For many of us who struggle with body image issues, the negative thoughts, feelings, and pressure to look “better” starts young — sometimes before we even realize it’s happening. That was the case for Sharna Burgess, who opened up about struggling with body image on a recent episode of her podcast, Old-ish, and how she believes those struggles stemmed from her mom’s self-image.
“My mom is an incredible woman, but I heard about her insecurities about her body or her shape my whole life, because she’s always had very critical language about herself,” said Burgess, 38, who hosts the podcast with her fiancé, Brian Austin Green. “She’s always been very tough on herself about lots of things. And I say this with so much deep love but there was always something in a negative tone. I think that imprinted on me, having that negative language about my body.”
While the her mom’s negative language wasn’t directed at Burgess herself, she absorbed it and developed her own negative self-image in response. She recalled her mom using phrases like “thunder thighs,” and how Burgess later considered procedures like liposuction on her own legs.
“[A]t some point in my life I was like, ‘Oh, should I get liposuction so I can have the gap between my legs like other people have?'” she said. “My body isn’t built that way.” Burgess also explained that this happened in a time before social media or conversations about body image, “when my mom was my representation of language about her body.”
Burgess also revealed that she once considered getting breast implants and only decided against it when she decided they wouldn’t suit her “muscular” body type, believing they’d make her look “like a bodybuilder.” “I was like ‘I don’t want that,’” Burgess explained. “And it was the only reason why I didn’t [get them]. But other than that, I was under this impression that I wanted bigger breasts because other people had them and it was feminine and attractive.”
Those kinds of pervasive body image ideas and standards are harder to dispel, though the work done by the body positivity and body neutrality movements are definitely making an impact. Another way to make a difference? By modeling positive body image within family and friend groups, which is exactly what Burgess is trying to do now.
Burgess, who helps parent five sons (one she shares with Green, three with Green’s ex-wife Megan Fox, and an adult son with Green’s ex-girlfriend), says it’s important — both for the kids and for themselves as parents — to think about “the language we use in the mirror, the language we use around our kids about the way our bodies are changing and forming and shaping.”
“Find something beautiful to change that language,” she said, “even while you’re internally working on accepting those things about your body.”
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