Jayne Nisbet

Jayne Nisbet

Monday 13 October 2014

Being Your Best Version: Body Confidence

Being Your Best Version: 

What does this mean to you? What can it bring to you in terms of being true to yourself, being happy with yourself and living in complete contentment?
Let's be honest not many people can live in complete contentment but working towards this can be something that helps you think about your life goals.
How do you identify these? What happens when you achieve them? How do you know it's the right goal? How can this give you life satisfaction?

Being Your Best Version Then: What does this mean to you?

Think of you, as you imagine you would be as your happiest being, feeling satisfied with your life, satisfied and proud of where you have got to, what you have overcome to get there and excited for the future. Then think of the process of how you got there:
- What were your goals along the way?
- How did you achieve your goals?
- How many goals did you set in order to get to your chosen destination in life?
- How satisfied were you every time you reached a goal?

Everyone has a different best version, no one person can have the same vision and complete same set of values as anyone else, these are completely personal to you. So how can this give you body confidence?

By understanding "YOUR" best version and living true to you, you can live in complete satisfation that you are 100% working towards the life that you wanted and this gives you "happiness, confidence and power". Don't let "social media and societal views" determine Your Best Version! Create your vision, identify the steps to get there, and work towards this, in your time, in your way and be happy and confident in yourself, in your life and in your happiness.



Body Confidence Week: Finding Your Happy Self

Body Confidence Week was developed in response to a report from the All Party Parliamentary Group for Body Image, which highlighted that low body confidence is a critical public health issue, damaging lives and affecting more than 60% of the UK population. Body confidence, low self esteem and other mental health issues that can be developed from this is a massive rising problem in the UK.

With the rise of social media worldwide within the last 10 years, body image and confidence problems have risen drastically. In one hospital in London those being admitted to hospital for eating disorder related issues increased by 360% within the last 9 years! THIS IS A MASSIVE proportion. In the UK it is been advised that 1.6 million people admit to suffering with an eating disorder, but obviously the problem is much higher as there is thousands out there that do not have confidence to admit there is an issue.

What is the key to body confidence?
Having researched, from experience, talking to other individuals who suffer from body image problem, the key is find your happy self. This isn't necessarily just happy with how you look, this covers a wider concept of overall "well-being". Every aspect of your life can affect your body confidence:
- Job
- Friends
- Home Life
- Partner
- Stress Levels
- Illness (common colds - more severe illnesses)
- Body weight
- Body Shape
There are so many factors that can affect your overall body confidence.

This is from a government document on Body Confidence Week:

What causes low body confidence?

While popular culture is a key factor in body confidence, it does not explain why some people sustain resilience and confidence while others do not. There are a range of social, cultural, psychological and biological factors that influence body image – which is why the Body Confidence Campaign seeks to improve resilience and aspiration, as well as acting on harmful cultural messages.
 

Psychological Factors

Low Self-esteem

Depression

Perfectionism

Need for external approval

Body comparison tendencies

Internalisation of body ideals

Appearance schemas

Objectifying the body/embodiment

 

Socio-Cultural Factors: Cultural and social norms

Ideal image of beauty

Importance of meeting the ideal image
 

Transmitted through

Media

Parents

Peers

Professionals

 
Communication styles
Pressure to meet the ideal

Teasing and negative commentary

Suggesting ways to meet the ideal

Sexual objectification

Fat talk

Cyber-communication

 

Biological Factors - Genetic influences

Body size and shape

Rate of development

Perceptual distortions

 
Pubertal changes
Gender differentiation
Rate of development (breast development, body

Monday 6 October 2014

Your Journey through Perfectionism

In October 2010 I made a commitment to myself that I was going to adapt my life, sacrifice aspects of life, fully commit and overcome an eating disorder to enable me to perform to my complete maximum on August 1st 2014. What you don't prepare yourself for is how badly you want something, how it can affect your rhythm, how it can literally consume every second of everyday and this is what we need a better outlook on. The future, your journey, the beginning, the middle and moving forward.

On August 1st 2014 I committed and gave my whole prep, my whole body, my mind and wellbeing to competing in the Commonwealth Games Final 2014. I should of been in this situation almost 4 years earlier in Delhi, but I wasn't because as I have openly admitted I was recognising and in the midst of recovery from an Eating Disorder. On Saturday 4th October I had the opportunity to stand up in front of England Athletics high jump coaches to share my story to raise awareness, try to identify how to deal with this topic and moving forward reduce the prevalence.

A topic I identified as being a characteristic trait and personality trait that will consume athletes to being at risk of developing disordered eating and body image issues is, "perfectionism". What does it take to be a high level athlete? Every elite athlete has the extremes to ensure their lives are completely driven towards one direction, one goal. This is not normal human behaviour in terms of what you will put your body, your mind and your life through. Perfectionism comes into many different factors: how you look, how your training looks, is your body right, is your training right, have you maximised your lifestyle. Therefore this heightens your arousal of ensuring every little aspect of your life in perfect - slightly like an ocd disorder. But is this actually neccesary?

What does perfect mean? Who has the perfect life and or perfect training programme? Having the "perfect" body shape isn't the be all and end all and I think this is what now needs to be portrayed into the sporting light. I am a 5ft 7 (1.71cm) slightly curvier than other female high jumpers, shorter too and I still managed to jump 16cm over my head height and reach commonwealth games final. Look at Jessica Ennis: 5ft 5 and Jumps 1.95m! So yes physical leanness and good body-weight to strength ratio is key, but you have to look at the overall picture. For example my best jump of the year came in February 2014 when I was 3kg heavier than I was in June 2014. So we need to identify and rationalise our perfection drivers. Not diminish that "perfectionism" isn't essential towards performance, but use "perfectionism" in a different manner. Use perfectionism to enable the athletes to get the "perfect" athlete/social life/work life/future career balance, use perfectionism to help prepare a pathway for every athlete to have something else is it all goes wrong. I have seen too many athletes get a career threatening injury and there is nothing in place for them to go from full time athlete to getting a job that will propel them forward in the future.

Topic for discussion and a topic to think about. How does perfectionism affect you and or your athletes.