Successful Body Imaging

Successful businesses understand the value of a good image. Marketers spend endless hours developing a brand and promoting it. Healthy skin is your brand promotion for good health. It is your wellness image-maker.

First Impressions

Estimates are it only takes three seconds to create a first impression. In building a business relationship, that time is critical to success. From your outward appearance to your handshake, your skin is your image of health – inside and out. Good skin care propels your image of vitality and health. It partners with good nutrition, fitness, and brain health to become the wrapping on overall health. 

Take Care of the Wrapping

Most people do not think about their skin as an organ, but it is the largest organ in the body. It is the body’s protection against the environment and the wrapping on the amazing sense of touch. To keep this vital organ functioning at its best, here are a few tips for taking care of your skin.

Be sun-smart: Sunlight is important for the production of Vitamin D, which occurs when sunlight touches your skin. Vitamin D helps prevent osteoporosis and other diseases, as shown in recent studies. One, reported in Harvard Health Publications, revealed researchers found evidence that Vitamin D could help reduce the risk of breast cancer. Another study described in the Archives of Internal Medicine, showed individuals with low levels of Vitamin D have an increased risk for heart attacks. Like most things in life, too much of a good thing eliminates the benefit. Wear protective clothing and sunscreen, especially between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and be sun-smart.

Be smoke-free: We all know about the risk of cancer from smoking. Like the lungs, smoking chokes the life out of your skin. It narrows blood vessels, depleting the skin of oxygen and nutrients. Smoking also damages the skin through its negative effect on collagen and elastin, which often results in wrinkles.

Be stress-free: Although stress-free is an elusive target for most businesswomen, you owe it to your overall health to find ways to reduce stress. Your skin will thank you for it. Stress aggravates skin conditions, such as acne, psoriasis and rosacea. The American Academy of Dermatology reported that stress can even impair skin barrier function, which allows infection and other irritants to enter the skin.  

Be gentle: Your skin can be a fragile wrapping. Use mild soaps, take care when shaving, and refrain from long showers that wash away too much of the good oils from your skin.

Let your healthy skin glow and see how your image sparkles.

6 Body Image and Posture Building Tips

Whether you are an avid athlete or a chronic couch potato, this fairly easy dietary regimen should give you a good push in the right direction. Pair it with some regular exercise and a positive attitude, and you could be well on your way to the best shape of your life!

Tip #1: Give up soda.
It's true soda is full of empty calories. Sure, it may help you to stay awake at work, but it can also corrode your teeth and increase your waistline's girth without warning. Sugary drinks impact the acidity of saliva, which quickly increases the likelihood of cavities. Furthermore, continuous consumption of soda and other super-sugary beverages can impact your digestive process.

If you can't give up soda, at least decrease the amount of soda that you drink in a given day. Try to treat soda as just that a treat. Have one glass a day with lunch or dinner, and drink ice water or spring water for the remainder of the day. Water is great for your body, helps to flush out toxins, and keeps you hydrated. That's a lot more than we can say for soda!

Tip #2: Pass up salty, greasy fast food.
Believe me, as a French fry-aholic, I feel your pain. As a cross country runner in high school, I gave up eating fast food at all my favorite chain restaurants. I don't think I ate a single French fry or chicken McNugget for six months or more. And how could I forget, when my running season was over and I indulged myself in an Extra Value Meal, my stomach cried out in pain for all the greasy chow dumped into it after months on a healthy diet.

Again, if you can't give up the fast food, try to limit the amount you consume. You can pair your cheeseburgers with salads or fruit cup, or, you can consider switching to a healthier alternative like a deli sandwich or wrap.

Tip #3: Shut out the sugar.
Like I should talk here, being a self-proclaimed chocoholic. But without a doubt, I eat five or ten times as much candy now as I did during my high school sports seasons. Now, ten years later it is ten times tougher to prevent those sugar calories from sticking on my tummy, legs, and hips. What's a girl to do?

During those months of training for my races, I gave up ice cream and 90 percent of the candy I used to eat. I also chowed down on healthier snacks, like carrot sticks and crackers when I got hungry. Try cutting out the majority of your sweet indulgences and treat yourself to just one (OK, or two) sugary treats a day. A small candy bar, a single brownie, two cookies give yourself a limit and stick to it. If you feel especially motivated and determined, try to give up the sugary snacks completely for a few days a week.

Tip #4: Stop eating before bed.
Without a doubt, eating and sleeping should not go together as blissfully as they do. Eating makes us feel full and being full is akin to satisfied. Satisfied equals comfortable, and comfortable often leads right to sleep. But, if you limit yourself to eating dinner and all snacks prior to a certain time, you can help prevent those extra pounds from sneaking on late at night.

Sure, it's all right to get a midnight snack once in a while, or to indulge at a friend's party or other social engagement. The big idea is to work out a routine of eating before it gets to be late at night. Stick to the schedule as best as you can, and be sure to eat three balanced meals a day.

