More Than A Body: Your Body Is an Instrument, Not an Ornament

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We love these first-hand accounts of Beauty Redefined fans who found positive body image through the power of their own bodies in a huge variety of activities: Our beauty-obsessed world perpetuates the idea that happiness, health, and ability to be loved are dependent on how we look, but authors Lindsay and Lexie Kite offer an alternative vision. With insights drawn from their extensive body image research, Lindsay and Lexie—PhDs and founders of the nonprofit Beauty Redefined (and also twin sisters!)—lay out an action plan that arms you with the skills you need to reconnect with your whole self and free yourself from the constraints of self-objectification.

Reclaim your body as your own. The best thing you can do for your relationship is to not spend one more day fixated on losing weight or planning cosmetic procedures or fighting off aging to change your body for your partner’s approval. That is an unsustainable, short-term plan for what you need from what should hopefully be a lasting, loving relationship. You are more than a body, and you are doing your absolute best living inside a dynamic, growing, changing body. Your relationship with your partner, your kids, and yourself is hurt when you fixate on your body, as you ride the roller coaster of emotions and self-esteem that goes up and down by the minute depending on what you ate, how much you worked out, how you look, etc. The fact that you have a body — regardless of your appearance or ability level — means that you innately have access to physical power. Your body is an instrument to be used for your benefit, and not a burden to drag around, hiding and fixing along the way. Want to develop positive body image? When you learn to value your body for what it can do rather than what it looks like, you improve your body image and gain a more powerful sense of control. The truth is, regardless of what you look like, or what you think you look like, you can feel good about yourself because you are not your appearance. Value your body for what it can do by engaging in physical activity. It will change your life and boost your body image in a way you never thought possible. I’ve followed Beauty Redefined for a while and anxiously awaited this book, and it did not disappoint. I appreciated the deep dive into more of the detail and research than can be conveyed in social media posts. After I had a baby, I began starving myself. It was about that time that I realized I needed help. I began reading literature about body image, including Beauty Redefined, and I set a goal to run a 10K. I’ve been focusing on being healthy enough to train for that. Even though it is still hard for me to weigh more than I want to, I am focused on health and strength now, which is what I love to do. I also find that it’s important to focus on what I can offer the world, which is a lot more than a number on a scale or a dress size. I have a lot to offer!”If that is the case, your partner learned what you needed and validated you accordingly. He may have seen how happy and confident you seemed when you were losing weight or toning up or practicing intense restriction around food, and he also may have witnessed how depressed and self-conscious you seemed when you gained weight or lost muscle definition or stopped dieting. He may have internalized the idea that you are happiest and most confident when you are at your thinnest, when that isn’t actually the case. You have now learned the truth — you are actually happiest and most confident when you see yourself and others see you as more than a body to be looked at, judged, and fixed. When your self-worth and happiness each day isn’t dependent on how you do or don’t look or what you do or don’t eat. When your confidence and fulfillment is based on experiences, actions, and feelings, it is much more sustainable in the long run. It is self-determined and self-directed, not earned or appraised based on how others look at you.

This book does an amazing job with science and metaphor to disrupt the objectification of women and our bodies, and instead embrace a new paradigm of thinking about our bodies as instruments, not ornaments. I learned a lot from the Kites about media trends that influence and promote self-objectification (including ones that seem positive and empowering at first glance), so that was pretty eye-opening. There was a lot to help me work on the way I think about & treat my own body and how I can better teach my children to relate to theirs. See your body as an instrument, not an ornament. Think of your body as a tool for experiencing life the way God intends, not just something to be looked at. Focus on how you feel and what you can do. I am 100% behind the message, but I suppose I was hoping for more of a how-to or workbook-style lesson, rather than what felt like a collection of the authors’ stories about how they missed out on various swimsuit-requiring events, until they decided not to miss out anymore.

Positive body image isn’t believing your body looks good; it is knowing your body is good, regardless of how it looks. A couple years ago, I was talked into running two different half marathons and I was terrified – not only is running really hard physically and mentally, but I was possibly more terrified of being looked at while running. I spent the first few weeks on a treadmill at my gym, so self-conscious that my face got really red and that people might be looking at me. I felt self-conscious that I wasn’t wearing the right outfits for running. (Is spandex a necessity?!?!) I felt self-conscious that the runners next to me were going faster and farther. But as I trained and built up my endurance, something inside me changed. Instead of picturing myself running, I started just running. I stopped worrying about being a good vision of me and I gave myself all of me instead. Running now makes me feel really happy because I can set a goal and get there, and working toward that goal allows me to release all those happy endorphins, feel more energy and motivation, and see what my body is capable of. Have you ever had difficulty concentrating on a task because you were self-conscious about your appearance? That doesn’t mean a relationship where objectification is present is destined to fail or can’t be fixed, but it does mean that both you and your partner have some work to do if you want to progress. The world needs this book and the revolution the Kite sisters are fighting. While reading this book, I felt a tidal wave of anger chapter after chapter. I’m angry with the beauty industry, media, diet culture, and my own self-objectification. I’m angry for my 7-year-old self who already felt embarrassed when I went to my dance class because I was bigger than the other girls. I’m angry for my own little girls, and the world I cannot shield them from.

At age 15, we both quit swimming—not because we hated to swim but because we hated the way we looked in our swimsuits. Our years of relentlessly trying to “fix” our bodies simply hadn’t worked.

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More Than a Body is a welcome salve for those who are weary of the internal war with their body. Through their groundbreaking body image resilience model, Lexie and Lindsay offer many practical ways to make peace with your body, showing how body image disruptions can be a pathway for healing, rather than provoke a descent into a shame spiral. Ultimately, readers will find real solutions to reunite with their whole, embodied selves.” Also, how is it any different to have women objectified as it is to have men objectified? I'm old school, so my example is walking through the romance section in any bookstore. The bodice ripper romances have bare chested men on the covers, many without heads. How is that not objectified????? Our research points to one particularly awesome way to experience real empowerment, decrease self-consciousness, and embrace your body as your own – not as a decoration for everyone else to gawk at.