Okay, so maybe the Daily Mail isn’t the most reliable source, however, the headline grabbed my attention. “Bad Influencers: Just 90 seconds of watching ‘ideal bodies’ on social media can negatively impact women’s mental health, study finds.”

I’m not sure why, but I was shocked that it takes as little as 90 seconds of being exposed to what we perceive as an “ideal body” to harm our mental health negatively. I’m 55 years old, so I’ve had a lot of 90 second exposure. I thought to myself, no wonder almost every woman I know struggles with her body image.

Women are constantly bombarded with images of cosmetically and photoshop enhanced faces and bodies. Think about it, as a young girl who did you look up to as an ideal for beauty? Have those ideals changed since you were young? Did it change when you were a teen? Did it change as you became an adult and your body started changing? Did it change after you had children or went through a significant shift in your body changing?

I did a little experiment on my own. I looked up fashion influencers on TikTok who were my body size. I started looking at their content on a daily basis and after about a week to a month, I started feeling better about my body. I started to become more aware that bodies come in all shapes and sizes instead of focusing on an “ideal body” that many women have because of genetics, cosmetic surgeries, eating disorders, or photoshop. I started to choose clothes for myself that not only accentuated my current body, not my ideal body, and my personality. I became more and more confident as I dressed for my current body and my individuality.

The more I focused on loving and accepting my body for its current size, the more confident and content I became. I stopped putting myself down and started complimenting myself more. I think and always have thought that what makes a woman beautiful isn’t her size, it’s how she exudes her individuality.

Let this be a lesson for all of us beautiful and amazing women, we’re more than a body. We’re a soul, intelligence, feelings, ideas, thoughts, creativity, and energy. The next time you feed yourself with your eyes, let it be with nutrients that are healthy for your mind!