Women's Fitness

September2016 |womensfitness.co.uk 59

‘New statis tics show

that feeling bad about

their bodies prevented

a third of women in

Britain from applying

for a promotion’

W

e allhave bad body days

but whether youwish you

were taller or had slimmer

legs or a smaller bottom constantly

picking yourself apart can really

knock yo ur self-esteem.

New researchcarried out by Weight

Watchers reveals that over half of

the women quizzed whowere aged

between 18 and 30 struggled with

confidence and 58 per cent of women

admitted their body is the main areaof

concern. ‘The re are so many pressures

that women feel today when it comes

to body image with peer pressure from

friends or colleagues whoseemto

have better bodies making a person

with already lowself-esteem feel even

worse. The media perpetuating images

of flawless celebrities addsmore

pressure cultivating an unrealistic

idea of beautiful. There is also much to

blame on social media as many

women struggle to look at

photographs of themselvesand be

happy’ says body-imagecounsellor

Antonia Mariconda.

BODY LOVE

Lacking body confidence can

massively set you backin al l areasof

life. New statistics show that feeling

bad about their bodies prevented a

third of women in Britain from applying

for a pay rise or promotion as they

thought they’d be overlookeddespite

being more than qualified for the job. In

addition 15 per cent of participants

said that they would advise a friend or

family member to have cosmetic

surgery to change a part of their body

to make them feel less self-conscious.

Dislike what you see in the mirror?

You’re not alone. Forty-one per cent

cited their stomachs astheir main

problem area and more than 26 per

cent of respondents said general body

self-consciousness affected their

social life. Plus more than 27 per

cent said the greatestconcernsin

their daily life were their love life and

how attractive they felt.

‘This research doesnot surprise

me’ says Antonia. ‘Thereis big

competiti on out there with the likes

of social media superstars and

flawless celebrities constantly looking

fantastic in style inshape and in love

with their life. In reality that is not us

and to a la rge ex tent that is also not

them. There is much tweaking filtering

and Photoshopping going on behind

those insta-perfect snaps that you

don’t necessarily know about.’

BEAUTY FROM WITHIN

It sounds like acliché but beauty really

doescome from the inside. Nobody

is perfect and a slim body alone

doesn’t make awoman beautiful. If

you feel good about yourself on the

inside you’ ll naturally radiate beauty.

Rather than concentrating on your

appearance remember that your body

gives you the physical strength to

be the person you are. And let’s not

forget there’s only one of you so why

would you want to look like anyone

else? ‘Inthe real world we have to

accept what we have and learn how to

make it work for us. Confidence is

beauty. I have seen average-looking

girls have the world at their feet simply

because they didn’t let their looks skin

or weight dominate their ambitions or

passion for life’ reveals Antonia.

We want you to feel strong healthy

and body-bold so we’ve decided to

tackle insecurities head-on. Take our

body-confidence quiz and read the

expert tips to help you feel happy

with what you see in the mirror.