When did you feel really good about your body?

When I look back on photos on me in my 20s, I think, 'Oh my Lord, my body was perfect!' but I never thought that at the time.

Now, 2 kids on, I think my body is great - it probably isn't but maturity has made me more deluded accepting.

I never have! Which is a shame. Doing what I can to bring up dd with a positive towards her own body.

Flatbellyfella - this is the feminist topic! And you called us 'girls!'

(but the sentiment was fine.)

I don't appreciate being addressed as "girls girls" thanks, did you mean to come across as a patronising prick?

Back to the topic, I'm pretty happy with my body most of the time. It's given me a lot of pleasure, a baby, carrying another at the moment, won some fights, sent many men wild with desire what's not to like?

I did feel very very pissed off with my breasts when I found it impossible to breastfeed my son, but I forgave them in the end. And it would be easier to buy clothes if I was a bit shorter. But then being very tall did help me come to terms with the fact that I was NEVER going to be a teeny weeny princess quite young so it's swings and roundabouts really.

Interesting post with that name, flatbelly!

If you can just give me your foolproof three-second route to accepting my body that I and thousands of other women have been missing for years, I'll be all set!

I have never really worried about my body. Its all gone a bit south now but I am in my mid 40s so am not that bothered.

I have never felt good about my face though. At times I have been at the point of wishing I could cover it completly.
I am not that bad now but I still dont look directly into the mirror. Always at an angle and when I do my make up I look at each bit seperately IYSWIM.

Girls Girls, beauty is within you ,accept the way you look , be happy with what you have been given,& make the most of it. Without spending tens of thousands on cosmetic surgery you can't do much to alter your framework.
Today I met some mumsnet girls, big , small & thin, all of them radiated beauty in different ways with great personalities.

I have never felt good about my body. I started being told by peers at school that I was fat from when I was about 5 and it continued until I left. Went on my first diet at 12 and was bulimic by 17. I have had moments of feeling good about my body and often think I look nice but it's always to do with how thin I am, whether I have lost weight or (previously, not now) whether some tosser wanted to have sex with me. I don't feel that that really represents feeling genuinely good about yourself, I have moments of that, but it's sort of a work in progress. When I am physically fit I start to feel that, I like feeling strong. A few years ago I was doing a lot of boxing and lifting weights and my muscles were bigger and I was strong, really strong. I loved that. It wasn't very 'feminine' but I didn't care, I felt great. Have been running lots lately and the sensation of feeling fit is coming back, and that is when I get closest to feeling properly, genuinely pleased with my body and how it works.

This is a really interesting thread - thanks for starting it!

I've occasionally liked mine. It is very un-feminist, but I probably felt happiest with it at the time from about 19-22, when I was a size 8-10 (thanks in large part to mild eating disorder earlier in my teens, so in retrospect it wasn't great). But I felt incredibly self-conscious that I had no boobs, and I had no energy. I'd love to say I'm really happy with it now and I like the way I look naked, but I am perfectly well aware that I'm overweight by society's standards and get a lot of 'you must love your curves ... you're so relaxed about your belly' comments from men and women (I'm a small size 14 and perfectly healthy). It's depressing.

I'm a lot less self-conscious now though - there's a big difference between feeling good about your body and feeling unselfconscious about it's flaws, IMO.

I have always love all of my body. I am happy with it both through pregnancy and afterwards.

I dont believe in buying loads of products or wasting money though just lots of exercise through your daily life.

My tummy is shite too. Three c-sections, Stretchmarks; it's sort of baggy bleurgh

Even when I was a size 8 I thought I was fat.

I am a 12 now, 37 and three babies. I also run although more like 15 miles a week.
I wish I was slimmer. Although DP is always appreciative whatever my size.

Never

ok, the only time I have really hated my body was when it let me down by not holding on to my babies

I hated it then

it came good in the end though

I still feel good about mine - the difference over now (aged 50) and then (aged 20) is that I have to work a bit harder at keeping it the way I like it now.

kerry, don't be daft

I am a bit bereft in the tit dept too

a fact is a fact innit

Now, at the age of 46. I can finally look in the mirror and like what I see. I don't feel the need to lose weight or alter it in anyway. I think I have a nice body for my age I am a stone and a half heavier than I was 2 years ago and back then thought I was fat, needed to lose weight and covered up all the time. I think the change in me comes from being happy with myself, actually liking myself and loving my life after leaving an abusive relationship 18 months a go.

rofl Kerry

I feel totally happy about mine, more now than ever (I'm 39 with 3 kids).

When I was at school I was rubbish at PE which made me feel generally awkward and incompetent relative to my peers, but now I am fairly active and I suppose it's relative, because I'm still around the same weight and quite fit, while a lot of my friends of the same age have put weight on and feel they would like to lose it but find it hard.

I am pretty pleased with my body since it's allowed me to have 3 kids and breastfeed them without putting me through the stress or pain that so many people have in pregnancy and breastfeeding. It helps that I have a dh who says nice things a lot.

I think for me, reading the feminist texts DID help as well, especially Beauty and Misogyny, because it helped me feel supremely unbothered by silly beauty ideals that a lot of women feel they ought to live up to. Eg why the fuck should I care if my breasts are a little bit saggy? I'm 39 ffs, not 16!

Also I NEVER read women's magazines because I learnt a long time ago that they are designed to Make You Feel Shit So You Will Buy Stuff. (In my 20s I noticed that Marie Claire always made me feel shit, Cosmo and New Woman not so much; now I wouldn't touch any of them, there are SO many things I'd rather read about.)

The 'Resisting Compulsory Femininity Thread' was also quite positive for me, more on the grooming front than on regarding my actual body, because it allowed me to let go of some guilt about Not Making The Best Of Myself - once you actively stop doing a beauty practice that you find burdensome rather than enjoyable (while keeping the ones you like) you realise that actually your life is NOT made worse by the refusal to do all these things you don't want to do.

when I was in my early twenties, child free and partial to a sun bed and gym 5 times a week. It has all went down hill from there!!!