Cristi Johnson

Recently, I had the pleasure of speaking to a local teenage Girl Scout troop, and the amount of hope they gave me for the future of women’s self image was promising. It appeared to me that the attitudes of these young women were advanced in a positive mindset when compared to the generations who have come before them.

You see, as a certified personal trainer, I have conversations with women far too often that absolutely break my heart. The things these full grown women say about themselves are self deprecating at best. Sometimes, they mutter a negative quip about their appearance as a joke. Sometimes, they say it with a hopelessness hiding in the back of their voice. Sometimes, they are just plain cruel to themselves, aloud for the world to hear.

The underlying problem of the way that we speak to and about ourselves, is that negative self-talk resonates far deeper into our subconscious than most of us realize. The comments about being “flabby”, “lazy”, “out of shape” or “gross” start to stack, even when that is not our intention. Negative self-talk can make you feel stressed, sad, and even lead to depression. So that little “joke” you’ve made about yourself? It’s not very funny in the long run.

One big difference between the generational attitude toward body neutrality (or positivity) is the shift we have seen in influences, trends and messaging over the last few years. These teens are growing up with Olympic superstars who are not afraid to talk about self confidence, show fellow competitors love, and most impressively openly oppose the critics who are bold enough to attack them on social media. The likes of Simone Biles, Illona Maher, Alysa Liu and Eileen Gu are encouraging women to not only participate in sports, but to dominate in the fields that they love. They are inspired to elevate their voices, set boundaries and do things on their own terms rather than subscribe to a life where coaches act as puppet masters.

When I spoke with the Girl Scouts, my intention was to help them reframe how they saw themselves as athletes. To give them the advice, I often need to give my new clients such advice also, such as to stop worrying about your size, and instead focus on getting strong or not to use shame as a motivator, but instead it became apparent that they did not need that kind of reframing.

These young ladies were proud of the sports that they played and instead were more curious about how sleep, nutrition and stretching affects their performance. Instead of discussing how they could trim their waistlines, they asked questions about hydration, and I was able to educate them about the effects of drinking water vs fueling with energy drinks. It was such a breath of fresh air.

I don’t bring this up as a dig on Boomers, Gen X or Millennials, we were dealt a very different hand than the young ladies I spoke with earlier this week. Our generations were finding our way in the world during a time when corporations became aware of how much money they could make by marketing to our insecurities, and boy, they went after us hard. There were oodles of magazines touting photos of perfectly healthy women with accompanying headlines that read

things like “Is (random celebrity) Letting Herself Go?” and pages of snake oil packaged as articles on “The Miracle Grapefruit Diet!” that in truth, only destroyed our metabolism.

As a teen in the 90’s you could not escape the pressure of exposing your navel or comparing oneself to models like Kate ‘Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’ Moss. And this problem was not exclusively female. To this day there are still men suffering from eating disorders who are aspiring to have the same body as Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Even Brad Pitt doesn’t have that body anymore! So please, let’s give ourselves a little grace in that arena. Now that we know better, it’s time for us to treat ourselves better.

Certainly, I’m not under the impression that we live in a perfectly healed utopian world that no longer preys on our insecurities, but it’s worth recognizing organizations like the Girl Scouts who are helping build the confidence of young women so they can live a better life than we had. And the girls themselves should be commended for tuning out the nonsense; there’s just so much of it! We really could learn a thing or two from them.

So I invite you to challenge yourself. Over the course of the next 7 days, when speaking about yourself, try to use neutral or positive comments only. If you choose to exercise, and I hope you do, don’t use shame as a motivator. “I’m lazy and need to do a workout” isn’t nearly as effective as “Hey, let’s get up and take care of our body. We’ll feel so much better afterward.”

In short, the more you talk to yourself the same way you would talk to your best friend or child, the better. You may find out that with kindness, your potential is limitless.