A Message to Our Younger Selves by Lisa Carroll, MS, RD, LDN

A lot of our body image in our adult years stems from our younger years. This is an age when filtering out hurtful and untrue messages was hard because we were not cognitively or emotionally mature enough to fully process these thoughts and oftentimes are not equipped with the tools to combat diet culture, especially from loved ones. The views of our bodies can shape our views of self and have a damaging ripple effect on overall self-love. Although we cannot go back in time and pluck out those thoughts we can challenge ourselves to deprogram the hurtful and unproductive messages we picked up when we were younger and to speak to ourselves and others with the gentleness that our younger selves deserve!