Bathing Suit Season: Repenting for Winter’s Sins 
By Monica A. Dixon, Ph.D., R.D
It’s finally June in the Northwest, and with the first long days of sunshine and picnics until 10 PM comes the bloodcurdling screams from changing rooms across the land as women enter the “bathing suit zone.” For many women, a visit to the local hospital’s morgue holds more interest than the annual mecca to buy a bathing suit.
Here, women come face to face with the sins of a long, rainy winter. Too much cheesecake, schedules that practically require the fast food drive-thru, and too much rain to exercise all convene with gruesome horror in the three-way mirror. Within moments, our entire lives, all the positive impact we’ve had on our world, the children we’ve raised, the friends we’ve laughed with boil down into one ugly apex: the size of our thighs.
The shame that comes with negative feelings about our bodies can become a giant obstacle to feelings of self-worth and happiness about our lives. This shame sometimes becomes so strong that women believe they are bad or inferior in other facets of their lives. Fat thighs quickly escalate into lazy, irresponsible, unworthy of love, stupid or any other myriad of failures our minds can create.
One of shame’s greatest tragedies is that it often rears its ugly head to destroy the vital connections between women’s mind and body. Shame can dull our senses and not allow us to see, touch, and feel the world as it truly is, in all its wonder and glory. Negative feelings about one’s body will not allow us to enjoy the splendor of our sexuality, the bounty of the female body or the richness in connection and relationship with others.
My experience is that women who maintain a negative view of their bodies practice little self-care. It is analogous to owning a car. If we own a new car and are making payments on it, we garage it, clean it frequently, take it in for timely service and fill it with high octane fuel. On the other hand, if our car is a “junker,” it’s left in the driveway, serviced only when absolutely necessary and filled with low-grade fuel and oil. We jump in it in the morning and rev it up, expecting it to get us through the day without a hitch.
The same is true of our bodies. Fed poorly and uncared for, we expect that it will perform at optimal levels to get us through our days. We give to everyone else and flop into bed with half done to-do lists, oblivious that our bodies need the utmost care in order to accomplish our goals.
The answer? Stop this very moment and take a long, forgiving look at your body. Thank it graciously for the hell you have put it through, the nights it has gone without sleep, the babies it has delivered, the garbage food you’ve fed it, the stress it holds for you during your long days. Tell it that you are ready to care for it, to move it as it needs to be moved, to welcome it as you would a dear friend, to feed it with the fuel it needs to prosper and survive your long days, to love it just the way it looks today.
Then make a commitment from this day on that you will begin to listen to it, not ignore it. That you will listen; to your stomach when it growls, to your thirst when it needs quenching, to your yawns when tiredness overwhelms your bones, to your heart when it needs loving. And begin to act upon the messages you receive. Body disgust serves to disconnect us from our most important element; our bodies. Your body is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life, isn’t it time you called it home?