Hi Warriors! We have a special guest on the blog today, Kayla Myers! She is currently Miss Northeast Indiana 2024 and the founder of Choose Health. I hope you enjoy her post as much as I did! Thank you Kayla for coming onto the Warrior Blog! Without further ado:
Kayla Myers, Miss Northeast Indiana 2024: My (Ongoing) Body Image Journey
Body image is a part of each and every one of our identities–whether our body image is positive, neutral or negative. This is something I didn’t realize until I was older but when I reflect back on my life, I can clearly see the seeds that were planted early on. As a child, my family referred to me as a “bag of bones” or “skinny mini”. Constant comments were made about how I could eat whatever I wanted and not gain a pound. What most people missed during this time was the SECRECY and unhealthy relationship I had with food as a way to cope and seek out comfort amongst the chaos of my abusive household. Body image and food are so intertwined and it creates a really difficult road to recovery since food is a basic human need. It’s not like many substances or things that people have unhealthy relationships with–you can’t simply get rid of it. I have vivid memories of bringing 15-20 fruit roll ups (throwback to the best snack ever) or fruit snacks to elementary school and eating them all in one sitting. Food was comfort and safety. It was also something I could control.
Fast forward to my freshman year of high school, I decided I was going to try out for cheerleading after looking up to my neighbor for years and admiring the stunts and tumbling skills. This sport taught me to be a leader, but it also created an internal battle with my body image. After making the team, the coaches assigned me to be a flyer, which is the person others lift up. I LOVED the thrill of flying through the air. There was no feeling like it. But that feeling came with a big price to pay. My bases would often make comments that I was “heavy” and would complain about having to lift me up. I will never forget the sting of their words as I heard the bases call me and other flyers a “fat cow”. These may have been the joking words of high school girls, but these words weighed heavily on me. For the first time I started to question my body image. I found myself making negative comments to myself in the mirror, blaming stunts falling on my weight rather than incorrect form of the stunt group, restricting my food, and doom scrolling on social media each night as I looked at the thigh gaps, visible hip bones and collar bones, and long legs glorified all over instagram.
My body image shifted from something I didn’t really spend time thinking about, to an incredibly negative perspective–dare I say hatred towards my body–that consumed my mind nearly all day. This self-hatred was rooted in comparison. The comparison to an unattainable societal beauty ideal. Comparison to highly edited photos. It weighed so heavily on me for years. Being surrounded by social media and my unhealthy relationship with food for comfort and a coping skill took over my life in the form of obsessing over calories, working out excessively with the sole purpose of burning calories and to “fix my body”, and developing a full blown eating disorder. I felt so alone because it was so shameful to talk about body image issues or mental health. It was something that society told you to keep a SECRET.
These SECRETS are what took over my life and stole my joy. It wasn’t until I ASKED FOR HELP that I was able to work towards healing and mending the relationship I had with myself and my body. Many people think healing is like a light switch, where you can get help and flip the switch from negativity to positivity. I have memories of trying to switch to a body positivity stance, but it felt wrong for me at the time. I didn’t believe it when I forced myself to go from saying “I hate my body” to “I love my body”. Now I acknowledge everyone may benefit from different strategies which is why we need to work to improve our relationship with ourselves. That being said, I still wanted to share the number one tip that helped me create a healthy relationship with my body image. It’s called BODY NEUTRALITY and BODY FUNCTIONALITY. Rather than forcing myself to say “I love my body” when I simply was not ready to say that, I instead asked myself to think about all the things my body does for me. My body gets me through long days. My body allows me to walk. My body can run. My body keeps up with the little kiddos who I run a soccer program with–and boy do those kiddos move fast. My body gets me up and down my three flights of stairs each day, walks across campus, and gets me through challenging workouts. My body recovers after sleep, my brain remembers 100’s of names, and my eyes allow me to see and appreciate the beauty around me. All of these are FACTS, they are NEUTRAL, and they focus on the daily FUNCTIONS that my body gets me through. After consciously and intentionally shifting my thinking to what my body CAN DO rather than how it LOOKS, my body image changed dramatically. Over time, I developed an immense appreciation for my body.
Your negative self-talk will try to sneak up on you sometimes, but when you can recognize that negative self-talk for what it is and challenge it with evidence, like one of the facts about what your body can do, it holds a lot of power. Over time, we can change the way our brain thinks and essentially reprogram it to focus on the facts, neutral statements, and eventually progress our way to appreciation and positivity. This progression won’t always be linear. Some days you will feel like you took a step back, but just know that you don’t have to keep these days a SECRET. Keeping my struggles a secret caused me to fall worse into my depression, eating disorder, and negative body image. You don’t need to struggle alone. I PROMISE (and I don’t break my promises) that others can relate to the body image challenges. I encourage you to find your person you can confide in, whether that be a counselor, mentor, family member, or a friend. Just know that you are not alone and I am here for you <3
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