When you look in the mirror would you say you were completely happy with the way you look? What about your friends or the women you work with? When you think about it, are any of us as women 100% guiltless when we come to the end of a chocolate bar? Are any of us completely relaxed at thought of summer looming, and our bikini-selves?

It seems that almost all of us as women are affected. Almost all of us are compelled by the idea of looking good or looking better, as if attaining physical beauty (as culturally defined) will somehow make us feel better about ourselves.

We know all the diets, and have been on most of them. We’ve bought the fitness DVDs and the gym memberships. We’ve been waxed and plucked, high-lighted, manicured and tanned from the bottle. The way we look is important to us, many of us anyway.

A beautician friend told me that when she gives women makeovers, it often gives them a real boost to their confidence and makes them feel good. Proverbs 27:9 also says that “ointment and perfume delight the heart.” We can see then that taking care of our appearance, make-up, and the occasional pamper, can be fun and a positive thing. But what happens when this becomes more of a focus in our lives? What happens if it becomes something that preoccupies us? When we feel that certain standards have to be met day to day perhaps – only a certain number of calories, a certain number on the scales?

Tomorrow I’m taking part in a programme on Christian TV here in the UK on the topic of beauty. A group of us are going to talk about how easy it is for us as women to tie up the way we feel about ourselves with the way we look. We’re going to seek out what the Bible has to say – what God says to us about beauty. His loving heart towards us when we struggle with dissatisfaction about the way we look.

Part of preparing for this programme has meant going over a series I did here on this blog a couple of years ago. I’ve decided to revamp and update this series, and look at the issues again. Over the next week or so there’ll be posts about feeling dissatisfied with the way we look, the nagging feeling that we have to do more to measure up, and the lengths we go to. We’ll be looking at the topic biblically, and the way identity and freedom can be found in God. We’re going to be hearing from some men too on the topic – their perspectives about women and physical appearance. And at the end, I’ll also share a bit of my own story about body image. The things I’ve learnt with God, and the things He continues to teach me in this area.

So we’re covering a lot. Please do leave your comments as we go, it would be really great to hear your thoughts and about your experiences.

So to get us started – what is it all about? Why is the way we look important to us?

Maybe it’s that we believe there’s a connection between being physically attractive and certain outcomes we desire in life? We may believe that our basic need for acceptance as a person is tied up with looking a particular way. We may feel the (perceived or real) weight of others’ expectations – that being slim and attractive is important and necessary within our family or within our circle of friends.

We may feel that our work opportunities are dependent on the way we look.

We may feel that in order to be attractive to men it means we must look a particular way. We may have a husband or boyfriend who even tells us so.

We may fear that we will lose respect if we loosen the reins on the way we look.

Our self-confidence and basic sense of feeling OK may be strictly tied up with maintaining a certain standard of appearance.

What about the strength with which these messages are drummed into us? We are all well aware of the influence of the media and pervasiveness of the “physical ideal” that we are fed, but are we so aware of the connections that are made between this ideal and our ability to feel acceptable, secure, confident and happy? As we progress in this series, we are going to look more closely at this connection and the problems with it.

One last possible reason to offer in this part is that perhaps on some level we do not feel OK as we are. We do not feel acceptable, or maybe we even feel shame, and our striving after physical beauty is an attempt to compensate for this. We believe that if we can hold it together outwardly, if we can be thought of as attractive, then we will be OK. But does the reality bear up? Or is this little more than “labouring after the wind” as the Bible says (Ecclesiastes 5:16)?

Come back tomorrow when we will look at this some more, in the post Beauty and Identity

© Copyright 2009 Birgit Whelan