This might shock you. According to the National Institute on Media and the Family, 78% of girls are unhappy with their bodies by the time they reach age 17. The majority of these girls will spend their entire adult lives having low body confidence.
Your Partner’s Body Confidence Matters
How many times has your partner indicated she’s not happy in her body? In other words, expressing low body confidence.
Maybe she’s been on the dieting hamster wheel for years. Maybe she looks in the mirror and comments on how ‘fat’ or ‘ugly’ she thinks she looks. Maybe she’s considered cosmetic procedures to try and ‘fix’ her perceived flaws.
Not only does low body confidence wear her down emotionally, if you’re like most men it feels frustrating to see the woman you love feel this way. Moreover, it could even be wearing on your relationship and ultimately your own confidence.
Certainly in terms of your sex life, but also in terms of your ability to enjoy life with your partner.
Imagine how much happier life would be if she was finally able to look in the mirror and feel good. How much more fun you’ll both have when she stops constantly worrying about how she looks. And how amazing you’ll feel when you support and encourage her in achieving this.
Well, bro. I’m here to tell you this is entirely possible.
After a 10-year eating disorder and many more years of self-abuse, I finally achieved the body confidence I had been craving through a series of simple but powerful rebellious acts.
And now I’m here to share these with you—so you can help your partner do the same.
Why She Has Low Body Confidence
Before I share these tools, it’s important to understand why your partner has low body confidence, so you can help her navigate the hang ups that keep her (and you) feeling stuck.
Every. Single. Day. We are inundated with BS (beliefs and stories) from the media, the diet industry and even our own friends and family that tell us we’re ‘not good enough’.
Not pretty enough. Not slim enough. Not curvy enough…you fill in the blank.
These beliefs and stories become embedded into our subconscious belief system over time, to the point where they don’t feel like stories any more. This gets reinforced by our own inner ‘mean girl’ voice, who likes to shame and judge us about our bodies.
Therefore, the challenges we face when it comes to reclaiming body confidence are to turn our backs on the people and products selling the idea of ‘not good enough,’ while learning how to silence our own inner mean girl.
Rewrite The Story
Just like we can choose what we wear in the morning, we can choose what thoughts we have. Choosing to rewrite our negative stories into positive stories that elevate our body confidence allows us to gradually move away from all the BS.
For example, when my client Hannah* (not her real name) first came to me, she had a story about ‘her saggy boobs,’ and felt like she needed plastic surgery like her friends. She was in a constant state of comparison with other women, living with crippling anxiety about showing her body to her partner.
We got to work on her stories.
After six months, Hannah was grateful for her natural, healthy, incredible body that produced her son. She didn’t need surgery, she stopped the endless worrying, and began to exude body confidence.
I used to tell myself a story that I wasn’t ‘pretty enough,’ which resulted in me never wanting to have my picture taken.
Once I learned to consistently choose to tell myself I had beautiful eyes and a nice smile, I was able to relax and actually have my picture taken with my husband. The result? A family album filled with many happy memories!
By now you’re starting to see how empowering rewriting our stories can be.
Be Her Cheer Squad
Rewriting stories to improve our body confidence is a game-changer, but requires patience, practice and consistency.
It also requires support. In times when the old negative stories feel very real and the new ones false, your partner is going to need someone there helping her. This is where you can come in on your white horse and provide that shoulder for her to rest on.
Sometimes that is literally what’s needed. Other times, she may need words of encouragement, and still other times she’ll need some quality time with you.
Knowing what to do or say when she’s going through this life-changing body confidence transformation can be tricky, so I’ve created a way to keep it simple.
The Self Love Language Method
My NEW Self Love Language Quiz™️ will quickly show you easy and effective ways to help your partner feel loved and supported whilst she reclaims her body confidence.
In five minutes, you’ll discover whether words of affirmation will help her feel good in her body, or if physical touch is more her style.
Click here to discover her Self Love Language. Whilst you’re there, take the quiz for yourself for ideas on how to boost your own body confidence.
Body Confidence Pep Talk
We are all born with the ability to have body confidence. Over time, external and internal BS causes us to lose this. In the same way your confidence level is paramount when you decide to grow long hair, your partner’s body confidence is critical when choosing to feel good in her body.
In the end it’s not a matter of achieving body confidence—it’s actually a matter of reclaiming it—which is entirely possible using the powerful tools I’m sharing.
Not only will they help your partner finally feel good about herself, it’ll also benefit your own confidence, and ultimately your happiness in your relationship.
Expert Nutritionist Lizzy Cangro
Connect
nutritionbylizzy.com
Reclaim The Rebel
Lizzy’s beautiful new book helps women reclaim their body confidence using 12 rebellious acts in their nutrition, movement and mindset.
A wonderful gift for a loved one, or for yourself—to better understand and support the women in your life.
