I'm so sorry. And you're like, I'm gonna punch your head off and he goes well no wait wait tickle tickle tickle. Ah okay mate but the thing is there's there's there's a truth to that there's a truth to laughing and you know being forced into a state where you can't be that serious where you just laugh it off And, I think again humor is an important thing, but when you come when you look at these things they're trying to they're trying to resolve conflict by looking at the other side, the humor side probably, they're trying to make it light hearted and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:And I think when you go into these like scrolls on Instagram things are so serious, I mean. And it's so serious when you scroll and everyone's like, off to Mab's, big business meeting, it's like everyone porcelain, they're all airport outfits and they're like when you know, and then it's all kind of serious on this on this in the sense that it's all about the seriousness of like, you know, jet setting and the outfit and, know, new job, big money. Do know mean? And it makes us feel a bit serious all the time. Well, actually, I think the best blend is we know we read a bit of philosophy.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's serious, of course. We have a bit of humor, light heartedness. We look at this entire game that because it is a game. We look at this entire game and go, I can see the game. The game is, you know, to funnel people with mainstream media and social media and watching these films, all to have these same desires and goals and just let them all be lemons.
Speaker 1:And you're all then making them all hate each other and be in this like constant loop of hate about their own selves and they're never gonna transcend essentially. So yeah, that's I just wanted to raise this one today. I think it's important. The studies are baffling. They're very, eye opening and I think let's take it seriously.
Speaker 1:Let us take control of this situation. You can't stop the sun. No, you can't stop Instagram. You're never gonna stop Instagram, the sun and all these other news things. But you can control your own actions.
Speaker 1:You can. I'll see the only things you can do. So today I wanna hear about your purges on Instagram. I wanna hear about no more mainstream media. Right?
Speaker 1:I wanna hear about how you're gonna start looking at your body image differently and you're not gonna compare it to other people because comparison is the thief of joy and competition is for losers. We are not in competition with other people. Otherwise, you're playing the game forever. Okay? So one big thing is that task, unfollow Instagram, get off mainstream media, delete the news apps you got on and start looking at your information diet.
Speaker 1:I want you to do an analysis today where you spend your time, where you get your information, what's coming into your brain, what music you're listening to all the time, what the people you're talking to, you know, maybe you're reading books that are, know, know, Sex and the City, whatever. I don't know if that's any good, but are these books again feeding what the mainstream media and stuff is wants to feed you? Let me know. I wanna hear about your stories on this. But guys, enjoy your day and I'll speak to you tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Remember, one day at a time is all it takes. You can get through anything one day at a time. Fact.
