Body Image: Conquering Halle Berry Envy

The other day, I was on a health-related message board and one of the women mentioned that she had watched the Ms. Universe competition the previous night. She was feeling depressed because she had compared herself to the beautiful women in the
competition…and found herself wanting. I understood completely.

Don’t we all do it? We compare ourselves to a beauty queen or Hollywood actress and then beat ourselves up because we don’t look like that. In my case, my comparison standard was Halle Berry.

Then one day, it hit me. Although God has blessed Halle Berry with some good genes, her body didn’t happen by accident. She works for it. I only see the results; I don’t see the
sacrifices and discipline that it took to get there.

Halle Berry has taken what she has and has done the best she can with it. She takes care of herself; I can do the same. Now, I will never have Halle Berry’s body. But, I can:

• Love and enjoy my body to its fullest extent. It is a gift.

• Keep Psalm 139:14 close to my heart: “I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.”

• Eat to nourish my body and listen to its signals for when to eat and when to stop.

• Eat food that makes me beautiful inside and out.

• Exercise because it is fun, not view it as a punishment for allowing myself to become overweight.

• Look for fun ways to move throughout the day, doing everything from Latin dancing, to climbing stairs, to jump roping, to skipping, to hula hooping.

You know what? When I made that attitude adjustment and focused on what I have and what I can do instead of wasting energy comparing myself to others, I lost weight and became fit. Best of all, I added color to a life that was previously drab.

Now, I can’t wait to get out of bed to discover what crazy way I’m going to come up with to move my body. It feels so good. I don’t do it for a wedding, class reunion or any other external goal. I do it for me because I deserve it. So do you.

You can either drag yourself through life or dance through it. I choose to dance. How about you?

A Registered Nurse for many years, Kimberly Floyd battled obesity for much of her adult life. She was finally able to achieve her ideal weight and is currently writing a book about her experiences entitled ‘Take Back Your Temple’.

Kim has written articles for the Georgia Nurses Association publication and Nursing Spectrum Online. Now a technical writer, she has written training programs for corporate clients, including IBM, U.S. Bank, and Cingular.

Kim also teaches an online course called Goodbye to Shy. This course is distributed to over 500 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, and Australia through Thomson Learning. An accomplished speaker and trainer, she delivers presentations on health-related topics to enthusiastic audiences.

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