Embracing Your Body's Beauty Inside and Out
- Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli, 63, promotes body positivity by “throwing out the scale.” She encourages people to know they are worth more than their body-weight while sharing her journey embracing her body’s changes over the last decade.
- A 2021 study published in Frontiers in Psychology studying the impact of a cancer diagnosis on a patient’s self-esteem found a key factor rests in how the diagnosis is framed. By focusing on positive reframing with adequate emotional support, patients tend to have higher levels of self-esteem.
- If you find yourself wrestling with your emotions because of a diagnosis, remember you don’t have to go it alone. Your support group filled with loved ones are there to help you on your journey.
- Psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin suggests patients look at the part or parts of their body impacted by cancer or cancer treatment to help them cope with body changes and self-esteem. She recommends creating a regular practice of accepting your body image because it helps you accept your cancer journey emotionally and physically.
Food Network star Valerie Bertinelli, 63, and widow to the late Eddie Van Halen, continues to use her platform to empower women and men by asserting their self-worth should not be defined by the number on a scale.
“I now, finally, know that I am a kind, considerate, funny, thoughtful woman,” Bertinelli wrote in an Instagram caption that points out body and beauty standards.
Read MoreView this post on InstagramBertinelli was married to rockstar Eddie Van Halen, who died in 2020 after battling cancer.
She has advocated for body positivity recently, and her latest social media post continues this push into the new year.
“This is a 150lb body on a 5’4 frame. I don’t weigh myself anymore because this is considered overweight, by whose standards I don’t know. It’s stupid, and I believed them for far too long,” Bertinelli said while sharing a photo of her younger self from a decade ago.
Bertinelli decried throwing out the scale because she says, “Health is not the number you see on the sale. Your worth as a human being isn’t dictated by your body,” she said.
While looking at an old set of clothes from her closet, Bertinelli said, “I’ve never felt more beautiful, more at peace, more mentally and emotionally stable than I do today, and I’m wearing my ‘fat clothes.’”
View this post on Instagram
Bertinelli no longer allows her weight to impede her self-esteem. For cancer patients, body image and self-esteem are easily impacted by treatment, and this aspect of the journey can be mentally taxing.By adopting Bertinelli’s approach to maintaining her self-esteem by focusing on body positivity, cancer patients may also learn to embrace their inner beauty.
Helping You Manage Your Mental Health
Protecting Your Inner Beauty and Self-Esteem
Licensed clinical psychologist Dr. Marianna Strongin explained to SurvivorNet, “Cancer changes who you are both physically and emotionally.”
A study published in Frontiers in Psychology questioned how self-esteem should be considered in cancer patients. Researchers noted cancer patients’ framing of their diagnosis and how they cope with their diagnosis and subsequent treatment impacts their self-esteem throughout their cancer journeys.
“Adaptive adjustment strategies (positive reframing, use of emotional support, active coping, acceptance, and planning) in breast cancer patients were associated with high self-esteem. Social support also appears to be strongly related to self-esteem,” the study says.
WATCH: How a breast cancer survivor embraced changes to her body.
Dr. Strongin suggests looking at the part or parts of your body impacted by the cancer or cancer treatment to help you cope with body changes. She recommends creating a regular practice of accepting your body image because it enables you to accept your cancer journey emotionally and physically.
“As you allow yourself to spend more time looking at all of you, you will begin having a new relationship with your body. It may not happen immediately, but you can start honoring and thanking your new body with time.
“Just because the treatment is behind you, the emotional recovery can take longer,” Dr. Strongin adds.
If you find yourself wrestling with your emotions because of a diagnosis, remember you don’t have to go it alone. Your support group is filled with loved ones who are there to help you on your journey.
“The patient or person going through the stressful event should accept that emotions will be fluid. You may feel fine one day and then feel a massive stress wave the next. It’s also important for those you look to for support, whether that’s a therapist, friends, family, or both, to understand the fluidity of stress-related emotions,” psychiatrist Dr. Lori Plutchik says.
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