O
Over the past few
years, the movement to
encourage women to
celebrate their bodies- no matter their size
or shape – has picked
up serious steam. Tune
in to social media and
you’ll see women are
so frickin’ over body-
shaming. Instead,
they’re rallying behind
body-positive celebs
like Lena Dunham
and Aussie Insta stars
Georgia Gibbs and
Kate Wasley. Earlier
this year, the Bondi
BFFs behind the
account @any.body_co
made headlines when
they hit back against
negative comments
on a photo of them
together, and have
continued to champion
different shapes
and sizes. “There’s
still a long way to go,
but we’ve seen the
beginning of a shift,”
says psychologist
Melanie Schilling. To
dig deeper, we rallied
all the Women’s Health
teams around the
world to ask women
how they feel about
their bodies. Now the
stats are in. Here, the
Aussie outlook – plus
how it compares to
the rest of the globe.
Aussie women dig
the body positivity
movement (53 per
cent say they’re
grateful for it) but
only a small fraction
(16 per cent) report
actually feeling
‘positive’ about
their own bodies.
Far more said they
feel ‘accepting or
neutral’. The results
were the same in
every country, with
the exception of the
Netherlands, where
a slight majority
ticked the ‘positive’
box. “Dutch women
focus more on their
progress instead
of the end result,”
says Milou Turpijn,
Editor-in-Chief of
WH Netherlands.
“We also try not to
focus too much on
others, which makesour perception of
ourselves and our
goals more realistic.”
So, what does
‘accepting’ our
bodies really mean?
According to Pru,
38, “It means that,
while it took me
a long time to come
to terms with my
post-baby body,
now I see it created
a child and that’s
amazing! Every
day I become
more comfortable.”
Schilling is
encouraged by the
result. “‘Accepting’ is
a powerful attitude,”
she says. “It’s not
‘my body is good
or bad’ but ‘this is
my body’. It takes
the judgement out,
which, from a self-
esteem perspective,
is really positive.”Gaining acceptance
THE BEST WAY TO
DESCRIBE MY
FEELINGS ABOUT
MY BODY IS...16%
63%
Body positive.
I love the way
my body looks.Accepting or
neutral. I may
not love my
body, but
I accept it.21%
Negative. I am
really unhappy
with the way my
body looks.The percentage
of Aussie women
who walk around
naked at home.51
Good news as we
rack up the candles:
half of us feel more
body confident in
2017 than we did
four years ago, with
77 per cent saying
it’s because their
self-image has
improved with age.
“When I do get ‘soft
around the middle’
I know it doesn’t
define me,” says
Amanda, 45. “I write
a daily list of things
I love about myself
and most aren’t
about looks. My
sense of self grows
every year.” Can we
get a ‘heck yeah’?PHOTOGRAPHY: TRUNK ARCHIVE/SNAPPER MEDIA; GETTY IMAGES; STOCKSY; COURTESY OF TEN; SIMON FITZPATRICK PHOTOGRAPHY86