The messages GenX women need to hear about their bodies

By Niki Bezzant*

Opinion - Do GenX women have the worst relationships with our bodies of any generation? It's a huge generalisation, but I reckon there's something to it.

GenX women - born between 1965 and 1980 - were children in the 70s, teens in the 80s and young adults in the 90s. Growing up in that particular time zone, we have been subject to some seriously toxic inputs when it comes to body image and beauty standards - and those inputs have influenced how we think and feel about ourselves, in ways that can be really hard to shake.

I meet women every day, in my work on menopause and midlife health education, who speak about their own bodies in ways that are harsh, judgmental and really, really negative. It goes back, I reckon, to our childhoods.

The 1970s saw the birth, really, of Big Diet culture. Weight Watchers reached our shores in 1972, followed by a never-ending succession of other diets ranging from faddish - remember your mum doing the Grapefruit Diet or the Cabbage Soup Diet? - to those that had a long tail. The Atkins diet of the 80s and 90s morphed into the low-carb diets of the 2000s. The single-food diets of the 70s might have been the origin of the single-food diets of today (Carnivore, anyone?)

Those same years saw exercise culture really taking off. Again, we watched our mothers donning leotards and sweating through Jane Fonda's workouts, or taking up the new fad of jogging (I don't know why they didn't say 'running' then). I went to my first aerobics class in the late 80s, at the very first Les Mills gym, kicking off years of lycra-clad group workouts. If you wanted to work out at home, 'Aerobics Oz Style' screened every weekday morning on TV.

The goal of all of it - the diets, the workouts - was to render our bodies smaller. Slim, slender, trim, toned… all these words were associated with the ideal body. And if you could be 'youthful', even better.

These years were also a time when it was perfectly acceptable to comment on the size and shape of someone's body. This was in families; many women have told me about casual comments made by fathers, mothers or other relatives that sent them spiralling into disordered eating. And it was in the media, in the magazines we voraciously consumed as teens in a pre-internet era. Teen mag Dolly ran cover lines like July 1984's 'A Teenager's Guide to Cosmetic Surgery' and 'Fast Foods That Won't Break Your Diet'. Cosmopolitan (much more racy and aspirational) the same year ran 'The Amazing Anti-Ageing Diet' (March) and 'The Dallas Doctors Diet - Eat Anything Without Gaining Weight' (August). These messages were everywhere. It's no wonder so many of us have been on cycles of dieting for decades. And it's no wonder that now, as we hit midlife and run up against perimenopause, menopause and ageing, many of us are struggling with body image more than ever. It's probably not unrelated that there's a second peak in eating disorders in women in their 40s and 50s.

So I'd like us to try thinking of our bodies differently, now we're in midlife.

Rather than thinking of them as having betrayed us - I'm doing everything 'right'; why is my body changing? - I'd like us to think of them as serving and supporting us. I'd like us to really practice deep acceptance of our bodies, and our selves.

To do that, there are some messages I reckon GenX women badly need to hear.

Your body is not a problem to be solved. It does not need fixing or improving.

GenX are great problem solvers; we're really good at getting on and sorting shit out. But - despite all those messages telling us it is - your body is not one of those problems. Your body is not a project. It's not something that needs to be worked on or improved or made better. It doesn't need to be smaller or younger-looking. We don't need to be constantly 'working on it'.

Your body is meant to change.

A human body is a changing body; it is natural and expected and perfectly normal for a body to change as we move through life. That's because of age, and genetics, and hormones, and experiences, and just LIFE. What is not natural is to expect your body or face to stay the same for your whole life. Trying to achieve that is an exhausting and ultimately pointless goal. How about we try to accept change - in all its forms, however hard that may be - instead.

Your goal is not to become smaller.

Your body deserves to be looked after, yes. But ALL the stuff we do - exercise, eating, sleep, stress management and more: can be done with the goal of caring for your body. Not changing your body. And certainly not of making it smaller. How about thinking about how you want to feel, and what you want to be able to do. Do you want to have lots of energy? Do you want to be able to get up off the floor, or the toilet for that matter, when you're older? In that case, being strong is a great goal. Feeling good in and about your body - that's a great goal, and one you can achieve every day by doing something small to care for yourself.

Your body deserves acceptance and love right now; today; as it is.

See: all of the above. It's so valuable to practice acceptance of your body NOW. Not in 12 weeks when you've done that amazing new programme. Not when you've saved up for Botox and done your face. Not when you've lost weight or got fit. Now. It's really hard to care for something you don't like. Which is why your amazing, capable, multi-talented body today needs care and acceptance.

Your body is not a measure of your worth.

Recently I went to my godmother's funeral. Colleen was a wonderful woman; the celebration of her life included many beautiful tributes and memories. People spoke of her generosity; her strength; her love of a chat; her strong opinions and the adventures she led them on. What no-one said anything about was how Colleen looked. No one said how much they admired the size or shape of Colleen's body or what her face looked like. What we remember is what was inside; what she did, and how she made us feel.

That is true for all of us. The size and shape of our bodies says nothing at all about our value as humans. We don't judge others (hopefully) on this, so it's time to stop judging ourselves.

How we feel inside: that matters. How we connect with other people: that matters.

Think of all the time and energy we've devoted in our years on this planet to changing something about our bodies. How would it be, from now on, if we devoted that time and energy instead to things that just make us and/or others feel good?

Shall we give it a try?

Generation X: 50 Artworks from the Chartwell Collection opens at Te Papa on Saturday 27 July and runs until 20 October.

Niki Bezzant is a writer, speaker, journalist and author focusing on health, wellbeing and science.