Finding Happiness in Your Body with Emily Lauren Dick

In today’s episode of the “Helping Families be Happy” podcast, host Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a practicing Clinical Psychologist, Wellness Advocate, and Author based in Sonoma County, California talks with Emily Lauren Dick who talks about her book Body Positive: A Guide to Loving Your Body. In her book, she is motivating women to love themselves no matter what body they exist. This book tells us about how diverse beauty looks.

Episode Highlights

• 00:55 – It is the most beautiful book, a substantial book, and wonderful for the ears, the eyes, the mind, and the heart, says Dr. Carla.
• 02:06 – Emily thinks she doesn’t know anyone who has not suffered from body image issues. So, that was her inspiration for writing the book.
• 04:55 – Dr. Carla enquires, how do these body images make women and men feel insecure?
• 06:41 - People that are put on this pedestal and in the media, even they don't look like themselves today, there's even mechanics in the video that create people, states Emily.
• 08:05 – Dr. Carla talks about a recent study which says when females were shown photos of larger women, their preference for thin bodies decreased. However, when they were shown images of thin women, they preferred thinness.
• 10:04 - We talk about mental health, illnesses, and disease, but we don't talk about how big an issue this is in society.
• 11:30 – Dr. Carla shares that a very wise person told her recently, that advertising in today's realm is based on getting to people's insecurities. They want us to be insecure because if we feel insecure, we will buy this and that.
• 13:15 – Emily highlights, we are so confused as people and as a society because we've been taught that when our bodies feel bad or our insides feel bad that we're the problem not to look at how the inner body works.
• 14:21 - When you permit yourself you will naturally be drawn to eating a balance of foods because you're listening to your body.
• 17:30 – Emily gets a lot of feedback about this book as so many parents and moms have bought this for themselves as well as for their children so they can show them what diverse beauty looks like.
• 19:19 – Dr. Carla says, the photographs are exquisite in which Emily has shown women in their beautiful, exquisite imperfection, which is how we are as humans.
• 21:23 – The women revealing the imperfection that we are taught to hide and that's just so touching, says Dr. Carla
• 24:06 – Emily states, that she can't wait to see what the world will look like when the focus is not on women's appearance.

Three Key Points

1. When Emily went to university and learned about the male gaze and sociology and all these different feminist perspectives sort of the world we live in. She was inspired to make this information accessible to people, especially young girls and women who didn't have the same experience that she did. She had that aha moment in the university and realized why we have body image issues. There are so many things that we can do to challenge the way the world views women's bodies today.
2. The more we see people that look like us, the better we will feel about ourselves and our bodies and that’s why so many companies that have adopted this body-positive sort of marketing platform for their advertising and have been so successful because we are dying to see people who look like us in clothing in the media in online so we want it because it makes us feel good.
3. This is a healing book for so many. It's a book that brings us together and makes us feel like we're not alone. One of the things that this diet culture does is makes us feel like we're the only ones in the world that feel negatively about our bodies and that we're the only ones who have stretch marks or fat or acne and all these things and when we come together and realize we're all going through this together, that is so healing.

Tweetable Quotes

• “The male gaze is objectification; it is seeing a woman and viewing her as an object and we as women view ourselves through that same lens.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “It is extremely harmful to the way we see ourselves. Women are taught that their priority is to be beautiful.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “When we feel our bodies are wrong, we feel like we're wrong as people.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “You create an ideal person and they don't exist.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “The people who are killing us because they're feeding or creating or recirculating this idea that fineness is the ultimate goal of life.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “Sometimes it's just a matter of listening to our physical bodies.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “Forget the mirror that's in the bathroom, but also the mirror of society and say I want to feel good in my body.” - Emily Lauren Dick
• “Sometimes you need to rest your body on the couch and sometimes you need to go out for a walk because that's what feels good.” - Emily Lauren Dick

 

Resources Mentioned

• Helping Families be Happy Podcast Apple
• Dr. Carla Marie Manly Website LinkedIn Twitter   Instagram
• Emily Lauren Dick: Website Instagram
• Podcast Editing