"You can't pour from an empty pot."
"What if you simply devoted this year to loving yourself more?"
"You can't love others without truly loving yourself first."
What's the common theme of these popular adages? Self love.
As someone who painfully struggled for years with body image insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, I really understand why many have turned to the idea of self-love as a solution to body-image issues.
But I'm also concerned because I am increasingly seeing "self love" become a Band-Aid answer to the complex and multi-layered wound of body-image issues.
I run Free To Be Talks, a non-profit that promotes positive body image through research-based curriculum to boys and girls across North America. During our Free To Be program which helps kids to develop a positive body image, I have increasingly come across students creating new "self-love" Instagram accounts or making "self-love" inspo-quotes or stickers to pass out to others as part of a project they create on how to nurture a positive body image in others.