What men are saying about Reclaim the Rebel:
‘As a husband, father, and teacher of adolescent girls, it offers me a fresh perspective on the trials and travails that many face.’
‘I absolutely adored the book. Lizzy does a wonderful job walking the reader through an improvement process that has a proven track record of helping women. I'm purchasing more to have on hand as gifts to the wonderful women in my life.’
‘This is such an important and easy to read book! The author shares her own personal journey to self-love and empowerment and gives you all the tools for you to reclaim your true self back.’
Comments
I appreciate the Longhairs sharing this about women and body image issues, and also appreciate the comments calling out the somewhat careless suggestion or implication that the Longhairs cares more about straight people than LGBTQ+ people. As a straight man (with long hair!) in a long-term relationship with a woman who deals with powerful and difficult body image stuff, this post felt supportive and encouraging to me to make sure I am exercising compassion toward my partner. I would also be glad to see guest blog posts expressing that same support and love toward people with different sexual orientations, gender identities, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and all the gamut of human experience. I know I felt and feel I found something special when I discovered the Longhairs in 2020, and I believe y’all have a great mission and that you’re coming from the best intentions with your hearts in the right place. That’s not an excuse to make careless assumptions about your audience, but also it’s not possible to make everyone happy all the time. That’s what business is and life is, make decisions, do what makes sense, make mistakes, learn, and do the next thing. I love the Longhairs. Keep fighting the good fight ❤️
I think it’s unfair of commenters to use such harsh words/thoughts as “disgusting “ and “tact[less”].
The article is about body confidence. A majority of women (78%!) experience poor body confidence at a young age. Also even while it may not be fair to assume every man has a female partner, that situation still represents a majority in the US (at least 93%!). Any media producer is going to occasionally create content that a majority of their viewers can relate to; it just makes the most sense.
Really appreciate everyone sharing their experiences and thoughts. These are all super important topics of discussion and points being raised. Everyone’s journey and life experience is unique and I can only share my experience from my perspective and what helped me (and the others I have helped). I’m not going to pretend to speak for all people, groups and experiences. And it would be irresponsible for me to think otherwise. Because achieving a world where people feel confident in their bodies is a HUGE collective effort. However, the topics I cover in this post; of the love languages, re-writing our stories, are applicable to many of us, don’t you agree?
I agree here that love languages move universally in all types of relationships. The 5 Love Languages is a classic and another recommendation for another book is Leo Buscaglia’s Love. It takes a bit of work on our end if we need to update the premise or context to 2022 and beyond but the message and intent is there to help our relationships and connections.
Great point, El Garvinski! Everyone can learn from the love languages.
for everyone who want have 300 lb weight when he is 60, the better way: at 15, weight 90lb and, as you want go to 85 lb, you begin the restricting diets
dear Lizzy,
you got the chance getting comprehensive med dr as you got eating disorder
40 years ago, my girlfriend suffered from anorexia nervous, and ended up in psychiatry; the treatment consisted of stuffing the patients with rewards based on weight gain, and I was reduced to one of these rewards (1kg for a visit); 6 months later, I said the auferstehen on her coffin
so i claim that the first treatment is your love, for your gf and her body, as she is !!! as Annie said me ” you haven’t to love me for i can’t give you what a husband has right from his wife”, my answer was : let us give each other what we can offer
and i pray the Lord for the psy md begin asking why a patient doesn’t accept herself, or if an anorexia is alimentary or a reproducing capacity destruction, and the origin of the disorder !!!
and the training therapies are now abandoned !!!! ( they killed so much patients, from alcoholics to gender dysphoric or homosexuals !!!!!!!!!!!)
Love is so important, Chamane. Thank you for sharing your story. We are so sorry to hear about your girlfriend.
My apologies but I do not understand how this is supposed to help me identify my love language when the majority of the questions have no appealing answers. This seems to be pretty biased in favor of stereotyped cis straight white women, not anyone else.
Love is not biased and neither are the questions in the quiz. (I think that’s the questions you are referring to)
If you want to go DEEP on the love languages I would recommend checking out the book The 5 Love Languages. I actually just finished reading it and it was awesome. Helped me to figure out my own love language.
Why should my partner necessarily by a woman? It’s 2022, bros, for god’s sake.
You make a good point. We’ll be more thoughtful.
What if my partner is a male?
The default that every man has a female partner is disgusting.
Have a little tact longhairs. It’s 2022. Not every relationship is Man + Woman.
Point taken Mike. We’ll be more tactful.
I hear ya Mike. This post is just more focused on the man + woman relationship from the voice of a woman. The love languages apply to all relationships though, not specifically to one type. We’d love to hear if you think any different. We’re always looking for guest contributors as well if you have a perspective you’d like to share on the blog.