Tip #5: Exercise!
Adhering to the right kind of diet should help you initially, but exercise does the body good in so many ways. Whether you like to walk, jog, run, bike, swim, go to the gym, or do exercise videos, exercise is critical to keeping your body in the kind of shape you crave. Fitness is good for your body, mind, and soul. Paired with the right kind of diet, a regular regimen of exercise can really work wonders on any body!

Remember, everybody's body is different. What works for me may not work as well for you, and vice versa. Whatever the case, cutting some of the sugary sodas out of your diet and working out on a regular basis should bring positive results.

Consult your physician before attempting any rigorous dietary routines or dietary supplements.

How to improve your body image?

Most of us are glad to live in a multicultural society, valuing the freedom to live how we choose. We like to think we are open-minded, civilized, and tolerant of customs,beliefs, and choices.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where women often have a distorted view of their bodies. They look in the mirror and only see flaws—that they're too fat, their breasts are the wrong size, thighs or arms are not firm enough, or their nose is too big. Many spend considerable amounts of time and money on products that promise to magically make them look better and younger, all with little to no success. This is not a new phenomenon. While true that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, historically, women have gone to extremes to attain perceived beauty, some of which today could be considered torture.

History of Body Image Issues

Egyptian Queens bathed in milk, outlined their eyes with soot and kept their teeth white by cleaning them with baby urine. Parents of female infants in higher social classes of China would shape their daughters feet by cutting and binding them in order to achieve a dainty “lotus” foot. The ideal foot size was about 4 inches, so to achieve this, the four toes were broken and curled under the ball of the foot as far as they could reach toward the heel, bandaged and tightened over time. The natural foot was considered a social stigma, preventing girls from marrying into a higher social class.

Instead of the lead-based cosmetics used by the English Tudor women, Edwardian women found arsenic gave their skin a luminous transparency and deadly nightshade enlarged their pupils and brightened their eyes. Unfortunately this beauty regime contributed to their young deaths.

In Victorian England, the ideal body shape was plump and full figured. In order to achieve this, a corset was worn to make the waist smaller and sometimes increase the bust. From age 4 onwards, girls wore a bodice that was gradually tightened and lengthened so that by the time they were teenagers, they were unable to sit or stand without a corset reinforced with whale bone or steel. Often they would be laced and pulled so tight it was impossible to take a normal breath. Over time these corsets shifted and compressed internal organs, pulled lower ribs together, sometimes overlapping. During pregnancy these women risked the lives of their children and themselves. Some women went as far as having their lower ribs removed, a cosmetic surgical practice still done today!

In the 1920s, women bound their breasts to achieve a waif-like profile. Starlets had their wisdom teeth removed to achieve hollow cheeks. By the 1950s, the full figure was back in vogue but by the 1960s, slim was back in. 

In some cultures women still stretch their earlobes, sometimes down to their shoulders, and adorn them with beads and earrings. Also, lips are supported and stretched by metal rings during childhood and the larger the lip plate, the more beautiful a girl is considered. Necks are also stretched by gradually dislocating cervical vertebrae from adding iron rings to achieve a 'giraffe' neck. Girls still undergo female circumcision in order to prepare them for marriage, believing that without this procedure no man would find them attractive. 

Today's Culture

Body image has always played a big part in our society, but health should be the first priority. Healthy bodies come in all shapes and sizes. We have to set realistic goals for healthy weight and support each other by tuning out the media and societal hype about “the perfect body”. 

Today there are many cosmetic procedures available to 'fix your flaws'. Women subject themselves to Botox injections and bee venom as 'quick fixes'. What these fixes do is actually poison parts of your body such as muscles and nerves, by deadening them. As well, some risk their health to opt for surgical procedures, having things removed and inserting artificial chemicals such as plastic and silicone to create permanent changes.

Aging is a natural process and it is amazing how a healthy lifestyle minimizes the effects of time. If you need to lose weight, the healthy and most successful long- term solution is to do it gradually. Being overweight or obese is linked to many diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and breast cancer. More worrisome is that obesity among kids has more than doubled in recent years, and the numbers are still growing. There is no magic solution or pill available that will produce long-lasting results. Liposuction might provide a 'quick fix' but often it results in abnormal appearances in the area where the procedure occurred. Eating properly and exercising regularly is the only road to permanent weight loss and effective maintenance.

Having an eating disorder is also a health concern. Many women struggle with eating disorders, such as anorexia or bulimia, with an increasing number fighting binge-eating disorders and exercising compulsively. These disorders often result in serious long-term health problems and are difficult to treat because of negative perceptions a person develops. Often this is aggravated by pressures from the media, friends, family and society. The death rate related to eating disorders is high, especially for women between 15 and 24 years old.

Changing your body image means changing the way you think about your body. Instead of looking for every minute potential flaw, look for the good things. What do people compliment you most on? Accentuate those features. Exercise regularly and do something you enjoy and in no time you will notice that you have more energy, your body is more flexible and you will feel better about yourself and the world.Exercising for 20 or 30 minutes every day will also go a long way to improve your overall health.

Having a healthy body image means you feel good inside your own skin. Make healthy lifestyle choices and strive for a positive attitude Stop torturing yourself and learn to appreciate and enjoy the uniqueness of who you are!