What’s In My Newsfeed?

/ Bethany

Earlier this year, I came upon a blog post titled “How to Break Your Body Shaming Habit.” It was since removed from the website that posted it, but I managed to find an excerpt. The blog post promised that there was something someone did, in just 15 minutes, that helped her end her body shaming habit. Not 15 minutes every day. 15 minutes, PERIOD.

She changed whom she followed on Instagram.

“I realized I was looking at certain women in my Instagram feed and feeling bad about my body,” she says. “So I unfollowed them and followed more women who were beautiful, but in a wider variety of shapes, sizes and colors. I just added more variety to the images I was seeing every day when I scrolled through my phone.”

After a few weeks, she also started following women who were doing things with their bodies that she wanted to do. Strong things. So she followed Olympic weight lifters. Javelin throwers. Women doing handstands and flipping logs.

“I was enjoying following them so much that the ‘fitspiration’ crap on my Pinterest board started looking stupid. Those women were just skinny and sweaty. So I started unfollowing them, and my Pinterest board started to look like my Instagram feed. And I was feeling even better about myself.””

I love this advice. I also did this early last year, and I highly recommend it. With that in mind, I thought I’d share some of my favorite groups, people, and pages I follow on Facebook. I’m not on Instagram, but many of these pages have Instagram counterparts as well.

Here are some of my favorite pages and groups to follow, in no particular order. Not every page will meet everyone’s needs, of course. For example, some of the habit-based pages have more of a weight-neutral focus, while others might support weight change as a valid goal in and of itself.  Some of these are more geared towards parents; others are not specific to any particular family status. Some are for Olympic weightlifters. Some are specifically for women. These are all on my list because I personally derive some value from all of these options. I don’t claim to agree with EVERYTHING shared on each of these pages, but I find them all overall a positive influence. Take what you like and leave the rest.

Having my newsfeed full of positive, helpful, and uplifting influences has changed my life for the better this year.  If you have 15-30 minutes, I highly suggest trying this, and seeing how you feel in a month or two. Let me know how it goes!

5 thoughts on “What’s In My Newsfeed?”

  3. Great! This is really awesome. I, myself have made post about “body shaming” since these days it seems to be all over the media and what have you. I will definitely look into this list. Thank you for sharing. hope you can find time to read my post as well if interested.

    Shay-lon

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