I Am More Than My Body by Bethany C. Meyers

Author:Bethany C. Meyers [Meyers, Bethany C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2023-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Looking to the future

I think about future generations and how all of us, whether we are parents or not, have a responsibility to make the world a better place for them. (A note on language: in this next part, when I write about “girls” and “boys,” I’m coming at it from the point of view of biological sex assigned at birth, and not gender identity—which one may choose to explore.) I’ve been blessed with thirteen niblings (nieces and nephews) in my family: ten girls and three boys so far. When I was a child I was surrounded by boys—there hadn’t been any girls born into the Meyers family for several generations, until my cousin and I came along. So when my brothers started having kids and we suddenly had a plethora of girls in our family, I was over the moon.

A couple of years ago, I had my birth chart read (I highly recommend doing this if you’re a curious, star-loving person like myself). My chart indicated that my purpose on this earth is to break a generational cycle of thinking for the women in my family, and that really stuck with me. When I started my own fitness platform, the be.come project, my nieces were always in the back of my mind: Would I want them to do this workout? Would I want them to hear the way I speak about my body? As I write this book, I think about all of the women and girls in my family. Would I want them to read these words? Could the practices in these pages help support their own body acceptance? How does our body neutral journey affect the generations of littles following in our footsteps?

The best way to model a body neutral approach for young people is simply to practice body neutrality in our own lives. “We recently rolled out a parents’ body image program that we do for families at Equip,” says Ally Duvall. “So parents can look at their own relationship with their bodies, and work on that as they support their child in treatment. That is vital, because if a child works on their own body image but goes back into an environment that doesn’t support that, it’s going to be really tough for them.”

Does this mean we all need to master neutrality, positivity, or acceptance in every single situation before interacting with kids? Of course not! That’s an impossible standard, and kids don’t need us to be perfect; they need us to show them how to grow, change, and learn. They need us to show them that sometimes body neutrality is really hard, and that’s okay. In Megan’s words: “Even if we are still working on our own stuff, we can honor body neutrality for them.”

In practice, this means being mindful of the language we use around young people to describe bodies, diets, and health. “My biggest piece of advice,” says Megan, “is, if you can’t say anything nice about your body in the mirror in front of your child, just don’t say anything at all.

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