At what age did you 'become at peace' with your body?

I've always been at peace with it. Even when I'm overweight and want to lose weight, I'm still happy and confident. Even when overweight, I know I'm still pretty and look fairly nice. Not a stealth boast. I've never understood people crying over their looks or body image...if that's the worst problem in your life, consider yourself lucky

When I was in my early 30s and had had my baby daughter. Somebody further up the thread mentioned similar - I am not tall and willowy but small and sturdy. I knew that I could not ever be a different body shape but had always felt a bit disatisfied. One day when a few weeks old my daughter was lying on the changing unit as I changed her nappy. I suddenly realised that she looked just like a miniature version of me and I realised that she was absolutely beautiful.

I have always liked both my face and body, except when I have attempted to see myself through others' eyes.

This.

I'm mid 40s and not comfortable enough with my face or body to entertain a relationship now.

Just as well I'm happy on my own!

I am late 30s and have never felt at peace with my body, due to a long and painful history of an eating disorder, and despite being well aware of patriarchal bs about women's body shapes and looks. Even when I've been at a societally-approved weight and able to wear fashionable clothes, I loathed it. These days I feel really sad that I have wasted the best years of my life on hating my body when my peers spent the time dating, going out, meeting their life partners, and having families.

About 3 months ago (age 58) when I realised I was no longer fat. Hated being overweight, especially when I was obese, love being fit and healthy.

I was always at peace with my body, come to think of it, when I was fat and now when I'm slim. Not to say I always LIKED my body - I frankly couldn't stand being fat and incapacitated due to the fat prison I had built around my poor skeleton, but I always LOVED my body. Body literacy certainly helped.

I never really compared myself to the women I see in the media either - I just Knew that it is their job to look great and that photoshop is a thing, and that a VS model is simply not my benchmark.

I'm short and broad rather than tall and willowy, even a Dior dress would look stumpy on me. I simply don't have that 'elegant', swan like figure, but now my body type seems to be quite fashionable, so there. :D

Don’t remember not being, but I did love how I looked mid thirties, post baby.

I was mid twenties. My friend finally got fed up of my moaning about small boobs so she snapped that I should get a boob job then. Made me realise that I was projecting society expectations on my body and didn't want bigger boobs at all. I love being able to run downstairs and be bra free now!

Several years later and much saggier I am still happy. My soft bits and stretch marks are down to creating my children, so worth it.

I still haven’t at 40. I understand a lot of the reasons why I am unhappy have nothing to do with my body at all, but I still don’t feel comfortable in it. I’ve been a variety of shapes/sizes/levels of fitness and have always loathed it. I try not to think about it much.

In my 30s. Being pregnant and fascinated by the changes in my body and how it grew and birthed a child. Finally appreciating the connections between my mind and body.

People become at peace with their bodies? I try not to look at mine tbh.....

Am just about to kick off my new year diet because I've realised that I am miserable when I feel fat; to me, thin = happy. I don't apply this rule to other people though.

What I feel and what I am that should say.

I doubt I ever will if I’m honest but I enjoy fitness and I can see I look a way that pleases me, although the picture in my head will always be something else, something I don’t like.

I suppose I am body confident because I’ve learned what I feel and why I am are different and I’ve reconciled myself to that. But I’m very critical of myself.

I’m 45.

Not yet. I can't even look in mirrors. But I appreciate how well it grew and fed my lovely children.

Early 20's, I remember feeling ok and realised that most women had decent bodies including me. But now is the most confident I've ever been because I don't compare myself with other women. And I personally find imperfection more attractive, so I like my own.

Mid to late forties. I was really pleased with my body then and for a few years afterwards.

(All downhill now ;))

40s. I love it like a battered trusty old car. We've been through a lot together, and have created human beings along the way. I'm grateful for the good health I've had all my life, and don't take it for granted any more. I want my daughter to feel the same way about her body and I never ever say anything negative about my appearance or any other woman's.

Early 30s
Birthing and breastfeeding my children helped a lot, I gained respect for what my body can do.
It came about more related to being at peace with my life, my marriage, my roles etc. I know I'm loved and valued, so I just don't really care about what randoms think about how I look.
I'm still fat and periodically annoyed by it, but I also really like feeling strong and capable.

Just now, about to turn 25 and feel utterly at peace and in love with my body after years and years of torturing myself over it.

Late 40s, and because I m starting to like this person, I am able to prioritise taking care of myself. So, I've been going to the gym, doing slimming world and being kind to myself. Decreased my body fat %, lost a stone so far and sometimes even believe the kind things I read about myself. It's a process.

What I do wish is that I could go back and give the teenage me, who starved and binged and purged because she was 'fat and ugly' a shake and tell her how svelte, powerful and beautiful she is and to stop listening to her mother, who will never love her, no matter if she does have a 24 inch waist.

Probably now, in my mid 50s, as I know I am fighting a losing battle of the bulge but my body has served me well so far by being fit and healthy on the whole and seemingly attractive enough to others when I worried more about that.

My late thirties, after I'd had my first child. It was a turning point for me in so many ways - I realised I was so self-obsessed before DC and afterwards those sort of things just weren't important, not on my radar at all. (Although I do still care about my appearance!)
But I think most of all having a daughter changed how I felt about myself physically - it made me determined never to talk down about my appearance in front of her or never let her see me look disappointed at myself in the mirror. (My Mum would do these things and it had a huge effect.) Practising that, together with not being so self-obsessed, has made me feel very at peace with my body. I'm also very thankful to be healthy.
I feel proud that I'm showing my DC how much I love my body. DS and DD cuddle up to my 'jelly belly' and we say how much we love it because it's so cuddly and so special because it was their home for 9 months! And I'm not lying when I say it!

I don't want in any way to imply that the weightloss made me think I was beautiful. I've regained about 1.5 dress sizes but still feel beautiful. I can see where I have excess, but I don't hate it, and I'm not cross or disappointed. It just is. It was more that I spent a year and a half focused on my needs, and nobody suffered as a result.

(Such a bummer to be between sizes, though! One size, or two sizes, easy enough to buy clothes. But half a size? Argh!)

Not really until my 50s.

It was a very slow process.

First, having children, and wanting to model healthy attitudes, I got myself into the habit of not displaying negative attitudes towards myself.

Then I developed a condition that left permanent changes to my face and appearance. Not major TBH, but it was my face and I had to cope. I've learned to love the face I've got.

Lastly I lost a lot of weight, 5 dress sizes, and truly accepted that my body is never going to match my internal self-image, but that, actually, it is beautiful, feminine and amazing, even if it does not conform to society's norms of feminine beauty.

I look at photos of myself 30y ago and I'm gorgeous! I could not see it then. Such a shame.

52-ish. It was the second anniversary of the last day of my last period. I'd had two clear years without any periods.

I'd always really hated periods. Welcomed the menopause. For this reason, as well as other reasons, I now feel far more free than ever before to be myself, post-menopause.